I looked up.
One of the brothers was still standing, but his brother's cries had taken the fight out of him.
"You clear out, or I'll start over again," said Koster to him.
I gave my Vogt's head a farewell bump on the road and then let him go.
Lenz was already standing by Koster.
His coat was torn, he was bleeding from the corner of his mouth.
The battle had apparently been a draw, for his 'Vogt, though bleeding also, was standing.
The surrender of the eldest brother had settled the lot.
None of them ventured a word.
They helped the eldest up and went to their car.
The uninjured one returned and collected the starting handle.
He looked at Koster as if he were the devil.
Then the Mercedes rattled off.
Suddenly the blacksmith was there again.
"They've had enough," said he. "Nothing like it has happened to them in a long time.
The eldest has done time already for manslaughter."
Nobody answered.
Koster suddenly shook himself. "Dirty business," said he.
Then he turned round. "Come on, get busy."
"I've started," answered Jupp, already trundling up the breakdown trolley.
"Here a minute," said I. "From to-day on you are a Lance Corporal and can start cigarette smoking."
We heaved the car up and made it fast with the wire rope behind Karl.
"Do you think it won't damage him?" I asked Koster. "After all he's a race horse, not a pack-mule."
He shook his head.
"It's not so far. And level going."
Lenz sat in the Stutz and we drove slowly off.
I held my handkerchief to my nose and looked out over the evening fields and into the sinking sun.
There was an immense, un-shakeable peace in it, and one felt how utterly indifferent nature was to anything that this evil-tempered ant-heap called humanity might choose to do in the world.
Far more important was it that the clouds now turned gradually to a range of golden mountains, that the purple shadows of twilight drifted in noiselessly from the horizon, that the larks turned home from the boundless space of the sky to their place in the furrow, and that it slowly became night.
We drove into our courtyard.
Lenz climbed out of the Stutz and festively took off his hat to it.
"Greetings, well beloved!
You come to us by a sad mischance, but with any luck you should bring us in, at a superficial estimate, between three thousand and three thousand five hundred marks.
And now give me a large cherry brandy and a cake of soap—I must get rid of the Vogt family."
We all had a glass and then set to work at once taking the Stutz apart as far as possible.
It was not always enough that the owner alone should give one a repair job—often the insurance company would come along afterwards to place the car elsewhere, with one of its subsidiary shops.
So the further we could get the better for us.
The costs of reassembling would then be so high that it would be cheaper to leave the car with us.
It was dark when we stopped.
"Are you taking the taxi out to-night?" I asked Lenz.
"Certainly not," replied Gottfried. "One shouldn't overdo this money-making business.
The Stutz is enough for me for one day."
"Not for me," said I. "If you're not driving, then I'll graze the night clubs from eleven to two."
"You let it be." grinned Gottfried. "Look in the glass instead.
You've been having bad luck with your nose lately.
Nobody would ride with you with a beetroot like that.
Go home quietly and put it in a cold compress."
He was right.
It really was impossible, with my nose.
So I shortly took my leave and went home.