'I can get any for you,' replied Svejk.
'Do you want a thoroughbred animal or a common cur ? '
'I think I'll plump for a thoroughbred,' replied Bretschneider.
'And why don't you have a police dog?' asked Svejk.
'Wouldn't you like one that picks up the scent at once and leads you to the scene of the crime?
There's a butcher in Vrsovice who has one and he uses it for drawing his cart.
You might very well say that that dog has missed its vocation.'
'I should like a porn,' said Bretschneider with quiet obstinacy, 'a porn that doesn't bite.'
'Do you want a porn without teeth then ? ' asked Svejk.
'I know of one. It belongs to a pub keeper in Dejvice.'
'Then I'd rather have a miniature pinscher,' replied Bretschneider, whose cynological capacities were very elementary and who would never have learnt anything about dogs at all, if he had not got those orders from police headquarters.
But the instructions were precise, clear and firm - to get on to familiar terms with Svejk on the basis of his dog-dealing; for which purpose he had the right to choose assistants and dispose of funds for the purchase of dogs.
'There are bigger and smaller miniature pinschers,' said Svejk.
'I know of two small ones and three big ones.
You can nurse all five of them on your lap.
I can recommend them to you very warmly.'
'That's what I'd like,' said Bretschneider.
'And how much would it be if I only took one?'
'It goes by sizes,' answered Svejk.
'It depends on the size, you see.
A miniature pinscher's not a calf. With miniature pinschers it's just the opposite, the smaller they are the dearer they come.'
'I'm considering getting larger ones which would be good watchdogs,' answered Bretschneider, who was beginning to fear that he might overburden the secret funds of the State Police.
'All right, then,' said Svejk.
'I can sell you the bigger ones for fifty crowns and bigger ones still for forty-five crowns.
But we've forgotten one thing. Are they to be puppies or grown dogs, dogs or bitches?'
'It's all the same to me,' answered Bretschneider, who was here on unfamiliar ground.
'Get them for me and I'll come and fetch them tomorrow at seven o'clock in the evening.
Is that all right?'
'Come along and it'll be all right,' answered Svejk drily, 'but in this case I must ask you for a deposit of thirty crowns.'
'By all means,' said Bretschneider, paying out the money, 'and now let's have a quarter-litre of wine on me.'
When they had drunk it up Svejk stood Bretschneider another quarter and then Bretschneider invited Svejk not to be afraid of him, saying that today he was not on duty and that it was all right to speak to him about l"olitics.
Svejk declared that he never spoke about politics in a pub, that politics in general were only for babies.
Bretschneider's views were, on the contrary, more revolutionary.
He said that every weak state was doomed to extinction and asked Svejk what were his views on this subject.
Svejk said that he had nothing to do with the state, but that he had once had to look after a St Bernard puppy in a weak state. He had fed it on army biscuits but it had pegged out all the same.
When each of them had had a fifth quarter-litre Bretschneider declared that he was an anarchist and asked Svejk what organization he would recommend him to join.
Svejk said that an anarchist once purchased from him a Leonberger dog for a hundred crowns and never paid him the last instalment.
During the sixth quarter-litre Bretschneider talked about revolution and against mobilization, whereupon Svejk leaned towards him and whispered in his ear:
'A customer's just come in.
Be careful he doesn't hear you otherwise you might be in trouble.
You see the landlord's wife's already in tears.'
Mrs Palivec was indeed crying on her chair behind the service counter.
'What are you crying for, Mrs Palivec?' asked Bretschneider.
'In three months' time we'll have won the war, there'll be an amnesty, your husband'll return and then we'll have a fine celebration.
'Or don't you think that we shall win?' he asked, turning to Svejk.
'Why keep on always playing that gramophone record?' said Svejk.
'We've got to win and that's that.
And now I must go home.'
Svejk paid his bill and returned to his old charwoman, Mrs Muller, who was scared when she realized that the man who was opening the door of the flat with his latch key was Svejk.
'0 Lord, sir, I thought you wouldn't be returning here for many years,' she said with her usual frankness. 'And so in the meanwhile out of charity I took a porter from a night club as a lodger, because we've had a police search here three times, and when they couldn't find anything they said it was all up with you because you were so cunning.'