"It ought to go by the next post/' her

husband remarked.

"And what will it cost to go? "

Old Oblomov produced an ancient calendar. '- Forty kopecks,*' he said.

"What? You are going to throw away forty kopecks on such a trifle?" she exclaimed. < We had far better wait until we are sending other things also to the town. Let the peasants know about it."

"That might be better," agreed old Oblo- mov, tapping his pen against the table. With that he replaced the pen in the ink- stand, and took off his spectacles.

'-Yes, it mlgfit be better," he concluded. And to this day no one knows how long Philip Matveitch had to wait for that recipe .

Also, there were times when old Oblomov actually took a book in his hands. What book it might be he did not care, for he felt no actual craving to read; he looked upon literature as a mere luxury which could easily be indulged in, or be done without, even as one might have a picture on one's wall, or one might not one might go out for an occasional walk, or one might not., Hence, as I say, he was indifferent to the identity of a book, since he looked upon

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