Wagner smiled.
– You are very kind, but, unfortunately, I have to reject your offer. I am not going to leave Russia.
– What a pity!. Oh, what a pity! It seemed to me that here to work… what there to work… But you will not refuse to give at us several lectures! It will take only several days. We will go in the air way, on the passenger airplane of the new company of air traffics «Uenshetlikh унд Bekvemkheyt» – «Safety and convenience». Quite justifies the name… Successfully competes with Deruluft… I undertake all efforts on vising of passports. We will not speak about expenses and the fee… We, of course, undertake everything…
– I could spend for this business no more than three-four hours. I too value time. Do not forget that I have sixfold productivity. If I spend only two days, then for me they will be equal to loss of twelve. No, I cannot accept your offer!
– I am extremely upset. And the head of our laboratory professor Braude will be even more upset. It works in the same area, as you. But its method a bit different…
Professor Wagner quickened.
– Here is how! In what its method?
– He tries … – Taube was confused a little. His face expressed the thought tension as though he wanted to remember something. – It works on method which will give the chance to the organism to produce toxins against гип… гип…
But Wagner already guessed a thought.
– Just I work on it now! Our newspapers exaggerated my progress on this way a little…
– I not from newspapers! – broke at Taube. It reddened from disappointment on itself (himself). – Professor Braude works several years in this area. He so wanted to get acquainted with you and to share experience!. It is very a pity that now it is necessary to upset him…
– It changes business! I think that loss of time will be rewarded… Professor Braude?. I did not hear something about it.
– Young and extremely modest… does not love advertizing… But it is scary ingenious!.
– I agree!
Taube rushed to professor and began to shake his hands.
– Thousand thanks! And I will take care of departure. You will not waste minutes the precious time!
And, having fawned, it was behind a door.
«Strange young man. Dogs wanted to bribe me!» – professor Wagner thought after his leaving.
6. «UENSHETLIKH UND BEKVEMKHEYT»
Early in the morning the passenger-and-mail airplane was removed from airfield and quickly began to gain height. In a cozy cabin on easy leather chairs took place: professor Wagner, Herman Taube, the diplomatic courier of the French Embassy in Moscow and the employee of the Soviet trade mission in Berlin.
If the hum of the motor which is not weakened by the advanced muffler yes smooth rocking, it was possible to think that you sit in a compartment of the car. Through mirror windows the panorama of Moscow with the coiling tape of the river below was seen. As toy, the Kremlin sparkling the domes seemed. And ahead the infinite carpet of fields and the woods which is cut up by yellowish lines of roads and blue windings of the rivers was already spread. Yellow squares allocated fields of the ripening rye. Here and there, as ants, moved on roads and people and animals pottered about on fields.
But professor Wagner not for long admired these bird’s-eye views. As the miser worries over each kopek, so Wagner valued every minute of time. He took out books, attached on a lap a folding lectern and turned to work. Reading the book, he at the same time continuously wrote something to notebooks with shorthand signs.
