I need an assistant with my running-about for the club and so on.
Now and then there's a parcel of meat thrown in.
Looks as if he ought to have something between his ribs."
"Is that honour bright?"
"It's the honour bright of Stefan Grigoleit."
"Georg," I called. "Here a minute."
He started to shake when he heard it.
I went back to Koster.
"Listen, Otto," said I, "if you could live your life over again, would you like to?"
"Just as it was?"
"Yes."
"No."
"Me neither," said I.
Chapter XXIV
It was a cold night in January, three weeks later, and I was sitting in the International playing vingt-et-un with the proprietor.
The place was deserted, not even the pros'titutes had come.
There was unrest in the city.
Every few minutes columns marched past outside, some with crashing military marches, others to the tune of the Internationale, and then again silent, long processions with placards carried in advance demanding work and bread.
The beat of the many footsteps on the pavement was like the inexorable ticking of some gigantic clock.
During the afternoon there had already been a clash between strikers and the police; twelve people had been hurt, and for hours the entire force had been standing to.
The whistle of motor ambulances shrilled through the streets.
"There's no rest," said the proprietor, showing a sixteen. "Ever since the war there's been no rest. And yet we all wanted nothing else then, but rest.
Crazy world."
I showed seventeen and raked in the pot.
"It's not the world that's crazy," said I. "It's the people in it."
Alois, who was standing behind the proprietor, rocking backwards and forwards on his toes, interjected:
"They aren't crazy, merely covetous.
One grudges the other.
And because there's too much of everything, most have nothing at all.
It's only a matter of distribution." "True," said I and passed with two cards. "But that's been the trouble for a few thousand years."
The proprietor laid down his cards.
He had fifteen and eyed me doubtfully.
Then he bought one, an ace, and was cooked.
I showed my cards.
They were only twelve pips and he might have won already with his fifteen.
"Damn, I'm stopping now," he cursed, "that was a low-down bluff.
I thought you had eighteen at least."
Alois chuckled. "That's the way they play in the infantry."
I raked in the money.
The proprietor yawned and looked at his watch.
'Nearly eleven.
I think we'll shut down.
Nobody else is coming."
"Here comes someone now," said Alois.
The door opened.
It was Koster.
"Anything fresh outside, Otto?"
He nodded.
"A hall fight at the Borussia rooms.
Two badly hurt, a few dozen slightly injured and about a hundred arrests.