He's only just arrived." "The message is your own addition," the visitor observed curtly.
"There's no message at all.

But I certainly do know Verhovensky.

I left him in the X.province, ten days ahead of us." Stepan Trofimovitch mechanically offered his hand and motioned him to sit down.

He looked at me, he looked at Liputin, and then as though suddenly recollecting himself sat down himself, though he still kept his hat and stick in his hands without being aware of it.
"Bah, but you were going out yourself! I was told that you were quite knocked up with work." "Yes, I'm ill, and you see, I meant to go for a walk, I..." Stepan Trofimovitch checked himself, quickly flung his hat and stick on the sofa and--turned crimson.
Meantime, I was hurriedly examining the visitor.

He was a young man, about twenty-seven, decently dressed, well made, slender and dark, with a pale, rather muddy-coloured face and black lustreless eyes.