A lady."
"What did she say, then?"
"She'd call up again in the evening.
But I told her it wouldn't be much use, you were never home in the evening."
I stared at her.
"What?
You told her that?
Herrgott, it's high time someone taught you how to use a telephone."
"I know how to use a telephone," announced Frida loftily. "And you are as good as never at home of an evening."
"That's none of your affair," I cursed. "Next time you'll be telling her I have holes in my socks."
"I could if you like," retorted Frida, looking at me malevolently with her red inflamed eyes.
We were old enemies.
I should have liked to stick her into her soup pot, but controlled myself, felt in my pocket, pressed a mark into her hand and asked in a conciliatory tone?
"Did the lady not say her name?"
"No," said Frida.
"What kind of voice had she then?
Rather deep and as if she were a bit hoarse?"
"I don't know," declared Frida phlegmatically, as if I had never pressed a mark into her hand.
"A pretty ring you have there on your finger,", said I. "Quite charming; now just think if you can't remember."
"No," replied Frida and malicious triumph shone in her face.
"Then go hang yourself," said I and left her.
Sharp on six I was home again.
As I opened the door I was met by an unusual picture.
In the passage, surrounded by all the women of the boardiing house, stood Frau Bender.
"Just come here," said Frau Zalewski.
The cause of the gathering was a ribbon-bedecked baby about six months old.
Frau Bender had brought it in a pram from the orphanage.
It was a perfectly normal child, but the ladies were bending over it with expressions of ridiculous enchantment, as if it were the first baby the world had produced.
They uttered clucking noises, clipped their fingers before the eyes of the little creature, and pursed their lips.
Even Erna Bonig, in her dragon kimono, joined in this orgy of platonic maternity.
"Isn't he a charming little thing?" asked Frau Zalewski with swimming eyes.
"One will be able to tell that better in twenty or thirty years' time," said I with a sidelong glance toward the telephone.
Let's hope a call wouldn't come just now while they were all assembled here.
"But take a good look at it," Frau Hasse insisted.
I looked.
It was a baby like any other.
I could discover nothing remarkable about it.
At most it had terribly small hands, and it was extraordinary to think one had been just so tiny oneself once.
"Poor worm," said I, "little does he guess what is ahead of him.
What sort of war has he arrived just in time for, I wonder."
"Don't be horrid," replied Frau Zalewski. "Have you no feeling?"
"Much too much," I explained, "or I wouldn't hit on such ideas." And so withdrew to my room.
Ten minutes later the telephone bell rang.
I heard my name and went out.
Sure enough the whole gang was still there!
They did not lower their voices even when I had the receiver to my ear and detected the voice of Patricia Hollmann, thanking me for the flowers.
On the contrary, the baby, who was apparently the most sensible of them all and had had enough of the monkey business, suddenly started to howl.
"Pardon me," said I desperately into the telephone. "I can't catch what you say, there is a baby here having a fit; it's not mine though."
The ladies were hissing like a nest of cobra's to quiet the shrieking creature.
They succeeded promptly in setting it off even louder.