The dumbfounded chairman explained that he needed only two tickets, for himself and his wife, Pelageya Antonovna.

Then, in a weakened and even disoriented state, the chairman found himself on the staircase. A jumble of thoughts whirled around in his head: the villa in Nice, the trained cat, the thought that there had indeed been no witnesses and that Pelageya Antonovna would be thrilled about the free pass. They were disjointed thoughts, but pleasant on the whole. And still, the chairman felt a pinprick somewhere in the depths of his soul. A pinprick of disquietude. A thought hit him like a blow on the head, right there on the staircase, " How did the interpreter get into the study if there was a seal on the door?! " And why hadn't he, Nikanor Ivanovich, asked about that? For a while the chairman gazed goggle-eyed at the stairs like a sheep, but then he decided to forget the whole thing and not to torture himself over something so complicated...

No sooner had the chairman left the apartment, than a low voice came from the bedroom, " I didn't like that Nikanor Ivanovich. He's a skinflint and a swindler. Can't we make sure he doesn't come round here again? "

" Messire, your wish is my command! " Korovyov replied from somewhere, but in a pure and resonant voice, not a quavering one.

And immediately the accursed interpreter appeared in the hall, dialed a number, and began to whine into the phone, " Hello! I consider it my duty to inform you that our house committee chairman here at 302B Sadovaya Street, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi, is speculating in foreign currency. At the present moment there are four hundred dollars wrapped in newspaper in the ventilator shaft of his toilet in apartment No. 35. My name is Timofei Kvastsov, and I live in apartment No. 11 in the same building. But I ask that you not reveal my name. I am afraid that the aforementioned chairman will try to get even."

Then he hung up, the scoundrel!

What happened next in apartment No. 50 is unknown, but what happened next in Nikanor Ivanovich's apartment is known. The chairman locked himself in the toilet and took out of his briefcase the packet of bills that had been forced on him by the interpreter, and checked to make sure that it contained four hundred rubles. He then wrapped the packet in a piece of newspaper and stuffed it into the ventilator shaft.

Five minutes later the chairman was sitting at the table in his small dining room. From the kitchen his wife brought him a plate of neatly sliced herring smothered with chopped scallions. Nikanor Ivanovich poured himself a small carafe of vodka, drank it down, poured another, drank that down, speared three pieces of herring on his fork... and at that moment the doorbell rang. Pelageya Antonovna had just brought in a steaming saucepan, one glance at which was enough to guess that the pan contained, in the very thick of the piping hot borshch, the most delicious thing in the world, a marrow bone.

His mouth watering, Nikanor Ivanovich began howling like a dog, " Damn you to hell! They won't even let you eat. Don't let anyone in, I'm