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 CHAPTER XXVI STARGOROD

ALL the members of the Secret Union of the ZX Sword and Plough and the young men from JL jL ‘ Rapidpack ’ were standing in a long queue, waiting for flour. Passers-by stopped every now and then to ask what the queue was waiting for. In any of the queues you find outside a shop there is always one man who is more garrulous than the rest, and the farther away he is from the shop door the more gar­ rulous he is. Such a man was Polesov in the flour queue. He was busy proving to the rest of the people that there was sufficient flour in the town to last only four days. There had been a food crisis for three days, but Polesov simply joined the queues out of principle. He had no money, and of course could not buy anything, but he would move from queue to queue, listen to conversations, pass caustic remarks, raise his eyebrows significantly, and make prophetic utter­ ances. As a result of his whispering the town became full of rumours about the arrival of a secret organization. Kislyarsky heard these rumours, spent a sleepless night because he belonged to the Secret Union of the Sword and Plough, and decided that it would be better for him if he were to confess about it to a Govern­ ment official. He went to head-quarters and was dumb­ founded to find that aU the other members of the Sword and Plough had arrived there first. They too had come to confess. ‘ Here he comes ! ’ shouted Dyadiev. ‘ This is the ringleader ! ’ ‘ First of all,’ said Kislyarsky as he went up to the desk, ‘ I should like to say that I am always in sympathy 175