A pause ensued, allowing us to hear the whistle of a locomotive and the distant rumbling of a train coming around the bend—which bend I will not say, for the sake of neutrality.
“Da,” murmured the hunchback pointing toward the door, “There comes the old choo-choo!”
“There?” objected the Austrian aghast. He pointed toward the clock. “That’s the way the train comes in. You’re forgetting yourself.”
“Was?” exclaimed the hunchback on the defensive. “I know where the track lies—I came in that way. It’s just over there,” pointing again at the door, “back of the pond.”
“Are you mad, Mench?”[12] retorted the Austrian, pointing again at the clock, “Didn’t you just hear it come in that way?”
Then followed one of the hottest little debates which I have ever heard. Both men grew into a frenzy, and only the ties of long friendship—constantly emphasized by the hunchback—prevented a resort to physical force. When the old warden came in half an hour later to tell us that danger was past, he found them stretched out together, haggling over a map of Gadebusch, drawn with string and bits of paper on the floor, a match stick representing the train. When I finally went up to my cell, I could still hear the disgusted voice of the hunchback:
“Aber,[13] they don’t run locomotives over rye fields, mein Lieber!”[14]
It was about noon of the fifth day and I was finishing the Book of Isaiah, when the guard came to take me away. My warden did not forget to exact a fee of six marks—being the amount of my hotel bill for the five days, at a mark a day, according to Gadebusch reckoning.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Come down—lightning.