At eleven o'clock the next evening Bodlevski once more entered the large room at the Cave, now all lit up and full of an animated crowd of men and women, all with the same furtive, predatory faces. Bodlevski felt nervous. He had no fears while turning white paper into banknotes in the seclusion of his own workshop, but he was full of apprehensions concerning his present guest, because several people had to be let into the secret.
Yuzitch presently appeared through the same low door and, coming up to Bodlevski, explained that the passport would cost twenty rubles. Bodlevski paid the money over in advance, and Yuzitch led him into a back room. On the table burned a tallow candle, which hardly lit up the faces of seven people who were grouped round it, one of them being the red-nosed man who was reading the Police News. The seven men were all from the districts of Vilna and Vitebsk, and were specialists in the art of fabricating passports.
The red-nosed man approached Bodlevski: "We must get acquainted with each other," he said amiably. "I have the honor to present myself!" and he bowed low; "Former District Secretary Pacomius Borisovitch Prakkin. Let me request you first of all to order some vodka; my hand shakes, you know," he added apologetically. "I don't want it so much for myself as for my hand—to steady it."
Bodlevski gave him some change, which the red-nosed man put in his pocket and at once went to the sideboard for a flask of vodka which he had already bought. "Let us give thanks! And now to business!" he said, smacking his lips after a glass of vodka.
A big, red-haired man, one of the group of seven, drew from his pocket two vials. In one was a sticky black fluid; in the other, something as clear as water.
"We are chemists, you see," the red-nosed man explained to Bodlevski with a grin, and then added:
"Finch! on guard!"
A young man, who had been lolling on a couch in the corner, rose and took up a position outside the door.
"Now, brothers, close up!" cried the red-nosed man, and all stood in close order, elbow to elbow, round the table. "And now we take a newspaper and have it handy on the table! That is in case," he explained to Bodlevski, "any outsider happened in on us—which Heaven prevent! We aren't up to anything at all; simply reading the political news! You catch on?"
"How could I help catching on?"