"I see what you mean.
No, we don't need a manager."
"You don't?"
"Unfortunately not.
Nor an artist."
"In that case let me have ten roubles."
"Avdotyin," said Persidsky, "kindly give this citizen ten roubles on my account.
I don't need a receipt.
This person is unaccountable."
"That's extraordinarily little," observed Ostap, "but I'll accept it.
I realize the great difficulty of your position.
Naturally, if you had won a hundred thousand, you might have loaned me a whole five roubles.
But you won only fifty thousand roubles, zero kopeks.
In any case, many thanks."
Bender politely raised his hat.
Persidsky politely raised his hat.
Bender bowed most courteously.
Persidsky replied with a most courteous bow.
Bender waved his hand in farewell.
Persidsky, sitting at the wheel, did the same.
Persidsky drove off in his splendid car into the glittering distances in the company of his gay friends, while the smooth operator was left on the dusty road with his fool of a partner.
"Did you see that swank? " "The Transcaucasian car service, or the private
'Motor' company? " asked Ippolit Matveyevich in a businesslike way; he was now thoroughly acquainted with all types of transportation on the road. "I was just about to do a dance for them."
"You'll soon be completely dotty, my poor friend.
How could it be the Transcaucasian car service?
Those people have won fifty thousand roubles, Pussy.
You saw yourself how happy they were and how much of that mechanical junk they had bought.
When we find our money, we'll spend it more sensibly, won't we?"
And imagining what they would buy when they became rich, the friends left Passanaur.
Ippolit Matveyevich vividly saw himself buying some new socks and travellirig abroad.
Ostap's visions were more ambitious.
Something between damming the Blue Nile and opening a gaming-house in Riga with branches in the other Baltic states.
The travellers reached Mtskhet, the ancient capital of Georgia, on the third day, before lunch.
Here the Kura river turned towards Tiflis.
In the evening they passed the Zerno-Avchal hydro-electric station.
The glass, water and electricity all shone with different-coloured light.
It was reflected and scattered by the fast-flowing Kura.
It was there the concessionaires made friends with a peasant who gave them a lift into Tiflis in his cart; they arrived at 11 p.m., that very hour when the cool of the evening summons into the streets the citizens of the Georgian capital, limp after their sultry day.
"Not a bad little town," remarked Ostap, as they came out into Rustavelli Boulevard. "You know, Pussy. . ."
Without finishing what he was saying, Ostap suddenly darted after a citizen, caught him up after ten paces, and began an animated conversation with him.
Then he quickly returned and poked Ippolit Matveyevich in the side.
"Do you know who that is?" he whispered. "It's Citizen Kislarsky of the Odessa Roll-Moscow Bun.
Let's go and see him.
However paradoxical it seems, you are now the master-mind and father of Russian democracy again.
Don't forget to puff out your cheeks and wiggle your moustache.
It's grown quite a bit, by the way. A hell of a piece of good luck.
If he isn't good for fifty roubles, you can spit in my eye.
Come on!"
And indeed, a short distance away from the concessionaires stood Kislarsky in a tussore-silk suit and a boater; he was a milky blue colour with fright.
"I think you know each other," whispered Ostap. "This is the gentleman close to the Emperor, the master-mind and father of Russian democracy.