The Twelve Chairs / Двенадцать стульев. Книга для чтения на английском языке

It had a one-and-a-half horsepower Wanderer engine and Davidson wheels, while the other essential parts had lost the name of the original maker. A piece of cardboard with the words В«Trial RunВ» hung on a cord from the saddle. A crowd gathered. Without looking at anyone, Victor Mikhailovich gave the pedal a twist with his hand. There was no spark for at least ten minutes, but then came a metallic splutter and the contraption shuddered and enveloped itself in a cloud of filthy smoke. Polesov jumped into the saddle, and the motor-cycle, accelerating madly, carried him through the tunnel into the middle of the roadway and stopped dead.

Polesov was about to get off and investigate the mysterious vehicle when it suddenly reversed and, whisking its creator through the same tunnel, stopped at its original point of departure in the yard, grunted peevishly, and blew up. Victor Mikhailovich escaped by a miracle and during the next bout of activity used the bits of the motor-cycle to make a stationary engine, very similar to a real one-except that it did not work.

The crowning glory of the mechanic-intellectual's academic activity was the epic of the gates of building no. 5, next door. The housing cooperative that owned the building signed a contract with Victor Polesov under which he undertook to repair the iron gates and paint them any colour he liked. For its part, the housing cooperative agreed to pay Victor Mikhailovich Polesov the sum of twenty-one roubles, seventy-five kopeks, subject to approval by a special committee.

The official stamps were charged to the contractor.

Victor Mikhailovich carried off the gates like Samson. He set to work in his shop with enthusiasm. It took several days to un-rivet the gates. They were taken to pieces. Iron curlicues lay in the pram; iron bars and spikes were piled under the work-bench. It took another few days to inspect the damage. Then a great disaster occurred in the town. A water main burst on Drovyanaya Street, and Polesov spent the rest of the week at the scene of the misfortune, smiling ironically, shouting at the workmen, and every few minutes looking into the hole in the ground.

As soon as his organizational ardour had somewhat abated, Polesov returned to his gates, but it was too late. The children from the yard were already playing with the iron curlicues and spikes of the gates of no. 5. Seeing the wrathful mechanic, the children dropped their playthings and fled.