I tell you that nowhere else would you find such a fellow for working heavy tools as was Michiev.

He had the strength of a horse in his shoulders." And, with the words, Sobakevitch turned, as though for corroboration, to the portrait of Bagration, as is frequently done by one of the parties in a dispute when he purports to appeal to an extraneous individual who is not only unknown to him, but wholly unconnected with the subject in hand; with the result that the individual is left in doubt whether to make a reply, or whether to betake himself elsewhere.
"Nevertheless, I CANNOT give you more than two roubles per head," said Chichikov.
"Well, as I don't want you to swear that I have asked too much of you and won't meet you halfway, suppose, for friendship's sake, that you pay me seventy-five roubles in assignats ?" "Good heavens!" thought Chichikov to himself.

"Does the man take me for a fool ?" Then he added aloud: "The situation seems to me a strange one, for it is as though we were performing a stage comedy.

No other explanation would meet the case.

Yet you appear to be a man of sense, and possessed of some education.