The Forged Coupon

Chapter 5

IN the meantime Mahin, the schoolboy who had taught his friend

Smokovnikov to forge the coupon, had finished his career at school and

then at the university, where he had studied law. He had the advantage

of being liked by women, and as he had won favour with a vice-minister's

former mistress, he was appointed when still young as examining

magistrate. He was dishonest, had debts, had gambled, and had seduced

many women; but he was clever, sagacious, and a good magistrate. He was

appointed to the court of the district where Stepan Pelageushkine

had been tried. When Stepan was brought to him the first time to give

evidence, his sincere and quiet answers puzzled the magistrate. He

somehow unconsciously felt that this man, brought to him in fetters and

with a shorn head, guarded by