"Yuri Olesha. The three fat men (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

A boy ran by. First, he pulled at the lady's embroidered cape, then he
tugged the girl's pigtail.
"Hey, Countess!" he shouted. "Prospero the Gunsmith is locked up in a
cage, but Tibul the Acrobat is free!"
"You dreadful boy!"
The lady stamped her foot and dropped her bag. The flower girls
laughed. A fat coachman lost no time in asking the fine lady if she would
care to get in his carriage and drive away.
The fine lady and her daughter drove off.
"Hey, you! Wait a minute!" one of the flower girls shouted to the boy.
"Come back here and tell us what you know."
Two drivers climbed down from their boxes. Shuffling forward in their
long coats with five small capes attached to the collars they came up to the
flower girls.
"That's some whip! It sure is a beauty!" the boy thought as he looked
at the coachman's long whip. He would have loved to have one like it, but he
knew he never would.
"What did you say?" the coachman asked in a deep voice. "Did you say
Tibul the Acrobat is free?"
"So I heard. I was down at the docks...."
"Didn't the Guards kill him?" the other coachman asked in an equally
deep voice.
"No, they didn't. Pretty miss, will you give me a rose?"
"Wait, stupid! Tell us what happened."
"Well, it was like this. At first, everyone thought he'd been killed.
So they looked for him among the dead, but couldn't find him."
"Perhaps they tossed him into the river?" one of the coachmen said.
At that point a beggar joined them.
"Who was tossed into the river?" he asked. "Tibul the Acrobat's not a
kitten to be tossed into the river! He's alive! He escaped!"
"You're lying!" the coachman said.
"Tibul is alive!" the flower girls cried joyfully.
The boy stole a rose from one of the bowls and dashed off. Several
drops from the wet flower landed on the doctor. He wiped them off his face.
They were as bitter as tears. Then he came closer to hear what else the
beggar would say.
But something happened then that stopped the conversation. A strange
procession was coming down the street. At the head of it were two men on
horseback carrying lighted torches which flowed in the wind like fiery
beards. Rolling slowly behind them was a black carriage with a coat of arms
painted on the door.
Behind the carriage came the carpenters. There were a hundred
carpenters in all.
Their sleeves were rolled up, they were ready for work. They wore
aprons and carried their saws, planes and tool boxes. Guards rode along both
sides of the procession. They had to keep reining in their horses, for the
animals wanted to gallop off.
"What's going on? What's all this about?" people in the street asked
each other anxiously.
Sitting in the black carriage with the coat of arms on the door was an