The citizen with the bleat turned out to live on Sadovaya Spasskaya.
Ostap jotted down the exact address in a notebook.
The eighth chair had been taken to the House of the Peoples.
The boy who had followed this chair proved to have initiative.
Overcoming barriers in the form of the commandant's office and numerous messengers, he had found his way into the building and discovered the chair had been bought by the editor of the Lathe newspaper.
Two boys had not yet come back.
They arrived almost simultaneously, panting and tired.
"Barrack Street in the Clear Lakes district."
"Number?"
"Nine.
And the apartment is nine.
There were Tatars living in the yard next door.
I carried the chair the last part of the way.
We went on foot."
The final messenger brought sad tidings.
At first everything had been all right, but then everything had gone all wrong.
The purchaser had taken his chair into the goods yard of October Station and it had not been possible to slip in after him, as there were armed guards from the Ministry of Transport standing at the gates.
"He left by train, most likely," said the waif, concluding his report.
This greatly disconcerted Ostap.
Rewarding the waifs royally, one rouble each (except for the herald from Varsonofefsky Street, who had forgotten the number and was told to come back the next day), the technical adviser went back inside and, ignoring the many questions put to him by the disgraced chairman of the board, began to scheme.
"Nothing's lost yet.
We have the addresses and there are many old and reliable tricks for getting the chairs: simple friendship; a love affair; friendship plus housebreaking; barter; and money.
The last is the most reliable.
But we haven't much money."
Ostap glanced ironically at Ippolit Matveyevich.
The smooth operator had regained his usual clarity of thought and mental balance.
It would, of course, be possible to get the money.
Their reserve included the picture
"Chamberlain Answers the Bolsheviks", the tea-strainer, and full opportunity for continuing a career of polygamy.
The only trouble was the tenth chair.
There was a trail to follow, but only a diffuse and vague one.
"Well, anyway," Ostap decided aloud, "we can easily bet on those odds.
I'll stake nine to one.
The hearing is continued.
Do you hear?
Hey you, member of the jury? "
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ELLOCHKA THE CANNIBAL
William Shakespeare's vocabulary has been estimated by the experts at twelve thousand words. The vocabulary of a Negro from the Mumbo Jumbo tribe amounts to three hundred words.
Ellochka Shukin managed easily and fluently on thirty.
Here are the words, phrases and interjections which she fastidiously picked from the great, rich and expressive Russian language:
1.
You're being vulgar.
2.
Ho-ho (expresses irony, surprise, delight, loathing, joy, contempt and satisfaction, according to the circumstances).
3.
Great!
4.
Dismal (applied to everything-for example: "dismal Pete has arrived", "dismal weather", or a "dismal cat").
5.