"Their own treasure, mark you.
Their own!"
"I don't know whose it is, but only that they're looking for it."
Ippolit Matveyevich wanted to say something nasty and even opened his mouth to do so, but was unable to think of anything and angrily returned to his room.
At that moment, the son of a Turkish citizen, Ostap Bender, emerged from the room in a light-blue waistcoat, and, treading on his own laces, went towards Vostrikov.
The roses on Father Theodore's cheeks withered and turned to ash.
"Do you buy rags and bones?" he asked menacingly. "Chairs, entrails, tins of boot polish?"
"What do you want?" whispered Father Theodore.
"I want to sell you an old pair of trousers."
The priest stiffened and moved away.
"Why are you silent, like an archbishop at a party?"
Father Theodore slowly walked towards his room.
"We buy old stuff and steal new stuff!" called Ostap after him.
Vostrikov lowered his head and stopped by the door.
Ostap continued taunting him.
"What about my pants, my dear cleric?
Will you take them?
There's also the sleeves of a waistcoat, the middle of a doughnut, and the ears of a dead donkey.
The whole lot is going wholesale-it's cheaper.
And they're not hidden in chairs, so you won't need to look for them."
The door shut behind the cleric.
Ostap sauntered back satisfied, his laces flopping against the carpet.
As soon as his massive figure was sufficiently far away, Father Theodore quickly poked his head round the door and, with long pent-up indignation, squeaked:
"Silly old fool!"
"What's that?" cried Ostap, promptly turning back but the door was already shut and the only sound was the click of the lock.
Ostap bent down to the keyhole, cupped his hand to his mouth, and said clearly:
"How much is opium for the people?"
There was silence behind the door:
"Dad, you're a nasty old man," said Ostap loudly.
That very moment the point of Father Theodore's pencil shot out of the keyhole and wiggled in the air in an attempt to sting his enemy.
The concessionaire jumped back in time and grasped hold of it.
Separated by the door, the adversaries began a tug-of-war.
Youth was victorious, and the pencil, clinging like a splinter, slowly crept out of the keyhole.
Ostap returned with the trophy to his room, where the partners were still more elated.
"And the enemy's in flight, flight, flight," he crooned.
He carved a rude word on the edge of the pencil with a pocket-knife, ran into the corridor, pushed the pencil through the priest's keyhole, and hurried back.
The friends got out the green counterfoils and began a careful examination of them.
"This one's for the Shepherd Girl tapestry," said Ippolit Matveyevich dreamily. "I bought it from a St. Petersburg antique dealer."
"To hell with the Shepherd Girl," said Ostap, tearing the order to ribbons.
"A round table . . . probably from the suite. . ."
"Give me the table.
To hell with the table!"
Two orders were left: one for ten chairs transferred to the furniture museum in Moscow, and the other for the chair given to Comrade Gritsatsuyev in Plekhanov Street, Stargorod.
"Have your money ready," said Ostap. "We may have to go to Moscow."
"But there's a chair here!"
"One chance in ten.
Pure mathematics.
Anyway, citizen Gritsatsuyev may have lit the stove with it."
"Don't joke like that!"
"Don't worry, lieber Vater Konrad Karlovich Michelson, we'll find them.