how people lived a century, a century and a half ago, make haste then and follow me. Or soon a day and hour will come─it's bound to be the same hour for both─and my poll-parrots will be knocked off their perches, and all that's antique will end with them, and the podgy little house will fall down, and the place of it will be overgrown with what, my grandmother used to tell me, always grows over the place where man's handiwork has been─that's to say─nettles, burdock, thistles, wormwood, dock leaves; the very street will cease to be, and men will come and go and never see any- thing like this again in all the ages!'
'Well!' cried Nezhdanov, 'let's be off directly!'
'I'm ready, with the greatest pleasure, indeed,' observed Solomin. 'It's not in my line, but it's interesting; and if Mr. Paklin can really guarantee that we should not be putting any one out by our visit, then . . . why . . .'
'Don't worry yourself!' Paklin cried in his turn; 'they'll be simply transported─that's all. No need of ceremony in this case! I tell you, they're blessed innocents; we'll make them sing to us. And you, too, Mr. Markelov, do you agree?'
Markelov shrugged his shoulders angrily.
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