rivate office of the Chairman of Directors. On the left is a door,
leading into the public department. There are two desks. The furniture
aims at a deliberately luxurious effect, with armchairs covered in
velvet, flowers, statues, carpets, and a telephone. It is midday. KHIRIN
is alone; he wears long felt boots, and is shouting through the door.]

KHIRIN. Send out to the chemist for 15 copecks' worth of valerian drops,
and tell them to bring some drinking water into the Directors' office!
This is the hundredth time I've asked! [Goes to a desk] I'm absolutely
tired out. This is the fourth day I've been working, without a chance of
shutting my eyes. From morning to evening I work here, from evening to
morning at home. [Coughs] And I've got an inflammation all over me.
I'm hot and cold, and I cough, and my legs ache, and there's something
dancing before my eyes. [Sits] Our scoundrel of a Chairman, the brute,
is going to read a report at a general meeting. "Our Bank, its Present
and Future." You'd think he was a Gambetta.... [At work] Two... one...
one... six... nought... seven.... Next, six... nought... one... six....
He just wants to throw dust into people's eyes, and so I sit here and
work for him like a galley-slave! This report of his is poetic fiction
and nothing more, and here I've got to sit day after day and add
figures, devil take his soul! [Rattles on his counting-frame] I can't
stand it! [Writing] That is, one... three... seven... two... one...
nought.... He promised to reward me for my work. If everything goes well
to-day and the public is properly put into blinkers, he's promised me a
gold charm and 300 roubles bonus.... We'll see. [Works] Yes, but if
my work all goes for nothing, then you'd better look out.... I'm very
excitable.... If I lose my temper I'm capable of committing some crime,
so look out! Yes!

[Noise and applause behind the scenes. SHIPUCHIN'S voice: "Thank
you! Thank you! I am extremely grateful." Enter SHIPUCHIN. He wears
a frockcoat and white tie; he carries an album which has been just
presented to him.]

SHIPUCHIN. [At the door, addresses the outer office] This present, my
dear colleagues, will be preserved to the day of my death, as a memory
of the happiest days of my life! Yes, gentlemen! Once more, I thank you!
[Throws a kiss into the air and turns to KHIRIN] My dear, my respected
Kusma Nicolaievitch!

[All the time that SHIPUCHIN is on the stage, clerks intermittently come
in with