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DIAMONDS TO SIT ON

tussore suit, who had been watching the passengers disembark, darted to one side and tried to escape. It was too late. Bender’s eagle eye had recognized that tussore suit. ‘ I shan’t be a minute. Pussy,’ shouted Bender. ‘ Wait for me.’ He ran so quickly that he soon overtook the man in the tussore suit, and within two minutes returned with a hundred roubles in his hand. ‘ He wouldn’t give me any more. However, I didn’t insist, as he only had his return fare with him.’ Within half an hour Kislyarsky fled by motor-car to Sevastopol, and travelled third-class from there to Stargorod. The two friends spent the day in an hotel. It was so hot that they lay stretched out naked on the floor, and every few minutes they would run to the bath­ room for a shower-bath. But the water was tepid and they could not escape the heat. At about eight o’clock in the evening they cursed all the chairs in the world, put on their hot clothes, and set out for the theatre. The play was Gogol’s Marriage. The adventurers were delighted to see their chair on the stage, together with three new chairs. They hid in one of the boxes and waited for the end of the play, but it seemed as if it would never come to an end. At last the audience began to put on their coats and the actors went to change. The theatre was soon empty. ‘ Follow me,’ said Bender. ‘ If anything happens, you and I are provincials who have not been able to And an exit.’ They climbed on to the stage, and after striking matches and stumbling over the hydraulic press they looked round for the chair. The great schemer climbed up a ladder. Come up ! ’ he shouted, and Hippolyte followed him up the ladder.