To N. A. Leikin, 24 February 1889. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 24 February 1889 to Nikolai Alexandrovich Leikin, publisher and editor of the Petersburg humor magazine "Oskolki" ("Splinters"), for which Chekhov had long written and with whom he corresponded regularly and often teasingly. A short, brisk letter answering a prior letter from Leikin point by point.

2 After the dateline (1-2), Chekhov announces he will answer Leikin’s letter "by points" (3) and does so in a numbered list. Point one (4) rebuts Leikin’s complaint of silence, noting he had already written 5–6 days earlier. Point two (5), the letter’s longest, is a comic rebuttal of gossip – apparently relayed to Leikin by the poet Liodor Palmin – that Chekhov is coughing blood, depressed, and in danger of losing his mind; Chekhov denies all three at length and with relish, attributing the rumor to Palmin’s wine-soaked imagination, and reports himself cheerful, solvent, and hard at work in order to finish by April and leave for the south. Point three (6) accompanies a photograph, with self-deprecating remarks on its gloomy look and Chekhov’s flattered thanks for Leikin’s wanting it. Point four (7) is a brief request, repeated from the earlier letter, for a copy of "The Fireman’s Godfather" in addition to a book already asked for. The letter closes with regards to Leikin’s wife and son (8), the signature (9), and a joking postscript about a lottery ticket Chekhov expects to win a fortune on (10).