10
DIAMONDS TO SIT ON
like soldiers. Bezenchuk shrugged his shoulders and jerking his thumb towards his competitors he muttered : ' Oh, those louts, they’re always in the way.’ Round the statue in the square there was a great clacking of tongues about the news of Madam Petu khov’s sudden attack. The general verdict was that they would all have to go through it some day, and that anyway what God gives He wiU take away. The hairdresser ' Pierre and Constantine ’, who, by the way, always answered to the name of Andrew, did not miss this chance of displaying his medical know ledge gleaned from an illustrated Moscow journal. ‘ Science,’ he said, ‘ can do marvels nowadays. Take this, for instance : a customer may suddenly get a pimple on his chin ; in the old days it might have led to blood poisoning, but nowadays in Moscow, I’m told, although of course I don’t know whether it is true or no, every single customer has a specially sterihzed shaving-brush.’ The listeners sighed heavily. ‘ Eh, Andrew, you’re exaggerating, aren’t you ? ’ ‘ Who ever heard of separate brushes for every customer ? What next will the fellow invent ? ’ One of his hsteners was annoyed : ‘ Excuse me, sir, but according to the last census there are more than two milhon people living in Moscow. Do you mean to teU me they would use two milhon brushes ? That’s pretty good, I must say ! ’ The discussion was getting rather heated, and good ness knows where it would have led to, but the crowd suddenly saw Hippolyte. ‘ He’s off to the chemist. That’s a bad sign.’ ' The old girl will die all right. It’s not for nothing that Bezenchuk has been dashing about all day hke a madman.’ ' What’s the doctor say ? ’ ‘ The doctor I Where can you find a decent insur ance doctor ? Why, they’d put any one under the sod 1 ’
