Courier Nikita set a glass of tea in front of the chief accountant, Filipp Stepanovich Prokhorov, but did not leave. He clearly wanted to talk.

Newspapers were full of reports of embezzlement and embezzlers, and their general flight from justice in Moscow. Even in the house on Myasnitskaya, where their office is located, five out of six institutions have already squandered money. “We were left unspent for the whole house,” concluded Nikita.

Philip Stepanovich dismissed. He was distinguished by moderation and zeal in official affairs, and he was engaged in accounting and financial activities since the end of the Russian-Japanese war. For all that, in his character was, although almost imperceptible, adventurous vein. There was a harmless arrogance that was born a long time ago when he read the phrase: "Count Guido jumped on a horse ..."

At about three o’clock the chief accountant looked at the cashier Vanechka: tomorrow it would be necessary to pay employees a salary. Have to go to the bank and get twelve thousand. Nikita, having heard this, went for his colleagues. When they received the money, he demanded to give him a salary and, by proxy, a cleaner Sergeyeva. Make it convenient in a quiet dining room around the corner. We drank beer and ate. Vanya ran for vodka, so then the chief accountant did not want to part with the cashier anymore and invited him to his home.

Yaninochka, his wife, met greetings-laden revelers with desperate abuse. To the ringing of the slap in the face and the squeal of his wife, Filipp Stepanovich and Vanechka rushed out of the apartment, hired a cab driver and found themselves on Strastnaya, from where they went to the next rooms with the girls. The next morning, however, friends woke up not in the rooms, but in the compartment of the train approaching Leningrad. Isabella said that the tickets were bought by Nikita, who suddenly appeared, that her companion had fled to Klin, but in Leningrad he would find a new girlfriend.

Locked in the restroom, the men counted the cash: three thousand three hundred as it was. “What will happen?” - stunned Vanechka. The chief accountant, unexpectedly even for himself, winked: “There will be nothing. We are going and going. ” From the depths of memory came out: "Count Guido jumped on his horse ..."

In Leningrad, settled in the hotel "Hygiene". Isabella brought the girl promised to the cashier, bony, lazy and monstrously tall. The four of them drank, played cards and roulette. Huge money gave a feeling of cheapness and accessibility of pleasures. However, I wanted to "explore" the city without companions.

They managed to slip away from them and go by cab in the Nevsky, to the Bronze Horseman, to the embankments, to Zimny ​​... Philip Stepanovich was shocked. Vanya was tormented by impatience rather to “examine” the city and get acquainted with the former princes. The cabman took them to the “Bar”, which at the European Hotel, from where, accompanied by an elegant young man, they left by car to “high society”.

In the blue living room of the mansion on Kamennoostrovsky there were generals in epaulettes, ladies, dignitaries, cavalry guards, girls in ball gowns. Emperor Nicholas II walked on the blue carpet. He greeted and inquired: “Vodka? Beer? Champagne? Or right in the nine? "

Philip Stepanovich swayed and said slowly: “Very nice. I’m Count Guido with my cashier Vanechka. ” The cashier at that time was already getting acquainted with the girl: "Are you sorry, Princess?" ““ With your permission, Princess. ”

... Count Guido was rescued from the mansion by Isabella, through friends she recognized where her companions had been taken to. Vanya, however, was not in the mansion. He went with the princess, traveled around restaurants for a long time. In the end, they stopped near a wooden house. The companion demanded money forward and led him into the closet. A calico canopy heard loud snoring. It was the poor sick mother, the princess, who slept. The girl demanded another hundred chervonets, but she still didn’t allow herself: “Do not touch, first go to the bathhouse!” From behind a chintz curtain, a kid came out in his underpants and threw the cashier out onto the street.

At the Hygiene Hotel, a man who identified himself as an authorized representative of a Tsekhomkom lured Muscovites to the province: if you examine, then inspect. A nine game was started on the train, and the chief accountant would have blown into smoke, but in the city of Kalinov, Prokhorov and Vanechka fled the train. Thirty miles away was the cashier’s native village. Moonshine poured river in the hut of the widow Klyukvina, very soon, however, guessed where her son came from. Equally ingenious was the chairman of the village council. I had to run. Woke up on the train, wherever going. The neighbor was a handsome-looking, unusually neat and courteous citizen - engineer Scholte. After listening to friends complaining about the lack of objects worthy of inspection both in Leningrad and in the province, he asked if they had a lot of money. He called twelve thousand the sum by which half of the globe can be examined, including the Crimea and the Caucasus. It turned out that he had also been “examining” for four months already. Scholte was very surprised that they had never seen anything. Now it will be Kharkov, let them change trains to the Minvod and ...

At the cash desk, friends found that there was no longer money even for returning to Moscow. I had to sell a coat ...

In March, Philip Stepanovich and Vanechka were taken out of the provincial court building under guard. Nikita, who was nearby, Vanechka showed splayed five - five years.