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one instead of to all of us hopes to get some response. Kropp is nearest, so he favours him.
    "Well, you here too?"
    But Albert's no friend of his. "A bit longer than you, I fancy," he retorts.
    The red moustache twitches: "You don't recognize me any more, what?"
    Tjaden now opens his eyes. "I do though."
    Himmelstoss turns to him: 'Tjaden, isn't it?"
    Tjaden lifts his head. "And do you know what you are?"
    Himmelstoss is disconcerted. "Since when have we become so familiar? I don't remember that we ever slept in the gutter together?"
    He has no idea what to make of the situation. He didn't expect this open hostility. But he is on his guard: he has already had some rot dinned into him about getting a shot in the back.
    The question about the gutter makes Tjaden so mad that he becomes almost witty: "No you slept there by yourself."
    Himmelstoss begins to boil. But Tjaden gets in ahead of him. He must bring off his insult: "Wouldn't you like to know what you are? A dirty hound, that's what you are. I've been wanting to tell you that for a long time."
    The satisfaction of months shines in his dull pig's eyes as he spits out: "Dirty hound!"
    Himmelstoss lets fly too, now. "What's that, you muck-rake, you dirty peat-stealer? Stand up there, bring your heels together when your superior officer speaks to you."
    Tjaden waves him off. "You take a run and jump at yourself, Himmelstoss."
    Himmelstoss is a raging book of army regulations. The Kaiser couldn't be more insulted. "Tjaden, I command you, as your superior officer: Stand up!"
    "Anything else you would like?" asks Tjaden.
    "Will you obey my order or not?"
    Tjaden replies, without knowing it, in the well-known classical phrase.
    At the same time he ventilates his backside.
    "I'll have you court-martialled," storms Himmelstoss.
    We watch him disappear in the direction of the Orderly Room. Haie and Tjaden burst into a regular peat-digger's bellow. Haie laughs so much that he dislocates his jaw, and suddenly stands there helpless with his mouth wide open. Albert has to put it back again by giving it a blow with his fist.
    Kat is troubled: "If he reports you, it'll be pretty serious."
    "Do you think he will?" asks Tjaden.
    "Sure to," I say.
    "The least you'll get will be five days close arrest," says Kat.
    That doesn't worry Tjaden. "Five days clink are five days rest."
    "And if they send you to the Fortress?" urges the thoroughgoing Müller.
    "Well, for the time being the war will be over so far as I am concerned."
    Tjaden is a cheerful soul. There aren't any worries for him. He goes off with Haie and Leer so that they won't find him in the first flush of excitement.

    ■■

    Müller hasn't finished yet. He tackles Kropp again.
    "Albert, if you were really at home now, what would you do?"
    Kropp is contented now and more accommodating:
    "How many of us were there in the class exactly?"
    We count up: out of twenty, seven are dead, four wounded, one in a mad-house. That makes twelve.
    "Three of them are lieutenants," says Müller. "Do you think they would still let Kantorek sit on them?"
    We guess not: we wouldn't let ourselves be sat on for that matter.
    "What do you mean by the three-fold theme in "William Tell'?" says Kropp reminiscently, and roars with laughter.
    "What was the purpose of the Poetic League of Göttingen?" asked Müller suddenly and earnestly.
    "How many children had Charles the Bald?" I interrupt gently.
    "You'll never make anything of your life, Bäumer," croaks Müller.
    "When was the battle of Zana?" Kropp wants to know.
    "You lack the studious mind, Kropp, sit down, three minus---" I say.
    "What offices did Lycurgus consider the most important for the state?" asks Müller, pretending to take off his pince-nez.
    "Does it go: 'We Germans fear God and none else in the whole world,' or 'We, the Germans, fear God and---' " I submit.
    "How many inhabitants has Melbourne?" asks Müller.
    "How do you expect to succeed in life if you don't know that?" I ask Albert