Having found out from the editor that all the rooms on both sides of the corridor were occupied by the editorial offices, Ostap assumed a naive air and made a round of the premises. He had to find out which room contained the chair.
He strode into the union committee room, where a meeting of the young motorists was in progress, but saw at once there was no chair there and moved on to the next room.
In the clerical office he pretended to be waiting for a resolution; in the reporters' room he asked where it was they were selling the wastepaper, as advertised; in the editor's office he asked about subscriptions, and in the humorous-sketch section he wanted to know where they accepted notices concerning lost documents.
By this method he eventually arrived at the chief editor's office, where the chief editor was sitting on the concessionaires' chair bawling into a telephone.
Ostap needed time to reconnoitre the terrain.
"Comrade editor, you have published a downright libellous statement about me."
"What libellous statement?"
Taking his time, Ostap unfolded a copy of the Lathe.
Glancing round at the door, he saw it had a Yale lock.
By removing a small piece of glass in the door it would be possible to slip a hand through and unlock it from the inside.
The chief editor read the item which Ostap pointed out to him.
"Where do you see a libellous statement there?"
"Of course, this bit:
The victim was unhurt except for slight shock.'"
"I don't understand."
Ostap looked tenderly at the chief editor and the chair.
"Am I likely to be shocked by some cab-driver?
You have disgraced me in the eyes of the world.
You must publish an apology."
"Listen, citizen," said the chief editor, "no one has disgraced you. And we don't publish apologies for such minor points."
"Well, I shall not let the matter rest, at any rate," replied Ostap as he left the room.
He had seen all he wanted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE MARVELLOUS PRISON BASKET
The Stargorod branch of the ephemeral Sword and Ploughshare and the young toughs from Fastpack formed a queue outside the Grainproducts meal shop.
Passers-by kept stopping.
"What's the queue for?" asked the citizens.
In a tiresome queue outside a shop there is always one person whose readiness to chatter increases with his distance from the shop doorway.
And furthest of all stood Polesov.
"Things have reached a pretty pitch," said the fire chief. "We'll soon be eating oilcake.
Even 1919 was better than this.
There's only enough flour in the town for four days."
The citizens twirled their moustaches disbelievingly and argued with Polesov, quoting the Stargorod Truth.
Having proved to him as easily as pie that there was as much flour available as they required and that there was no need to panic, the citizens ran home, collected all their ready cash, and joined the flour queue.
When they had bought up all the flour in the shop, the toughs from Fastpack switched to groceries and formed a queue for tea and sugar.
In three days Stargorod was in the grip of an acute food and commodity shortage.
Representatives from the co-operatives and state-owned trading organizations proposed that until the arrival of food supplies, already on their way, the sale of comestibles should be restricted to a pound of sugar and five pounds of flour a head.
The next day an antidote to this was found.
At the head of the sugar queue stood Alchen.
Behind him was his wife, Sashchen, Pasha Emilevich, four Yakovleviches and all fifteen old-women pensioners in their woollen dresses.
As soon as he had bled the shop of twenty-two pounds of sugar, Alchen led his queue across to the other co-operatives, cursing Pasha Emilevich as he went for gobbling up his ration of one pound of granulated sugar.
Pasha was pouring the sugar into his palm and transferring it to his enormous mouth.
Alchen fussed about all day.
To avoid such unforeseen losses, he took Pasha from the queue and put him on to carrying the goods purchased to the local market.
There Alchen slyly sold the booty of sugar, tea and marquisette to the privately-owned stalls.
Polesov stood in the queue chiefly for reasons of principle.
He had no money, so he could not buy anything.
He wandered from queue to queue, listening to the conversations, made nasty remarks, raised his eyebrows knowingly, and complained about conditions.
The result of his insinuations was that rumours began to go around that some sort of underground organization had arrived with a supply of swords and ploughshares.
Governor Dyadyev made ten thousand roubles in one day.