Svejk was at once able to convince himself that the unknown lodger had made himself very much at home. He was sleeping in his bed and was indeed so noble as to be content with only half of it, having placed in the other half a long-haired creature, who gratefully slept embracing him round the neck, while articles of male and female attire were scattered higgledy-piggledy round the bed.
From this chaos it was evident that the night-club porter had returned with his lady in a jocund mood.
'Sir,' said Svejk, shaking the intruder. 'Make sure that you're not late for lunch.
I should hate it if you had to say that I had thrown you out after you'd lost your chance of getting any lunch.'
The porter from the night club was very sleepy and it took a long time before he understood that the owner of the bed had returned home and was making a claim to it.
Like all night-club porters this gentleman declared that he would smash anyone who woke him up, and tried to go on sleeping.
In the meantime Svejk collected parts of his clothing, brought them to his bed and, shaking him energetically, said:
'If you don't dress, I'll try to fling you out just as you are on to the street.
It'll be a great advantage for you if you're properly dressed when you fly out.'
'I wanted to sleep until eight o'clock in the evening,' said the porter in a startled voice as he put on his pants.
'I am paying the mistress two crowns a day for the bed and I'm allowed to bring here young ladies from the club. Marena, get up!'
As he was putting on his collar and tying his tie he recovered sufficiently to be able to assure Svejk that the night club Mimosa was really one of the most respectable night clubs and that ladies were only admitted there who had a clean police book and he cordially invited Svejk to come and visit it.
On the other hand his female companion was not at all pleased with Svejk and used some very choice expressions, of which the choicest of all was:
'You son of an archbishop, you!'
After the departure of the intruders Svejk went to settle accounts with Mrs Muller but found no trace of her except for a scrap of paper, upon which with unusual ease in her scrawly handwriting she had recorded her thoughts about the unfortunate episode of the loan of Svejk's bed to the porter from the night club.
'Excuse me, sir, if I don't see you any more, because I am going to jump out of the window.'
'She's lying,' said Svejk and waited.
Half an hour later the unfortunate Mrs Muller crept into the kitchen and it was clear from her distraught expression that she was expecting words of consolation from Svejk.
'If you want to jump out of the window,' said Svejk, 'go into the sitting-room. I've opened the window for you.
I wouldn't advise you to jump out of the kitchen window, because you'd fall on to the rose bed in the garden, damage the bushes and have to pay for them.
From the window of the sitting-room you'll fall beautifully on to the pavement and if you're lucky you'll break your neck.
If not you'll only break all your ribs, arms and legs, and you'll have to pay for hospital charges.'
Mrs Muller burst into tears, went quietly into the sitting-room and shut the window. Then, coming back, she said:
'It's terribly draughty there and it wouldn't be good for your rheumatism, sir.'
Then she went to make the bed, put it all in order with unusual care and, returning to Svejk in the kitchen, remarked with tears in her eyes:
'Those two puppies, sir, which we had in the court-yard have pegged out. And that St Bernard, it ran away when the police made their search.'
'Oh, my God,' shouted Svejk, 'he'll get himself into a fine mess.
The police will be after him soon.'
'He bit one police inspector when they pulled him out from underneath the bed during the search,' continued Mrs Mi.iller.
'Before that, one of those gentlemen said that there was somebody under the bed, and so they called that St Bernard to come out in the name of the law and, when he wouldn't, they dragged him out.
And he was going to gobble them up, but then he bolted out of the door and never returned.
They also cross-questioned me about who comes to see us, whether we get any money from abroad, and then they started insinuating that I was a fool, when I told them that we only get money from abroad very rarely, the last being from the headmaster in Brno, that advance of sixty crowns for an angora cat which you advertised in Ndrodnl Politika and instead of which you sent him that blind foxterrier puppy in a date box.
After that they talked to me very affably and recommended me that porter from the night club, so that I shouldn't be afraid of being alone in the flat, that very man you've just thrown out .... '
'I've always had bad luck with those authorities, Mrs Mi.iller.
Now you'll see how many of them are going to come here to buy dogs,' sighed Svejk.
I don't know whether those gentlemen who examined the police archives after the overthrow of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy succeeded in deciphering the items of the secret funds of the State Police, where it was written: B ... forty crowns, F ... fifty crowns, L ... eighty crowns etc., but they certainly were deceived if they thought that B, F, L were the initials of any gentlemen who for forty, fifty, eighty etc. crowns sold the Czech nation to the black and yellow eagle.
'B' stands forSt Bernard,' F' for fox-terrier and' L' for Leon berger.
All these dogs Bretschneider took from Svejk to police headquarters.
They were ghastly mongrels, which had no connection whatsoever with any thoroughbred race which Svejk pretended them to be, when he sold them to Bretschneider.
The St Bernard was a mixture of mongrel poodle and a common street cur; the fox-terrier had the ears of a dachshund and was the size of a butcher's dog, with bandy legs as though it had suffered from rickets. The head of the Leonberger recalled the hairy muzzle of a stable pinscher. It had a stubbed tail, was the height of a dachshund and had bare hindquarters like the famous naked American dogs.
Later detective Kalous came to buy a dog and returned with a wildly staring monster which was reminiscent of a spotted hyena with the mane of a collie, and in the accounts of the secret fund came a new item: M . .. ninety crowns.
That monster was passing itself off as a mastiff ...
But not even Kalous succeeded in getting any information out of Svejk.
He fared the same as Bretschneider.
Svejk diverted the deftest political conversations to the curing of distemper in puppies and the most cunningly prepared traps always ended in Bretschneider bringing back from Svejk another unbelievable mongrel monster.
And that was the end of the famous detective Bretschneider.
When he had seven monsters of this kind in his flat, he shut himself up with them in the back room and starved them so long that they finally gobbled him up.
He was so honourable that he saved the state the expense of a funeral.
In his personal file at police headquarters there were recorded under the column
'Advancement in service' the following poignant words: