"No, no, please don't refuse.
All labour must be rewarded."
"Much obliged," said Ippolit Matveyevich, surprised at his own resourcefulness,
"Thank you, dear fellow. Thank you, dear friend."
As he went down the corridor, Ippolit Matveyevich could hear bleating, screeching, and shouts of delight coming from Iznurenkov's room.
Outside in the street, Vorobyaninov remembered Ostap, and trembled with fear.
Ernest Pavlovich Shukin was wandering about the empty apartment obligingly loaned to him by a friend for the summer, trying to decide whether or not to have a bath.
The three-room apartment was at the very top of a nine-storey building.
The only thing in it besides a desk and Vorobyaninov's chair was a pier glass.
It reflected the sun and hurt his eyes.
The engineer lay down on the desk and immediately jumped up again.
It was red-hot.
"I'll go and have a wash," he decided.
He undressed, felt cooler, inspected himself in the mirror, and went into the bathroom.
A coolness enveloped him.
He climbed into the bath, doused himself with water from a blue enamel mug, and soaped himself generously.
Covered in lather, he looked like a Christmas-tree decoration.
"Feels good," said Ernest Pavlovich.
Everything was fine.
It was cool.
His wife was not there.
He had complete freedom ahead of him.
The engineer knelt down and turned on the tap in order to wash off the soap.
The tap gave a gasp and began making slow, undecipherable noises.
No water came out.
Ernest Pavlovich inserted a slippery little finger into the hole.
Out poured a thin stream of water and then nothing more.
Ernest Pavlovich frowned, stepped out of the bath, lifting each leg in turn, and went into the kitchen. Nothing was forthcoming from the tap in there, either.
Ernest Pavlovich shuffled through the rooms and stopped in front of the mirror.
The soap was stinging his eyes, his back itched, and suds were dripping on to the floor.
Listening to make certain there was still no water running in the bath, he decided to call the caretaker.
He can at least bring up some water, thought the engineer, wiping his eyes and slowly getting furious, or else I'm in a mess.
He looked out of the window.
Down below, at the bottom of the well of the building, there were some children playing.
"Caretaker!" shouted Ernest Pavlovich. "Caretaker!"
No one answered.
Then Ernest Pavlovich remembered that the caretaker lived at the front of the building under the stairway.
He stepped out on to the cold tiled floor and, keeping the door open with one arm, leaned over the banister.
There was only one apartment on that landing, so Ernest Pavlovich was not afraid of being seen in his strange suit of soapsuds.
"Caretaker!" he shouted downstairs.
The word rang out and reverberated noisily down the stairs.
"Hoo-hoo!" they echoed.
"Caretaker!
Caretaker!"
"Hum-hum!
Hum-hum!"
It was at this point that the engineer, impatiently shifting from one bare foot to the other, suddenly slipped and, to regain his balance, let go of the door.
The brass bolt of the Yale lock clicked into place and the door shut fast. The wall shook.
Not appreciating the irrevocable nature of what had happened, Ernest Pavlovich pulled at the door handle.
The door did not budge.