‘Up to that point I didn’t mind,’ said Reiting. ‘The longer it went on like that, the more dependent on me he became. After all, a word of honour broken three or four times isn’t such a trivial matter, is it? But in the end I needed my money myself. I pointed this out to him, and he swore on his mother’s life. Again, of course, he failed to keep his word. Then I told him I would report him. He asked for two days’ grace, because he was waiting for a consignment from his guardian. But I did a bit of digging into his circumstances. I wanted to know who else he was dependent on - there’s sure to be somebody.

‘I didn’t much like what I found out. He had debts with Jusch and a few others as well. He had paid part of it back - with the money he owed me, of course. The others were turning the heat on. That annoyed me. Did he think I was a pushover? I wouldn’t have liked that, I can tell you. But I thought to myself, “Just wait. There’ll be an opportunity to cure him of that little notion.” In conversation he had once told me how much money he was expecting, to put my mind at rest that it was greater than my own credit. I asked around, and discovered that the amount fell far short of the total sum of his debts. “Aha,” I thought to myself, “now he’s going to have another go.”

‘And sure enough, he came to me, confidentially, and, because the others were giving him a hard time, he asked me for a bit of leniency. But this time I stayed quite cold. “Go and beg from the others,” I told him, “I’m not in the habit of taking second place to them.” “I know you better, I trust you more,” he said. “My final word: either you bring the money tomorrow or I impose my conditions.” “What kind of conditions?” he asked. You should have heard him! As though he was prepared to sell his soul. “What kind of conditions? Oho! You have to obey me in whatever I do.” “And that’s it? Of course I’ll do that, I’m happy to stick with you of my own accord.” “Oh, not just when it pleases you; you have to do whatever I want — in blind obedience!” Now he squinted at me, half grinning and half embarrassed. He didn’t know how far he could take it, how serious I was. He would probably have liked to promise me anything, but he was afraid that I was just putting him to the test. So finally he said with a blush, “I’ll bring you the money.” I was having fun with him, he was a person I had never really paid any attention to among fifty others. He never really counted, did he? And now, all of a sudden, he had come so close to me that I could see inside him, down to the tiniest detail. I knew for certain that he was prepared to sell himself; without a great deal of fuss, so long as no one knew about it. It was really a surprise, and it’s the nicest thing in the world when someone suddenly reveals himself to you like that, and his way of life, to which you’ve never paid any attention before, is suddenly laid out before you like the worm tunnels when a piece of wood cracks in two ...

‘The next day he actually did bring me the money. More than that, in fact, he invited me to go for a drink with him in the Casino.