"What do you mean, I'm not, when I am?"
Ostap chuckled, carrying the chair into the corridor. Absalom kissed his lady's hand and, inclining his head, ran after the severe judge.
The latter was already on his way downstairs.
"And I say you have no right.
By law the furniture can stay another two weeks, and it's only three days so far.
I may pay!"
Iznurenkov buzzed around Ostap like a bee, and in this manner they reached the street.
Absalom Vladimirovich chased the chair right up to the end of the street.
There he caught sight of some sparrows hopping about by a pile of manure.
He looked at them with twinkling eyes, began muttering to himself, clapped his hands, and, bubbling with laughter, said:
"First rate!
Ah!
Ah! What a subject!"
Engrossed in working out the subject, he gaily turned around and rushed home, bouncing as he went.
He only remembered the chair when he arrived back and found the girl from the suburbs standing up in the middle of the room.
Ostap took the chair away by cab.
"Take note," he said to Ippolit Matveyevich, "the chair was obtained with my bare hands.
For nothing.
Do you understand?"
When they had opened the chair, Ippolit Matveyevich's spirits were low.
"The chances are continually improving," said Ostap, "but we haven't a kopek.
Tell me, was your late mother-in-law fond of practical jokes by any chance? "
"Why?"
"Maybe there aren't any jewels at all."
Ippolit Matveyevich waved his hands about so violently that his jacket rode up.
"In that case everything's fine.
Let's hope that Ivanopulo's estate need only be increased by one more chair."
"There was something in the paper about you today, Comrade Bender," said Ippolit Matveyevich obsequiously.
Ostap frowned.
He did not like the idea of being front-page news.
"What are you blathering about?
Which newspaper?"
Ippolit Matveyevich triumphantly opened the Lathe.
"Here it is.
In the section
'What Happened Today'."
Ostap became a little calmer; he was only worried about public denouncements in the sections
"Our Caustic Comments" and
"Take the Malefactors to Court".
Sure enough, there in nonpareil type in the section "What Happened Today" was the item:
KNOCKED DOWN BY A HORSE
CITIZEN O. BENDER WAS KNOCKED DOWN YESTERDAY ON SVERDLOV SQUARE BY HORSE-CAB NO. 8974. THE VICTIM WAS UNHURT EXCEPT FOR SLIGHT SHOCK.
"It was the cab-driver who suffered slight shock, not me," grumbled O. Bender. "The idiots!
They write and write, and don't know what they're writing about.
Aha!
So that's the Lathe.
Very, very pleasant. Do you realize, Vorobyaninov, that this report might have been written by someone sitting on our chair?
A fine thing that is!"
The smooth operator lapsed into thought.
He had found an excuse to visit the newspaper office.