‘Yes, yes,’ said the man. Still Karl hesitated. Then the man abruptly grabbed the door handle, and pulling it to, swept Karl into the room with him. ‘I hate it when people stand in the corridor and watch me,’ said the man, going back to work on his suitcase, ‘the world and his wife go by outside peering in, it’s quite intolerable.’ ‘But the passage outside is completely deserted,’ said Karl, who was standing squeezed uncomfortably against the bedpost. ‘Yes, now,’ said the man. ‘But now is what matters,’ thought Karl. ‘He is an unreasonable man.’ ‘Lie down on the bed, you’ll have more room that way,’ said the man. Karl awkwardly clambered on to the bed, and had to laugh out loud about his first vain attempt to mount it. No sooner was he on it, though, than he cried: ‘Oh God, I’ve quite forgotten all about my suitcase!’ ‘Where is it?’ ‘Up on deck, an acquaintance is keeping an eye on it for me. What was his name now?’ And from a secret pocket that his mother had sewn into the lining of his jacket for the crossing, he pulled a calling-card: ‘Butterbaum, Franz Butterbaum.’ ‘Is the suitcase important to you?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Well then, so why did you give it to a stranger?’ ‘I forgot my umbrella down below and went to get it, but I didn’t want to lug my suitcase down with me. And now I’ve gone and gotten completely lost’ ‘Are you on your own? There’s no one with you?’ ‘Yes, I’m on my own.’ I should stay by this man, thought Karl, I may not find a better friend in a hurry. ‘And now you’ve lost your suitcase. Not to mention the umbrella,’ and the man sat down on the chair, as though Karl’s predicament was beginning to interest him. ‘I don’t think the suitcase is lost yet.’ ‘Think all you like,’ said the man, and scratched vigorously at his short, thick, black hair. ‘But you should know the different ports have different morals. In Hamburg your man Butterbaum might have minded your suitcase for you, but over here, there’s probably no trace of either of them any more.’ ‘Then I’d better go back up right away,’ said Karl and tried to see how he might leave. ‘You’re staying put,’ said the man, and gave him a push in the chest, that sent him sprawling back on the bed. ‘But why?’ asked Karl angrily. ‘There’s no point,’ said the man, ‘in a little while I’ll be going up myself, and we can go together. Either your suitcase will have been stolen and that’s too bad and you can mourn its loss till the end of your days, or else the fellow’s still minding it, in which case he’s a fool and he might as well go on minding it, or he’s an honest man and just left it there, and we’ll find it more easily when the ship’s emptied. Same thing with your umbrella.’ ‘Do you know your way around the ship?’ asked Karl suspiciously, and it seemed to him that the otherwise attractive idea that his belongings would be more easily found on the empty ship had some kind of hidden catch. ‘I’ m the ship’s stoker,’ said the man. ‘You’re the ship’s stoker,’ cried Karl joyfully, as though that surpassed all expectations, and propped himself up on his elbow to take a closer look at the man. ‘Just outside the room where I slept with the Slovak there was a little porthole, and through it we could see into the engine-room.’ ‘Yes, that’s where I was working,’ said the stoker. ‘I’ve always been terribly interested in machinery,’ said Karl, still following a particular line of thought, ‘and I’m sure I would have become an engineer if I hadn’t had to go to America.’ ‘Why did you have to go to America?’ ‘Ah, never mind!’ said Karl, dismissing the whole story with a wave of his hand. And he smiled at the stoker, as though asking him to take a lenient view of whatever it was he hadn’t told him. ‘I expect there’s a good reason,’ said the stoker, and it was hard to tell whether he still wanted to hear it or not. ‘And now I might as well become a stoker,’ said Karl. ‘My parents don’t care what becomes of me.’ ‘My job will be going,’ said the stoker, and coolly thrust his hands into his pockets and kicked out his legs, which were clad in rumpled, leather-like iron-grey trousers, on to the bed to stretch them. Karl was forced to move nearer to the wall.