6o
DIAMONDS TO SIT ON
face gleamed in the sun. The whites of his eyes were a pale yellow. Among the workers in Stargorod, Viktor Mikhaylovich Polesov was one of the most incompetent. This was because of his excitable nature. He was always in a state of irrepressible excitement. His workshop was in the second yard of house Number 7 Pereleshinsk Street, but he was never to be found there. The workshop was crowded with an odd assortment of things. In one corner lay a pile of rusty locks ; in another a child’s perambulator, leather straps that were rotting to pieces, an old Austrian bayonet and other miscellaneous junk. People would come to give orders, but they never found the locksmith, for he was always out. He was far too busy for work. He could never allow a horse and cart to come into the yard without dashing out and shouting instructions to the driver. He would waste half an hour on the horse and cart and then go back to his workshop to finish repairing an old bicycle pump. But it was not very long before he was out in the street again looking to see what was going on and being a general nuisance. If a fresh telegraph pole was being erected, he would interfere and tell the workmen that the pole was not perpendicular. At times, however, Polesov was engrossed in work. He would shut himself up in the workshop for several days on end and work in absolute silence. Children could play in the yard to their hearts’ content, lorries could pass in and out of the yard, the fire brigade could rush down the street'—Viktor Mikhaylovich would work on. Nothing disturbed him. One day, after a long speU of sustained work, he tugged a motor-bike out of his workshop as though he were dragging a ram by its horns. He had assembled it out of the spare parts of motor-cars, fire-extinguishers, bicycles, and typewriters. A crowd gathered. Without paying any attention he began to turn one of the pedals vigorously with his
