I need a

room for a library.'

The four were struck dumb.

'Eight! Ha, ha!' said the hatless fair youth. 'That's rich, that is!'

'It's indescribable!' exclaimed the youth who had turned out to be a woman.

    'I have a waiting-room, which you will notice also has to serve as my library, a dining-room, and my study - that makes three. Consulting-room - four, operating theatre -five. My bedroom - six, and the servant's room makes seven. It's not really enough. But that's not the point. My apartment is exempt, and our conversation is therefore at an end. May I go and have supper?'

    'Excuse me,' said the fourth, who looked like a fat beetle.

    'Excuse me,' Shvonder interrupted him, 'but it was just because of your dining-room and your consulting-room that we came to see you. The general meeting requests you, as a matter of labour discipline, to give up your dining-room voluntarily. No one in Moscow has a dining-room.'

    'Not even Isadora Duncan,' squeaked the woman. Something happened to Philip Philipovich which made his face turn gently purple. He said nothing, waiting to hear what came next.

    'And give up your consulting-room too,' Shvonder went on. ' You can easily combine your

consulting-room with your study.'

    'Mm'h,' said Philip Philipovich in a strange voice. 'And where am I supposed to eat?'

    'In the bedroom,' answered the four in chorus.

    Philip Philipovich's purple complexion took on a faintly grey tinge.

    'So I can eat in the bedroom,' he said in a slightly muffled voice, 'read in the consulting-room, dress in the hall, operate in the maid's room and examine patients in the dining-room. I expect that is what Isadora Duncan does. Perhaps she eats in her study and dissects rabbits in the bathroom. Perhaps. But I'm not Isadora Duncan. . . !' he turned yellow. 'I shall eat in the diningroom and operate in the operating theatre! Tell that to the general meeting, and meanwhile kindly go and mind your own business and allow me to have my supper in the place where all normal people eat. I mean in the dining-room - not in the hall and not in the nursery.'

    'In that case, professor, in view of your obstinate refusal,' said the furious Shvonder, 'we shall lodge a complaint about you with higher authority.'

    'Aha,' said Philip Philipovich, 'so that's your game, is it?' And his voice took on a suspiciously polite note. 'Please wait one minute.'

    What a man, thought the dog with delight, he's just like me.