“How did you get here? Could it be that the old lady had sent you as well?”
“Me? The old lady?!” At first the dirty man was bewildered, but then he laughed so loudly that it was ringing in Vovka’s ears. “Had I been sent? I had hit on the idea all by myself – take that into consideration. I am a great scientist! I’ve calculated everything in space and time. No one before managed to get into the fairy-tale world, but I did! And not only to get here, but to exchange places with that nasty old woman. Now she lives among people instead of me, and I stay here.”
“Can it be true that I’ll never see our Cheese Fairy again?” exclaimed Cheese-eater.
“Why? You’ll see her. When I am finished here, we’ll exchange the worlds again. But this will take a lot of time.”
“And what is your business here?” asked Vovka. He saw the Wolf’s muzzle in the window, but shook his head, letting him know that they would do without his help.
“My business is really grand!” boasted this poor quasi-scientist. “At first I’ll make a list of all the fairy-tale creatures, and then I am going to find a buyer for every one of them in the human world. Those that can’t be sold I’ll leave here, and people will go on excursions to see them.”
“But how will all these people come here? This is impossible,” objected Vovka.
“There is nothing impossible, my boy. Science does progress. I managed to get here, so next time I’ll take other people with me.”
“But you can’t do such an unbelievably evil thing!” said Cheese-eater angrily. “The fairy-tale world will be destroyed if anybody who wants to is able to come here. Where there is honey, there are flies; this I can understand. But even every cheater knows that what you get by cheating won’t do any good to you. Instead of counting up your profits you’d better think what a misfortune you are going to bring. A thing that is little needs to be well treated. Little children will be left without fairy-tales; grown-ups won’t be able to remember their childhood. And our fairy-tale creatures may ignorantly do horrible things in your world – the Three-headed Serpent will burn something and Baba Yaga will do harm.”
“That’s none of my business. There is always someone who does some harm. I am not going to lose my money because of that. I have thought over and counted up everything, and also know how to spend my profit. And you now ask me to drop everything and leave!”
