Don't go anywhere.
I may come at any moment.
Settle the hotel bill and have everything ready.
Adieu, Field Marshal!
Wish me good night!"
Ippolit Matveyevich did so and went back to the Sorbonne to worry.
Ostap turned up at five in the morning carrying the chair.
Vorobyaninov was speechless.
Ostap put down the chair in the middle of the room and sat on it.
"How did you manage it? " Vorobyaninov finally got out.
"Very simple. Family style.
The widow was asleep and dreaming.
It was a pity to wake her.
'Don't wake her at dawn!'
Too bad!
I had to leave a note.
'Going to Novokhopersk to make a report.
Won't be back to dinner.
Your own Bunny.'
And I took the chair from the dining-room.
There aren't any trams running at this time of the morning, so I rested on the chair on the way."
Ippolit Matveyevich flung himself towards the chair with a burbling sound.
"Go easy," said Ostap, "we must avoid making a noise."
He took a pair of pliers out of his pocket, and work soon began to hum.
"Did you lock the door?" he asked.
Pushing aside the impatient Vorobyaninov, he neatly laid open the chair, trying not to damage the flowered chintz.
"This kind of cloth isn't to be had any more; it should be preserved.
There's a dearth of consumer goods and nothing can be done about it."
Ippolit Matveyevich was driven to a state of extreme irritation.
"There," said Ostap quietly.
He raised the covering and groped among the springs with both his hands.
The veins stood out like a "V" on his forehead.
"Well?" Ippolit Matveyevich kept repeating in various keys. "Well?
Well?"
"Well and well," said Ostap irritably. "One chance in eleven . . ." He thoroughly examined the inside of the chair and concluded:
"And this chance isn't ours."
He stood up straight and dusted his knees.
Ippolit Matveyevich flung himself on the chair.
The jewels were not there.
Vorobyaninov's hands dropped, but Ostap was in good spirits as before.
"Our chances have now increased."
He began walking up and down the room.
"It doesn't matter.
The chair cost the widow twice as much as it did us."
He took out of his side pocket a gold brooch set with coloured stones, a hollow bracelet of imitation gold, half-a-dozen gold teaspoons, and a tea-strainer.
In his grief Ippolit Matveyevich did not even realize that he had become an accomplice in common or garden theft.
"A shabby trick," said Ostap, "but you must agree I couldn't leave my beloved without something to remember her by.
However, we haven't any time to lose.
This is only the beginning.
The end will be in Moscow.