"But I do not want your stallion, nor any one else's. Heaven be with the whole race!"
"Well, will you buy my hunter, the grey mare?"
"For that mare, and the other grey horse you have seen in my stables, I'll only take three thousand roubles from you."
"You may sell them. You are sure to get at any fair, or sale, more than three times their present value."
"Then it would be better for you to sell them yourself, if you are convinced you could get as much as three times their value."
"I am sure, I could make as much, but I wish you to derive that benefit."
Tchichikoff thanked him for the friendly intention, but obstinately refused either to have the grey mare, or the grey horse.
"Well then, will you buy some of my dogs? I'll sell you a pair with a skin as smooth as a thirty degrees frost! a spotted pair with moustachios, and upstanding hair like a pig's bristles, the roundness of their ribs is quite incomprehensible, their paws are swiftness itself, they scarcely touch the ground."
"Of what use could dogs be to me? I am not a sportsman."
"But I wish you to have some dogs. Very well, if you won't have any of my dogs, you ought to buy my organ, it is a most wonderful instrument; on my word of honour, it has cost, me more than one thousand five hundred roubles; but you shall have it for nine hundred."
"But what am I to do with an organ? I am not a German, that I should go dragging it along, and grinding it in the streets, whilst begging the passers by for alms."
"But, my dear fellow, you are mistaken, it is not an organ like the Germans carry about, it is a regular, really musical organ; just come along and look at it, it is all of mahogany. I'll show it you once more."
Hereupon Nosdrieff seized Tchichikoff by the hand, and began to pull him into the next room, and however much the other resisted by stemming his feet against the floor, and as well by persuading him that he perfectly well recollected the organ, it was of no use, and he was obliged to listen once more to the tune of Marlborough's march, and Strauss' familiar valse.
"If you don't wish to make a bargain for all cash, then listen to what I propose to you. I'll give you this organ, and as many dead serfs as I have got, and you will give me in return your britchka, and three hundred roubles in hard cash."