"Oh, Lord," whispered Father Theodore.
"If I stole them from you, then take the matter to court, but don't cause pandemonium in my house.
Did you hear that, Moosie?
How impudent can you get?
They don't even let a man have his dinner in peace."
No, Father Theodore did not want to recover "his" chairs by taking the matter to court.
By no means.
He knew that Engineer Bruns had not stolen them from him.
Oh, no.
That was the last idea he had in his mind.
But the chairs had nevertheless belonged to him before the revolution, and his wife, who was on her deathbed in Voronezh, was very attached to them.
It was to comply with her wishes and not on his own initiative that he had taken the liberty of finding out the whereabouts of the chairs and coming to see Citizen Bruns.
Father Theodore was not asking for charity.
Oh, no.
He was sufficiently well off (he owned a small candle factory in Samara) to sweeten his wife's last few minutes by buying the old chairs.
He was ready to splurge and pay twenty roubles for the whole set of chairs.
"What?" cried the engineer, growing purple. "Twenty roubles?
For a splended drawing-room suite?
Moosie, did you hear that?
He really is a nut.
Honestly he is."
"I'm not a nut, but merely complying with the wishes of my wife who sent me."
"Oh, hell!" said the engineer.
"Moosie, he's at it again. He's crawling around again."
"Name your price," moaned Father Theodore, cautiously beating his head against the trunk of an araucaria.
"Don't spoil the tree, you crazy man.
Moosie, I don't think he's a nut.
He's simply distraught at his wife's illness.
Shall we sell him the chairs and get rid of him?
Otherwise, he'll crack his skull."
"And what are we going to sit on?" asked Moosie.
"We'll buy some more."
"For twenty roubles?"
"Suppose I don't sell them for twenty.
Suppose I don't sell them for two hundred, but supposing I do sell them for two-fifty?"
In response came the sound of a head against a tree.
"Moosie, I'm fed up with this!"
The engineer went over to Father Theodore, with his mind made up and began issuing an ultimatum.
"First, move back from the palm at least three paces; second, stand up at once; third, I'll sell you the chairs for two hundred and fifty and not a kopek less."
"It's not for personal gain," chanted Father Theodore, "but merely in compliance with my sick wife's wishes."
"Well, old boy, my wife's also sick.
That's right, isn't it, Moosie? Your lungs aren't in too good a state, are they?
But on the strength of that I'm not asking you to . . . er . . . sell me your jacket for thirty kopeks."
"Have it for nothing," exclaimed Father Theodore.
The engineer waved him aside in irritation and then said coldly:
"Stop your tricks.
I'm not going to argue with you any more.
I've assessed the worth of the chairs at two hundred and fifty roubles and I'm not shifting one cent."
"Fifty," offered the priest.
"Moosie," said the engineer, "call Bagration.