Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs -
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"Give me the receipt."
"But the Chairman can't write, Vladimir Ipatych!"
"Get. Me. A. Receipt. At. Once. Let some literate rascal sign it for
him."
Maria Stepanovna just shook her head, went off and returned a quarter
of an hour later with a note which said:
"Rcvd for storage from Prof. Persikov I (one) pr. ga's. Kolesov."
"And what might that be?"
"It's a baggage check, sir."
Persikov trampled on the check, but put the receipt under the blotter.
Then a sudden thought made his high forehead darken. He rushed to the
telephone, rang Pankrat at the Institute and asked him if everything was
alright there. Pankrat snarled something into the receiver, which could be
interpreted as meaning that, as far as he could see, everything there was
fine. But Persikov did not calm down for long. A moment later he grabbed the
phone and boomed into the receiver:
"Give me the, what's it called, Lubyanka. Merci... Which of you should
I report this to ... there are some suspicious-looking characters in
galoshes round here, and... Professor Persikov of the Fourth University..."
The receiver suddenly cut the conversation short, and Persikov walked
away, cursing under his breath.
"Would you like some tea, Vladimir Ipatych?" Maria Stepanovna enquired
timidly, peeping into the study.
"No, I would not ... and the devil take the lot of them... What's got
into them!"
Exactly ten minutes later the Professor received some new visitors in
his study. One of them was pleasant, rotund and very polite, in an ordinary
khaki service jacket and breeches. A pince-nez perched on his nose, like a
crystal butterfly. In fact he looked like a cherub in patent leather boots.
The second, short and extremely grim, wore civilian clothes, but they seemed
to constrict him. The third visitor behaved in a most peculiar fashion. He