"_I_ am the master." Involuntarily our hero started and stared.

During his travels it had befallen him to meet various types of men--some of them, it may be, types which you and I have never encountered; but even to Chichikov this particular species was new.

In the old man's face there was nothing very special--it was much like the wizened face of many another dotard, save that the chin was so greatly projected that whenever he spoke he was forced to wipe it with a handkerchief to avoid dribbling, and that his small eyes were not yet grown dull, but twinkled under their overhanging brows like the eyes of mice when, with attentive ears and sensitive whiskers, they snuff the air and peer forth from their holes to see whether a cat or a boy may not be in the vicinity.

No, the most noticeable feature about the man was his clothes.

In no way could it have been guessed of what his coat was made, for both its sleeves and its skirts were so ragged and filthy as to defy description, while instead of two posterior tails, there dangled four of those appendages, with, projecting from them, a torn newspaper.