and exhausted. Meggie describes Sophie's delight the next day when she receives a gentleman visitor called Mr Teploff. The dog adds that she can't understand what her mistress sees in him: Poprishchin likewise becomes somewhat alarmed. Meggie then alludes to the comical official who sits in the director's waiting room mending pens, who is, according to Meggie, an object of ridicule to Sophie. Realizing it is himself being referred to, Poprishchin becomes enraged and accuses the "cursed dog" of lying and of being motivated by envy. He puts it down to treachery on the part of the chief clerk. He decides to read one more letter and learns that Sophie is now madly in love with the young "chamberlain", that they are engaged, and that the father is very happy. December 3rd. Poprishchin cannot accept that the marriage will take place. He expresses dismay at the false status accorded to someone who happens to be a 'chamberlain', pointing out that his nose isn't made of gold and is just like anyone else's. He wonders where such distinctions came from, and why he himself is only a titular councillor. He speculates that he might really be a count or a general, observing that such cases of mistaken identity are not historically infrequent. What would his beloved and her father say if he suddenly appeared in a general's uniform? He expresses contempt for the director's ambition and decides that he must be a freemason. December 5th. Poprishchin has discovered from the newspapers that the throne of Spain is vacant, and that there is no heir-apparent. He is mystified that there can be a throne, but no-one to sit on it. December 8th. He is still deeply troubled by the Spanish affairs. He doesn't go to the office and spends most of the day lying on his bed pondering the situation. The year 2000: April 43rd. Poprishchin triumphantly announces that the King of Spain has been found and that it is in fact himself. He cannot understand how he can have imagined that he was a titular councillor, but he thinks it might have been due to thinking the human brain is in the head when in fact it is carried by the wind from the Caspian Sea. He reports that Mawra (his maidservant) was shocked and frightened when he informed her that he was the King of Spain, but he had hastened