Jones now declared, "that he had very particular business with the young lady, and could not depart without seeing her." Upon which the
porter, with no very agreeable voice or aspect, affirmed, "that there was no young lady in that house, and consequently none could he see;" adding, "sure you are the strangest man I ever met with, for you will not take an answer."
He stood keeping hold of the hall porter's belt, and gazing into his face.
Seryozha understood at once that what the hall porter was speaking of was a present from Countess Lidia Ivanovna for his birthday.
Run along, run along, Vassily Lukitch is calling you," said the porter, hearing the tutor's steps approaching, and carefully taking away from his belt the little hand in the glove half pulled off, he signed with his head towards the tutor.
From this shop she went to a butcher's, a grocer's, and a poulterer's, till at last the porter exclaimed in despair, "My good lady, if you had only told me you were going to buy enough provisions to stock a town, I would have brought a horse, or rather a camel." The lady laughed, and told him she had not finished yet, but after choosing various kinds of scents and spices from a druggist's store, she halted before a magnificent palace, at the door of which she knocked gently.
The porter looked about him, noticing and admiring everything; but his attention was specially attracted by a third lady sitting on the throne, who was even more beautiful than the other two.
When it came to the porter's turn he kissed Amina's hand, and sang a song, which he composed at the moment in praise of the wine.
"Where is Tarzan?" he asked Jane Porter. "In another car?"
He was trying to find the right words to explain to Jane Porter the calamity that had befallen him--and her.
"Mademoiselle," said Eugenie, "let the porter get the post-chaise from the coach-house, and fetch some post-horses from the hotel.
In a quarter of an hour the porter returned with a post-boy and horses, which were harnessed, and put in the post-chaise in a minute, while the porter fastened the portmanteau on with the assistance of a cord and strap.
"Tut, tut, child; tut, tut," responded Professor Porter, in a kindly and indulgent tone, "do not trouble your pretty head with such weighty and abstruse problems," and again he wandered slowly off in still another direction, his eyes bent upon the ground at his feet, his hands clasped behind him beneath the flowing tails of his coat.
We are absolutely in your power, but you'll treat Professor Porter and Miss Porter with respect or I'll break that vile neck of yours with my bare hands--guns or no guns," and the young fellow stepped so close to the rat-faced sailor that the latter, though he bore two revolvers and a villainous looking knife in his belt, slunk back abashed.
I ran after him, shouting my hardest, and at the bottom of the stairs I ran right against the porter and some gentlemen--and how many gentlemen were there I don't remember.
The porter and Koch and Pestryakov and the other porter and the wife of the first porter and the woman who was sitting in the porter's lodge and the man Kryukov, who had just got out of a cab at that minute and went in at the entry with a lady on his arm, that is eight or ten witnesses, agree that Nikolay had Dmitri on the ground, was lying on him beating him, while Dmitri hung on to his hair, beating him, too.
