THE JAIL
"Mauthner, who did you get the paper from?"
"From Goldenstein."
"Goldenstein, whose paper is it?"
"I got it from Kohn."
"Good heavens, what tools these Jews are. They answer like idiots" remarked Mr. Kranz to me in a contemptuous whisper.
"Kohn, who gave you the paper?" continued the cross-examination.
"I,—I got it from an orderly: From the young one with the blue cap."
"Bring the orderly with the blue cap." thundered the Lieutenant-Colonel.
Schmied, our warder, flew out, dashed into number 58, and dragged the orderly with the blue cap to the cross-examination. A lad of eighteen or nineteen years, with the expression of a thorough-paced rogue.
"Who did you get the Neues Wiener Tagblatt from?" The question was bellowed from the lips of the Lieutenant-Colonel.
And the orderly promptly confessed: "I put three cigarettes on the window-ledge of the closet, go back half an hour later, and the Neues Wiener Tagblatt is lying there in their place. That's all I know." The room was silent. As if everybody's supply of wisdom and superiority had given out. At my side Mr. Kranz was hopping about with joy from one foot to the other, and was rubbing his hands.
There was a rattle of swords. "Let's clear off, they've finished. They're coming out" and Mr. Kranz was already at the other end of the passage with his broom in his hands.
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