Muller, but he could discover no sign of her, except a piece of paper, upon which in her scrawly handwriting she had, with unusual ease, recorded her thoughts regarding the unfortunate episode of the loan of Schweik's bed to the porter from the night club.

Pleese sir forgive me for not seeing you agane, becos I shall jump out of the winder.

"Liar," said Schweik, and waited.

Half an hour later the unhappy Mrs. Muller crept into the kitchen, and from her downcast expression it was evident that she expected Schweik to provide her with words of comfort.

"If you want to jump out of the window," said Schweik, "go into the bedroom. I've opened the window for you. I wouldn't advise you to jump out of the kitchen window, because if you did, you'd fall into the roses in the garden and squash them and then you'd have to pay for them. If you jump out of the bedroom window, you'll land nicely on the pavement, and if you're lucky, you'll break your neck. If your luck's out, you'll just break all your ribs, arms and legs, and then it'll cost you a pretty penny in the hospital."

Mrs. Mûller burst into tears. Quietly she went into the bedroom, closed the window and came back, saying: "There's a dreadful draught from that window, and it wouldn't do your rheumatism any good, sir."

Then she went to make the bed, putting everything straight with unusual care. When she rejoined Schweik in the kitchen, she remarked with tears in her eyes : "Those two puppies, sir, that we kept in the yard, they've died. And the St. Bernard dog ran away when the police were searching the place."

"Holy Moses !" exclaimed Schweik. "He'll get himself into a nice mess. I'd bet anything he'll have the police after him."

"He did bite one police inspector, when he pulled him out from under the bed while they were looking round the place," continued Mrs. Muller. "It started this way : One of the gentlemen said that there was somebody under the bed and so they called on the St. Bernard in the name of the law to come out and when he wouldn't come, they pulled him out. So he snapped at them and bolted out through the door and he hasn't been back since. They asked me a lot of questions, too, about who comes here and whether we get any money from abroad, and then they started calling me names when I told them that money didn't come from abroad very often, but the last time it was from a gentleman at Brno who sent sixty crowns in advance for an Angora cat that you advertised about in the newspaper and instead of which you sent him a blind fox terrier puppy in a packing case. After that they talked to me as nice as could be and so as I shouldn't be scared at being left all alone here, they said I ought to take the porter from the night club as a lodger. You know, the one you sent about his business."

"I'm having a rough time with all these police officers, Mrs. Muller. I bet you won't see many people coming here to buy dogs now," sighed Schweik.

I do not know whether the gentleman who inspected the police records after the collapse of Austria could make anything of such items in the secret police funds as : B. 40 cr. F. 50 cr. M. 80 cr. etc., but they would be quite mistaken if they supposed that B, F and M are the initials of persons who for 40, 50 or 80 crowns betrayed the Czech nation to the Austrian eagle.

B. stands for St. Bernard, F.