And Bill The Hollander hugely turned to The Zulu, stepping accurately to the paillasse of that individual, and demanded:
“And you, you Gottverdummer Polaker, do you want t’ fight?”
at which The Zulu gently waved in recognition of the compliment and delicately and hastily replied, between slow puffs:
“Mog.”
Whereat Bill The Hollander registered a disgusted kick in The Young Pole’s direction and swearingly resumed his paillasse.
All this, the reader understands, having taken place in the terribly cold darkness of the half-dawn.
That very day, after a great deal of examination (on the part of the Surveillant) of the participants in this Homeric struggle—said examination failing to reveal the particular guilt or the particular innocence of either—Judas, immaculately attired in a white coat, arrived from downstairs with a step ladder and proceeded with everyone’s assistance to reconstruct the original pipe. And a pretty picture Judas made. And a pretty bum job he made. But anyway the stove-pipe drew; and everyone thanked God and fought for places about le poêle. And Monsieur Pet-airs hoped there would be no more fights for a while.
One might think that The Young Pole had learned a lesson. But no. He had learned (it is true) to leave his immediate neighbour, America Lakes, to himself; but that is all he had learned. In a few days he was up and about, as full of la blague as ever. The Zulu seemed at times almost worried about him. They spoke together in Polish frequently and—on The Zulu’s part—earnestly. As subsequent events proved, whatever counsel The Zulu imparted was wasted upon his youthful friend. But let us turn for a moment to The Zulu himself.
He could not, of course, write any language whatever. Two words of French he knew: they were fromage and chapeau. The former he pronounced “grumidge.” In English his vocabulary was even more simple, consisting of the single word “po-lees-man.” Neither B. nor myself understood a syllable of Polish (tho’ we subsequently learned Jin-dobri, nima-Zatz, zampni-pisk and shimay pisk, and used to delight The Zulu hugely by giving him
“Jin-dobri, pan”