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The school-teachers were already crowding round the table and eating the hors-d'oeuvres. Sysoev frowned; he was displeased that his colleagues had begun to eat and drink without waiting for him. He noticed among them Lyapunov, the man who had dictated at the examination, and going up to him, began: "It was not acting like a comrade! No, indeed! Gentlemanly people don't dictate like that!"
"Why the devil do you pester me?" "Come, gentlemen," interposed the inspector, making a woebegone face. "Is it worth while to get so heated over a trifle? Three mistakes . . . not one mistake . . . does it matter?" "Yes, it does matter. Babkin has never made mistakes." "He won't leave off," Lyapunov went on, snorting angrily.
"Good Lord, you are still harping on it!" said Lyapunov, and he frowned. "Aren't you sick of it?" "Yes, still harping on it! My Babkin has never made mistakes! I know why you dictated like that. You simply wanted my pupils to be floored, so that your school might seem better than mine. I know all about it! . . ." "Why are you trying to get up a quarrel?" Lyapunov snarled.
He was vexed that Babkin, a boy who never made a mistake in writing, had made three mistakes in the dictation; Sergeyev, another boy, had been so excited that he could not remember seventeen times thirteen; the inspector, a young and inexperienced man, had chosen a difficult article for dictation, and Lyapunov, the master of a neighbouring school, whom the inspector had asked to dictate, had not behaved like "a good comrade"; but in dictating had, as it were, swallowed the words and had not pronounced them as written.
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