For those who were not accustomed to Funt’s manner of speaking, talking to him was torture.
Ostap was about to grab Funt by his starched dog collar and show him the door, when the old man opened his mouth again.
Then the exchange took such a fascinating turn that Ostap had to reconcile himself to the Funtian method of conversation.
“Do you need a chairman, by any chance?” inquired Funt.
“A chairman?” exclaimed Bender in surprise.
“The official chairman.
The head of the organization, in other words.”
“I’m the head myself.”
“So you’re planning to do the time yourself?
You should have said so right away.
Why did you waste two hours of my time?”
The old man in Easter pants became angry, but that didn’t make the pauses between his sentences any shorter.
“I am Funt,” he repeated proudly. “I am ninety years old.
All my life, I’ve done time for others.
That’s my line of work—to suffer for others.”
“Oh, so you’re a frontman?”
“Yes,” said the old man, nodding with dignity. “I’m the dummy chairman Funt.
I’ve been doing time forever.
I did time under Alexander II the Liberator, under Alexander III the Peacemaker, under Nicholas II the Bloody.”
The old man kept counting the tsars on his fingers.
“Under Kerensky’s Provisional Government, I did time as well.
True, I didn’t do any time under Military Communism: there was no commerce to speak of, and hence no work.
But how I did time under the NEP! Oh, how I did time under the NEP!
Those were the best days of my life.
In four years, I barely spent three months out of prison.
I married off my granddaughter, Golconda Yevseevna, and gave her a grand piano, a silver bird, and eighty rubles in gold coins as a dowry.
But now I walk around and I don’t recognize our Chernomorsk.
Where did it all go?
Where’s the private capital?
Where’s the First Society for Mutual Credit?
Where’s the Second Society for Mutual Credit, I’m asking you?
Where are the trust companies?
Where are the mixed-capital partnerships?
Where did it all go?
It’s an outrage!”
This short speech didn’t take long—just half an hour.
Panikovsky was very moved.
He took Balaganov aside and whispered with respect:
“You can tell he’s a man from the old days.
People like this aren’t around anymore, and pretty soon they’ll be gone for good.”
He graciously handed the old man a cup of sweet tea.
Ostap dragged the dummy chairman to his executive desk, ordered the office closed, and began to patiently interview the eternal prisoner who had laid down his life for his brethren.
The dummy chairman clearly enjoyed the chat.
If it hadn’t been for the lengthy gaps between sentences, one could have said that he just wouldn’t shut up.
“Do you happen to know a certain Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko?” asked Ostap, glancing at the folder with shoelace straps.
“No,” replied the old man.
“I don’t know that one.”
“And have you had any dealings with the Hercules?”
Hearing the word Hercules, the dummy chairman stirred ever so slightly.
Ostap didn’t even notice this tiny motion, but any of the Pique Vests from the Florida Cafe who had known Funt for ages—Valiadis for instance—would have thought: