132
DIAMONDS TO SIT ON
an old woman’s basket of cracknels. He wandered into the Market Square, and walking up and down he kept scattering the cracknels like a sower sowing his seed. As he did this he began to sing in a loud voice. After that he made friends with a cabman. He opened his heart to him and told him a very muddled story about diamonds. ' What a merry gentleman ! ’ thought the cabman. Hippolyte actually was ‘ merry and his good humour took such a form that by eleven o’clock the following morning he woke up and found himself in the cells. He had only twelve roubles left of the two hundred with which he had begun the previous dis astrous evening. He thought he was dying. His back was breaking, his liver ached, and he felt as though he had a bowler hat made of lead pressing down on to his temples. The worst part of the whole business was that he could not remember how or where he had spent such an enormous sum of money. As soon as they released him from the cells, he went to the nearest optician bought himself fresh lenses for his pince-nez, and then he went home. Bender stared at Hippolyte in astonishment, but did not say a word. He was cold and distant.
