"My dear Director, there's no use talking any further. You can fool everyone else, but not me."
"But I haven't the money. If I give you thirty rubles now, I will have nothing left with which to pay the rent of the theater!" cried Cabinski in despair, running about the dressing-room.
"I have said: if you do not give us fifty rubles, we shall go straight home."
In the hall there began to rise a very pandemonium of shouts and catcalls.
"All right, here is fifty rubles, take them. You are robbing your own companions, but you don't care a rap about that, for you'll have something with which to organize your own company. Here, take them, but that ends all relations between us!"
"Don't worry about my company; I shall reserve the position of a stage-hand for you."
"Sooner will you check coats in my theater, before I join yours."
"Silence, you clown!"
"I'll call the police and they'll quiet you right away!" shouted the infuriated Cabinski.
"I'll silence you immediately, you circus performer!" cried Topolski, who had just finished dressing, and, taking Cabinski by the collar, he gave him a kick that sent him flying out of the dressing-room; then he himself went out on the stage.