The chairman looked at his watch.

“Unfortunately the time is too short,” he said.  “Wouldn’t it be better to pass on to the substance of your business?  Besides, the experiments we have just seen have amply convinced us of the talent of your esteemed associates...  Am I not right, Isaac Abramovich?”

“Yes, yes ... absolutely,” the Karaite barrister readily confirmed.

“Admirable,” the gentleman in the sandy suit kindly agreed.  “My dear Count”—­he turned to a blond, curly-haired man, with a face like a billiard-maker on a bank-holiday—­“put your instruments away.  They will not be wanted.  I have only a few words more to say, gentlemen.  Now that you have convinced yourselves that our art, although it does not enjoy the patronage of high-placed individuals, is nevertheless an art; and you have probably come to my opinion that this art is one which demands many personal qualities besides constant labour, danger, and unpleasant misunderstandings—­you will also, I hope, believe that it is possible to become attached to its practice and to love and esteem it, however strange that may appear at first sight.  Picture to yourselves that a famous poet of talent, whose tales and poems adorn the pages of our best magazines, is suddenly offered the chance of writing verses at a penny a line, signed into the bargain, as an advertisement for ’Cigarettes Jasmine’—­or that a slander was spread about one of you distinguished barristers, accusing you of making a business of concocting evidence for divorce cases, or of writing petitions from the cabmen to the governor in public-houses!  Certainly your relatives, friends and acquaintances wouldn’t believe it.  But the rumour has already done its poisonous work, and you have to live through minutes of torture.  Now picture to yourselves that such a disgraceful and vexatious slander, started by God knows whom, begins to threaten not only your good name and your quiet digestion, but your freedom, your health, and even your life!

“This is the position of us thieves, now being slandered by the newspapers.  I must explain.  There is in existence a class of scum—­passez-moi le mot—­whom we call their ‘Mothers’ Darlings.’  With these we are unfortunately confused.  They have neither shame nor conscience, a dissipated riff-raff, mothers’ useless darlings, idle, clumsy drones, shop assistants who commit unskilful thefts.  He thinks nothing of living on his mistress, a prostitute, like the male mackerel, who always swims after the female and lives on her excrements.  He is capable of robbing a child with violence in a dark alley, in order to get a penny; he will kill a man in his sleep and torture an old woman.  These men are the pests of our profession.  For them the beauties and the traditions of the art have no existence.  They watch us real, talented thieves like a pack of jackals after a lion.  Suppose I’ve managed to bring off an important job—­we won’t mention the fact that I have to leave two-thirds of what I get to the receivers who sell the goods and discount the notes, or the customary subsidies to our incorruptible police—­I still have to share out something to each one of these parasites, who have got wind of my job, by accident, hearsay, or a casual glance.