"Paying sixteens."
And that chimney-sweep had only fifteen.
Wasn't that bad luck?
Old Vejvoda was quite pale and miserable. All around they were swearing and muttering that he was cheating and that he'd already been flogged for card-sharping, although he was really a very honest player.
And so they all of them paid him crown after crown and there was already five hundred crowns there.
The landlord couldn't stand it any longer.
He had money ready to pay to the brewery and so he took it, sat down, pushed forward two hundred and then two hundred again. After that he shut his eyes, spun the chair round for luck and said he'd go "banco".
"And we'll play 'Ouvert',"1 he declared.
I don't know what old Vejvoda wouldn't have given to have lost.
Everybody was amazed when he drew a card from the pack and it was a seven and he took it.
The landlord was smiling up his sleeve, because he had twenty-one.
Old Vejvoda drew a second seven and still he took it."
Now an ace or ten will come," said the landlord maliciously.
"I bet my last shirt, Mr Vejvoda, that you'll burst."
There was a deathly silence.
Vejvoda drew again and a third seven appeared.
The landlord turned white as a sheet, because it was his last sou.
He went into the kitchen and a short time afterwards his apprentice boy ran in and called us to come and cut the landlord down, because he was hanging on a window-handle.
And so we cut him down, revived him and the game went on.
No one had any money left at all. Everything was in the bank, in front ofVejvoda, who only wenton saying:
"Low and bad is safe." And he would have given everything in the world to burst but because he had to expose his hand on the table he couldn't cheat and intentionally overbid.
They were all furious over his good luck and arranged that when they had no more money left they would give him I.O.U.s.
It went on for several hours and thousands and thousands heaped up in front of old Vejvoda.
The chimney-sweep was already more than one and a half million in debt to the bank, a coal man from Zderaz about a million, a porter from the Century Cafe eight times a hundred thousand and a medico over two million.
In the pool alone there was more than three hundred thousand on little bits of paper.
Old Vejvoda tried all different tricks. He went continually to the W.C. and always asked someone else to draw for him and when he returned they told him that he had drawn and got twenty-one.
They sent for new cards, but still that didn't help.
When Vejvoda stopped at fifteen, the other had only fourteen.
They all looked furiously at old Vejvoda and the man who swore at him most was a paver who had only put in eight crowns in cash.
He stated openly that a man like Vejvoda shouldn't be allowed to go about free but deserved to be beaten up, thrown out and drowned like a puppy.
You can't imagine old Vejvoda's despair.
Finally he had an idea."
I'm going to the W.C.," he said to the chimney-sweep.
"Draw for me, will you?"
And then he went out just as he was without a hat on to the street and straight to Myslikova Street for the police. He found a patrol and told them that in such and such a pub they were playing gambling games.
The police ordered him to go ahead and they would follow immediately after.
He came back and was told that in the meanwhile the medico had lost over two million and the porter over three.
In the pool there were 1.0. U.s for five times a hundred thousand crowns.
After a while the policemen burst in; the paver screamed out,
"Everyone for himself!" but it was no good.
They confiscated the bank and took all the players off to the police station.
The coalman from Zderaz resisted and so they brought him along in the drunks' cart.
In the bank there were I.O.U.s for over half a milliard and fifteen hundred crowns in cash.
"I've never copped as much as that before," said the police inspector, when he saw such dizzy sums.
"It's worse than in Monte Carlo."
All of them except old Vejvoda had to stay there till morning.
He was released for turning king's evidence and was promised that he would get as his lawful reward a third of the money confiscated in the bank, about one hundred and sixty million or more.
But before the morning he was already off his head and was going about Prague ordering burglar-proof safes by the dozen. That's what they call success at cards.'
And then Svejk went off to brew some grog.
And it happened that when with some difficulty he succeeded in getting the chaplain into bed that night the latter burst into tears and cried: