The marker trembled and suddenly twitched his reddened ears, as a hare does, and whispered:
"They were stolen."
Peredonov exclaimed in a frightened voice:
"Good Lord! Who stole them?"
"It's not known," said the marker; "no one seemed to have been here, and then when I went to look for the balls they weren't there."
Routilov sniggered and exclaimed:
"What a funny thing!"
Volodin assumed an injured look and scolded the marker:
"If you allow the billiard balls to be stolen when you are somewhere else and the billiard balls disappear, then you ought to have provided others for us to have something to play with. We come here and want to play, and if there are no billiard balls, how can we play?"
"Don't whine, Pavloushka," said Peredonov, "it's bad enough without you. Now, marker, you go and look for those balls, we must play—but meanwhile bring us a couple of beers."