. . ’ said Kufalt, picking up his emptied bucket. ‘By the way, does anyone know what’s up with the nets orderly?’

‘Someone’s split on him; and now he’s for it.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘He smuggled letters with the dirty washing to someone in the women’s prison.’

‘To which of ’em?’

‘I don’t know. A small dark one, I think.’

‘I know her,’ said Kufalt. ‘She’s from Altona. The burglar’s girl. She’s done in half a dozen lads, and pinched the swag . . . Who’s orderly now?’

‘I don’t know him. He’s new—put in by the nets instructor. A fat Jew—fraudulent bankruptcy, they say . . . ’

‘Ah?’ said Kufalt, recalling a word or two he had heard as he passed the cell door with his bucket. ‘So that’s how it is. Well, I’ve had my eye on that slimy old Nets for quite a while; now I’m going to set him up. Shove your head out, mate, and see if the coast’s clear. Kerrist,’ he cried in despair, ‘what kind of suckers are they sending us now? They bash the door open fit to bring the bloody house down. Just look out and see whether Rusch is in the glass cubicle. Not? Then I’ll go and pay a visit to old Nets. Morning.’

He picked up his bucket and went back to his cell.

III

On the way back Kufalt glanced down at the glass cubicle; there the position was unchanged, Senior Warder Suhr still had his nose in the paper.

When Kufalt reached the nets orderly’s cell he stepped aside, flattened himself against the wall by the door, and listened.

There he stood, in blue dungarees and a striped prison shirt, his feet in list slippers, with a pointed yellowish nose, pale and thin, but noticeably pot-bellied. About twenty-eight years old. His brown eyes should have been frank and friendly, but they looked haunted, and furtive, and unsteady. His hair was brown. He stood and listened, and tried to catch what was being said. He still held the bucket in front of him with both hands.

One of the voices said excitedly: ‘You give me back that ten marks. Why does my wife keep on sending you money?’

And the smooth, oily voice of the nets instructor answered: ‘I do what I can for you. You ought to be very grateful to me for getting the work inspector to make you nets orderly.’

‘Grateful!’ said the other angrily.