As they stood together in the portico, the little pastor looked, beside his friend, like "a locust beside a camel." "Well, tell me," Adler continued, sitting down on a little cast-iron seat; its metallic sound as it creaked under his weight harmonized strangely with the thundering roar of the factory. "Has Ferdinand not written to the bank?" Boehme found himself plunged unwillingly into the middle of his business. Sitting down on the seat facing Adler, he remembered with marvellous presence of mind the opening part of his speech--namely the unfathomable ways of Providence. The pastor had one drawback; this was that he could not speak fluently without his glasses, which he was in the habit of mislaying. He felt that he ought now to begin the introduction; but how was he to begin without his glasses? He cleared his throat and fidgeted, turned out his pockets and found nothing. Where could he have left his spectacles? He quite forgot his opening sentences. Adler, who knew his friend by heart, began to feel uneasy. "Why are you fidgeting like that?" he asked. "I am sorry--it is very annoying--I have left my spectacles behind." "What do you want your spectacles for? You are not going to preach a sermon, are you?" "No, but you see----" "I am asking about Ferdinand--any news of him?" "I will tell you presently," Boehme said, grimacing. Again he put his hand into his breast pocket, and took out a letter and a large purse, but no spectacles. "I wonder if I left them in the britzka," he said, turning towards the steps. Adler, who knew that the pastor carried only important documents in his breast pocket, snatched the letter from his hand. "My dear Gottlieb," Boehme said, confused; "give me back the letter; I will read it to you myself, but I must first find my glasses." He ran out into the courtyard, but returned in dismay a few minutes later, not having found them. Adler was reading the letter with great interest; the veins stood out on his forehead, and his eyes seemed to project more than ever. When he had finished he spat on the floor. "What a scoundrel, this Ferdinand!..." he burst out. "In two years' time he is fifty-eight thousand and thirty-one roubles in debt, though I gave him a yearly allowance of ten thousand roubles." "Ah, I know!" suddenly exclaimed the pastor, and ran off. "I couldn't have left them anywhere but in the pocket of my overcoat." He returned triumphantly. "You are always mislaying your spectacles and finding them again," grumbled Adler, leaning his head on his hand. He looked thoughtful and sad. "Fifty-eight and twenty--that's seventy-eight thousand and thirty-one roubles in two years. How shall I be able to make that up? By Heaven, I don't know."