I felt sure that gentleman'd keep his word when he told you they'd come and fetch you. It's nice to know you can rely on people."

Mr. Palivec, however, remarked that he didn't care a damn whether he could rely on people or not, and he asked Schweik on the quiet whether the other prisoners were thieves who might do harm to his business reputation.

Schweik explained to him that all except one, who had been arrested for attempted robbery with violence, were there on account of the Archduke.

Mr. Palivec was annoyed and said that he wasn't there on account of any fool of an archduke, but on the Emperor's ac-

2"Hold your tongue, and get on with your job !"

count. And as this began to interest the others, he told them how the flies had soiled the Emperor.

"They left stains on him, the vermin," he concluded the account of his mishap, "and now I've been put into jail. I'll pay those flies out for this," he added menacingly.

Schweik went back to sleep, but not for long, because they soon came to take him away to be cross-examined.

And so, mounting the staircase to Section 3 for his cross-examination, Schweik bore his cross to the summit of Golgotha, although he himself was unaware of his martyrdom.

On seeing a notice that spitting was prohibited in the corridors, he asked the police sergeant to let him spit into a spittoon and beaming with good nature he entered the bureau, saying :

"Good-evening, gentlemen, I hope you're all well."

Instead of a reply, someone pummelled him in the ribs and stood him in front of a table, behind which sat a gentleman with a cold official face and features of such brutish savagery that he looked as if he had just tumbled out of Lombroso's book on criminal types.

He hurled a bloodthirsty glance at Schweik and said :

"Take that idiotic expression off your face."

"I can't help it," replied Schweik solemnly. "I was discharged from the army on account of being weak-minded and a special board reported me officially as weak-minded. I'm officially weak-minded—a chronic case."

The gentleman with the criminal countenance grated his teeth as he said :

"The offence,you're accused of and that you've committed shows you've got all your wits about you."

And he now proceeded to enumerate to Schweik a long list of crimes, beginning with high treason and ending with insulting language toward His Royal Highness and Members of the Royal Family. The central gem of this collection constituted approval of the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand, and from this again branched off a string of fresh offences, amongst which sparkled incitement to rebellion, as the whole business had happened in a public place.

"What have you got to say for yourself?" triumphantly

asked the gentleman with the features of brutish savagery.

"There's a lot of it," replied Schweik innocently. "You can have too much of a good thing."

"So you admit it's true?"

"I admit everything. You've got to be strict. If you ain't strict, why, where would you be? It's like when I was in the army . . ."

"Hold your tongue !" shouted the police commissioner. "And don't say a word unless you're asked a question. Do you understand?"

"Begging your pardon, sir, I do, and I've properly got the hang of every word you utter."

"Who do you keep company with?"

"The charwoman, sir."

"And you don't know anybody in political circles here?"

"Yes, sir, I take in the afternoon edition of the Narodni Politika, you know, sir, the paper they call the puppy's delight."

"Get out of here !" roared the gentleman with the brutish appearance.

When they were taking him out of the bureau, Schweik said :

"Good-night, sir."

Having been deposited in his cell again, Schweik informed all the prisoners that the cross-examination was great fun. "They yell at you a bit and then kick you out." He paused a moment. "In olden times," continued Schweik, "it used to be much worse. I once read a book where it said that people charged with anything had to walk on red-hot iron and drink molten lead to see whether they was innocent or not. There was lots who was treated like that and then on top of it all they was quartered or put in the pillory somewhere near the Natural History Museum.

"Nowadays, it's great fun being run in," continued Schweik with relish. "There's no quartering or anything of that kind. We've got a mattress, we've got a table, we've got a seat, we ain't packed together like sardines, we'll get soup, they'll give us bread, they'll bring a pitcher of water, there's a closet right under our noses. It all shows you what progress there's been. Of course, it's rather a long way to the place where you're cross-examined, along three corridors and up one flight of stairs, but the corridors are clean and there's plenty going on in them. Some are being

taken one way, others the opposite way, young and old, male and female. It's nice to know you're not alone. They all go wherever they're taken and they're absolutely satisfied, because they're not afraid of being told in the bureau : 'We've talked your case over and to-morrow you'll be quartered or burned alive, according as you prefer.' That must have been a nasty thing to have to look forward to, and I think, gentlemen, that it would have upset a good many of us. Ah, yes, nowadays things have improved for our benefit."

He had just concluded his vindication of the modern imprisonment of citizens when the warder opened the door and shouted:

"Schweik, you've got to get dressed and go to be cross-examined."

"I'll get dressed," replied Schweik. "I've no objection to that, but it strikes me there must be some mistake. I've been cross-examined once and they chucked me out.