"Whether you rehearse on those samovars of yours or not makes no damn difference."
Unable to reach any agreement, both sides remained where they were and obstinately began playing their own music.
Down the river floated sounds that could only have been made by a tram passing slowly over broken glass.
The brass played the Kexholm Lifeguards' march, while the sound effects rendered a Negro dance,
"An Antelope at the Source of the Zambesi".
The shindy was ended by the personal intervention of the chairman of the lottery committee.
At eleven o'clock the magnum opus was completed.
Walking backwards, Ostap and Vorobyaninov dragged their transparent up to the bridge.
The fat little man in charge ran in front with his hands in the air.
By joint effort the transparent was tied to the rail.
It towered above the passenger deck like a cinema screen.
In half an hour the electrician had laid cables to the back of the transparent and fitted up three lights inside it.
All that remained was to turn the switch.
Off the starboard bow the lights of Vasyuki could already be made out through the darkness.
The chief summoned everyone to the ceremonial illumination of the transparent.
Ippolit Matveyevich and the smooth operator watched the proceedings from above, standing beside the dark screen.
Every event on board was taken seriously by the floating government department.
Typists, messengers, executives, the Columbus Theatre, and members of the ship's company crowded on to the passenger deck, staring upward.
"Switch it on!" ordered the fat man.
The transparent lit up.
Ostap looked down at the crowd.
Their faces were bathed in pink light.
The onlookers began laughing; then there was silence and a stern voice from below said:
"Where's the second-in-command?"
The voice was so peremptory that the second-in-command rushed down without counting the steps.
"Just have a look," said the voice, "and admire your work!"
"We're about to be booted off," whispered Ostap to Ippolit Matveyevich.
And, indeed, the little fat man came flying up to the top deck like a hawk.
"Well, how's the transparent?" asked Ostap cheekily. "Is it long enough?"
"Collect your things!" shouted the fat man.
"What's the hurry?"
"Collect your things!
You're going to court!
Our boss doesn't like to joke."
"Throw him out!" came the peremptory voice from below.
"But, seriously, don't you like our transparent?
Isn't it really any good?"
There was no point in continuing the game.
The Scriabin had already heaved to, and the faces of the bewildered Vasyuki citizens crowding the pier could be seen from the ship.
Payment was categorically refused.
They were given five minutes to collect their things.
"Incompetent fool," said Simbievich-Sindievich as the partners walked down on to the pier. "They should have given the transparent to me to do.
I would have done it so that no Meyer-hold would have had a look-in!"
On the quayside the concessionaires stopped and looked up.
The transparent shone bright against the dark sky.
"Hm, yes," said Ostap, "the transparent is rather outlandish.
A lousy job!"
Compared with Ostap's work, any picture drawn with the tail of an unruly donkey would have been a masterpiece.
Instead of a sower sowing bonds, Ostap's mischievous hand had drawn a stumpy body with a sugar-loaf head and thin whiplike arms.
Behind the concessionaires the ship blazed with light and resounded with music, while in front of them, on the high bank, was the darkness of provincial midnight, the barking of a dog, and a distant accordion.