But it started all right. The manager of our department was giving a birthday spree and he invited us to a pub, then we went to another and after that to a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, an eighth, a ninth . . ."

"Wouldn't you like me to count for you?" asked Schweik. "I'm good at figures. I was once in twenty-eight pubs. But I'm bound to say I never had more than three drinks in any of them."

"To cut a long story short," continued the unfortunate clerk whose manager had celebrated his birthday in such magnificent style, "when we'd been in about a dozen different taprooms, we discovered that we'd lost our manager, although we'd tied him with a piece of string and took him with us like a dog. So we went to have a look for him and the end of it was that we lost each other till at last I wound up in a night club, quite a respectable place, where I drank some liqueur or other straight from the bottle. I can't remember what I did after that ; all I know is, that at the commissariat here, when they brought me in, the two police officers reported that I was drunk and disorderly, that I'd been guilty of immoral conduct, that I'd struck a lady, that I'd jabbed a pocketknife through somebody else's hat that I'd taken from the hatrack. Then I'd chased the ladies' orchestra away, accused the headwaiter in front of everyone of stealing a twenty crown note, smashed the marble slab of the table where I was sitting, and spat into the black coffee of a stranger at the next table. That's all I did as far as I can remember. And I can assure you that I'm a steady, intelligent man whose only thoughts are for his family. What do you think of that? I'm not one of the rowdy sort."

Schweik did not reply, but inquired with interest :

"Did you have much trouble in smashing that marble slab, or did you splash it at one blow?"

"At one blow," replied the man of intelligence.

"Then you're done for," said Schweik mournfully. "They'll prove that you must have trained yourself to do it. And the stranger's coffee you spat in, was it with rum or without rum?"

And without waiting for an answer, he proceeded to explain:

"If it was with rum, that makes matters worse, because it

costs more. In court they reckon up every item, and add them together, so as to make the most of it."

"In court . . ." whispered the conscientious family man dejectedly, and hanging his head he lapsed into that unpleasant state of mind when a man is gnawed by his conscience.

"And do they know at home," asked Schweik, "that you've been locked up, or are they waiting till it gets into the papers?"

"You think it'll be in the papers?" guilelessly inquired the victim of his manager's birthday.

"It's a dead certainty," was the downright answer, for it was not Schweik's way to hide anything from his fellow-men. "This prank of yours is going to be a fair treat for newspaper readers. I myself like reading the drunk-and-disorderly bits. Not long ago at The Flagon there was a customer who smashed a glass with his head. He chucked it up into the air and then stood underneath it. They ran him in, and on the very next morning we read about it in the papers. Another time I gave an undertaker's mute a smack in the eye and he gave me one in return. To stop the row they had to run us both in, and the afternoon editions had all about it. Another time at The Dead Man there was a councillor who smashed two glasses. Do you think they hushed it up? Not they—the next day it was reported in all the papers. All you can do us to send from prison a letter to the newspapers saying that the report published about you doesn't refer to you and that you're no relation of the person of that name and have no connection with him. Then you must write home to tell them to cut your letter out of the paper and keep it, so that you can read it when they let you out of quod."

Noticing that the man of intelligence was shivering, Schweik asked, full of concern :

"Do you feel cold?"

"It's all up with me," sobbed Schweik's companion. "I've got no chance of promotion now."

"That you haven't," agreed Schweik readily, "and if they don't take you back at the office when you've served your sentence, I bet it won't be easy for you to find another job.