"How are they to be unearthed? They keep so quiet."
And in truth the inhabitants of this town were remarkably well trained. They went in fear of one another, seeing in everyone an agent-provocateur, and never asserted anything. Even in their talks with their mothers they spoke in a form agreed upon, and in a foreign language:
"Maman, it is time to dine, n'est ce pas?'
"Maman, we ought to go to the cinema show to-night, n'est ce pas?"
However, after much thought, Strevenko devised a plan for unearthing secret plots. He washed his hair with peroxide of hydrogen, shaved himself where necessary, and became a fairhaired individual of gloomy appearance. Then he put on a sad-coloured suit so that no one could recognise him.
At night he went out into the street, and walked about as if deep in thought. Noticing a citizen stealing along, he pounced upon him from the left and whispered in a provocative manner:
"Comrade, are you really satisfied with your existence?"
The citizen slackened his pace, as if considering the question; but as soon as a policeman appeared in the distance he shouted in accordance with his invariable practice:
Strevenko sprang over the fence like a tiger, and as he sat in the stinging nettles thought to himself:
"You cannot get hold of them like this; they act in a perfectly legal manner, the devils."
In the meantime the money allowed him was disappearing. He put on a less dismal-looking suit, and tried another way of trapping people. Boldly approaching a citizen he would ask him:
"Would you like to become an agent-provocateur, sir?"
"Well," thought Oronty, "how am I to catch them?"
In the meantime the money allowed him was gradually melting away.
In the course of his search he looked in at the headquarters of the Society for the Many-Sided Use of Empty Egg-Shells, but discovered that the society enjoys the exalted patronage of three bishops, and of a general of gendarmerie; that it meets once a year and gets a special permit each time from St Petersburg. Oronty still failed to catch plotters and the money allowed him seemed to him to have galloping consumption.
And he began to act quite openly. He would go up to a citizen and ask him straight out:
"Well, but the authorities are dissatisfied. Please come along."