To I. L. Leontyev, 26 December 1890. Moscow.

Checked against the source for genuine multi-item concatenation (the failure mode seen elsewhere in this corpus) – none found; this is one letter.

Dating and setting: 26 December 1890, written from Moscow, shortly after Chekhov’s return from Sakhalin and his round-the-world voyage home. This is a short holiday-season note to Shcheglov.

Addressee: Ivan Leontyevich Leontyev, who wrote under the pen name "Shcheglov" (Щеглов) – a close friend and fellow writer of Chekhov’s. Chekhov addresses him with the affectionate nickname "Жан" ("Jean"), rendered here as "Jean," and also jokingly as "captain" in the opening line (a running joke on Shcheglov’s background as a former military officer).

Chekhov opens with a mock-formal holiday greeting ("captain"), then apologizes that he cannot name a mongoose after Shcheglov as requested, because his three mongooses already have names: one nicknamed "the Scoundrel" (сволочь) by the sailors on the voyage home, out of affection; one named "Viktor Krylov" for his cunning, thievish eyes; and a timid female named "Omutova." He reports a hard Moscow frost (twenty-four degrees) that will likely cancel a planned trip to see the actor Coquelin the younger, and notes he isn’t feeling entirely well. He then teases Shcheglov at length for having written an excessive number of plays over the summer, calling it "drunkenness" rather than creation and joking that he would have Shcheglov court-martialed or administratively exiled to Vilyuisk for the offense, with a serious point underneath the joke: that the theater draws too much of a good writer’s energy away from fiction. He closes wishing he could visit for Shcheglov’s name-day, asks for Barantsevich’s address and a bow to him if seen, sends holiday greetings from the mongooses and his family, greets Shcheglov’s wife, and signs off.