“The key! Quick, the key!” cried the pedagogue. “In my trouser pocket.”
The devoted attendant dashed in to search his pockets, with difficulty avoiding blows from the machine. But the key was not to be found.
2950, 2951, 2952, 2953, clicked the counting machine.
“Oh, your honour!” cried the attendant through his tears. “Let me take your trousers off. They are quite new, and they will be ruined.... Ladies can turn the other way.”
“Go to blazes, idiot! Oey, o, O!... Gentlemen, for God’s sake!... Oey, oey!... I forgot.... The keys are in my overcoat.... Oey! Quickly!”
They ran to the ante-room for his overcoat. But neither was there any key there. Evidently the inventor had left it at home. Someone was sent to fetch it. A gentleman present offered his carriage.
And the sharp blows registered themselves every second with mathematical precision; the pedagogue shouted; the counting machine went indifferently on.
3180, 3181, 3182....
One of the garrison lieutenants drew his sword and began to hack at the apparatus, but after the fifth blow there remained only the hilt, and a jumping splinter hit the president of the Zemstvo. Most dreadful of all was the fact that it was impossible to guess to what point the flogging would go on. The chronometer was proving itself weighty. The man sent for the key still did not return, and the counter, having long since passed the figure previously indicated by the inventor, went on placidly.
3999, 4000, 4001.