“All right, my friend, talk away, talk away!” she remarked. “Only don’t lose your breath; you were in such a hurry when you began, and look what you’ve come to now! Don’t be afraid of speaking—all these ladies and gentlemen have seen far stranger people than yourself; you don’t astonish them. You are nothing out-of-the-way remarkable, you know. You’ve done nothing but break a vase, and give us all a fright.”
The prince listened, smiling.
“Wasn’t it you,” he said, suddenly turning to the old gentleman, “who saved the student Porkunoff and a clerk called Shoabrin from being sent to Siberia, two or three months since?”
The old dignitary blushed a little, and murmured that the prince had better not excite himself further.
“And I have heard of you,” continued the prince, addressing Ivan Pet
