I can arrange one for you."
The caretaker looked at Bender with veneration.
"I can't be without one.
It's that kind of work."
"Where did your master go?"
"Heaven knows.
People say he went to Paris."
"Ah, white acacia-the emigre's flower! So he's an emigre!"
"Emigre yourself. . . . He went to Paris, so people say.
And the house was taken over for old women. You greet them every day, but they don't even give you a ten-kopek bit!
Yes, he was some master!"
At that moment the rusty bell above the door began to ring.
The caretaker ambled over to the door, opened it, and stepped back in complete amazement.
On the top step stood Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov with a black moustache and black hair.
His eyes behind his pince-nez had a pre-revolutionary twinkle.
"Master!" bellowed Tikhon with delight. "Back from Paris!"
Ippolit Matveyevich became embarrassed by the presence of the stranger, whose bare purple feet he had just spotted protruding from behind the table, and was about to leave again when Ostap Bender briskly jumped up and made a low bow.
"This isn't Paris, but you're welcome to our abode."
Ippolit Matveyevich felt himself forced to say something. "Hello, Tikhon. I certainly haven't come from Paris.
Where did you get that strange idea from?"
But Ostap Bender, whose long and noble nose had caught the scent of roast meat, did not give the caretaker time to utter a word.
"Splendid," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You haven't come from Paris.
You've no doubt come from Kologriv to visit your deceased grandmother."
As he spoke, he tenderly embraced the caretaker and pushed him outside the door before the old man had time to realize what was happening. When he finally gathered his wits, all he knew was that his master had come back from Paris, that he himself had been pushed out of his own room, and that he was clutching a rouble note in his left hand.
Carefully locking the door, Bender turned to Vorobyaninov, who was still standing in the middle of the room, and said:
"Take it easy, everything's all right!
My name's Bender.
You may have heard of me!"
"No, I haven't," said Ippolit Matveyevich nervously.
"No, how could the name of Ostap Bender be known in Paris?
Is it warm there just now?
It's a nice city.
I have a married cousin there.
She recently sent me a silk handkerchief by registered post."
"What rubbish is this?" exclaimed Ippolit Matveyevich. "What handkerchief?
I haven't come from Paris at all. I've come from . . ."
"Marvellous!
You've come from Morshansk!"
Ippolit Matveyevich had never had dealings with so spirited a young man as Ostap Bender and began to feel peculiar.
"Well, I'm going now," he said.
"Where are you going?
You don't need to hurry anywhere. The secret police will come for you, anyway."
Ippolit Matveyevich was speechless. He undid his coat with its threadbare velvet collar and sat down on the bench, glaring at Bender.
"I don't know what you mean," he said in a low voice.
"That's no harm.
You soon will.
Just one moment."
Ostap put on his orange-coloured boots and walked up and down the room.
"Which frontier did you cross?
Was it the Polish, Finnish, or Rumanian frontier?