Being afraid of investigators,
avoiding the sociable life,
Under an English pseudonym "Mister John Lancaster Peck,"
Always in leather gloves -
so not to leave any footprints -
A non-Soviet looking man lived in the Soviet hotel.

John Lancaster all by himself,
preeminently every night,
Always cracked something which hid the red-object glass.
And then in a normal society
something appeared in black color,
What we all value and admire, something of which we are very proud.

The club on a street Nagorny
became a public toilet.
Our native central market became a dirty warehouse.
The main department store
became a little hut,
and it’s indecent to remember what became of Theater of Arts.

But to work without assistants
could be sad and could be boring.
The enemy thought that, what a smart jerk-wrote a fictitious check,
And somewhere in the restaurant
our Soviet citizen Yepiffan
Was accidently knocked down by a non-Soviet looking man.

Yeppifan looked very greedy,
cunning, clever, and quite skillful:
He knew no limits in women, parties, alcohol, good life.
So, you see, John’s assistant
was a find for a super agent,
It could happen to anyone, if he’s drunk and soft at heart.

So, here’s a first mission:
"At three fifteen, near the bath-house,
Maybe earlier, maybe later a taxi cab will stop.
You have to get in, tie up the driver,
outsmart a simple thief,
And then about this incident we will hear from BBC.

And also: "Wear fresh clothes,
and at the exhibit at the Arena,
A tall man with a suitcase will approach you then and say:
"Would you like to have some cherries?"
You will answer: "Of course."
He’ll give you a box with explosives, you will bring that to me.

"And for that, my drunk comrade,"
John used to say to Yeppifan -
"There will be money, a house in Chicago, many pretty girls and cars."
The enemy didn’t suspect the one
to whom he said that.
Ours was a secret Soviet major, and a very happy family man.

Yes, with those things he’s a master,
that bumbling John Lancaster!
But the famed mister Peck really learned his lesson here:
Now he is completely harmless,
had his hair cut in prison,
While in the Soviet hotel lives a very peaceful Greek.