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Page 62
"But a fifteen days' permit!" I said. "What am I to do at the end of
that time?"
"Leave it to me," Kore said craftily. "I will get it renewed for you. It
will be all right!"
"But in the meantime...." I objected.
"I place you as waiter with a friend of mine who is kind to poor fellows
like yourself. Your brother was with him."
"But I want to be free to move around."
"Impossible," the Jew answered firmly. "You must get into your part and
live quietly in seclusion until the enquiries after you have abated.
Then we may see as to what is next to be done. There you are, a fine set
of papers and a safe, comfortable life far away from the trenches--all
snug and secure--cheap (in spite of the danger to me), because you are a
lad of spirit and I liked your brother ... ten thousand marks!"
I breathed again. Once we had reached the haggling stage, I knew the
papers would be mine all right. With Semlin's money and my own I found I
had about �550, but I had no intention of paying out �500 straight away.
So I beat the fellow down unmercifully and finally secured the lot for
3600 marks--�180.
But, even after I had paid the fellow his money, I was not done with
him. He had his eye on his perquisites.
"Your clothes will never do," he said; "such richness of apparel, such
fine stuff--we must give you others." He rang the bell.
The old man-servant appeared.
"A waiter's suit--for the Linien-Strasse!" he said.
Then he led me into a bedroom where a worn suit of German shoddy was
spread out on a sofa. He made me change into it, and then handed me a
threadbare green overcoat and a greasy green felt hat.
"So!" he said. "Now, if you don't shave for a day or two, you will look
the part to the life!"--a remark which, while encouraging, was hardly
complimentary.
He gave me a muffler to tie round my neck and lower part of my face and,
with that greasy hat pulled down over my eyes and in those worn and
shrunken clothes, I must say I looked a pretty villainous person, the
very antithesis of the sleek, well-dressed young fellow that had entered
the flat half an hour before.
"Now, Julius," said Kore humorously, "come, my lad, and we will seek out
together the good situation I have found for you."
A horse-cab was at the door and we entered it together. The Jew chatted
pleasantly as we rattled through the darkness. He complimented me on my
ready wit in deciphering Francis' message.
"How do you like my idea?" he said, "'Achilles in his Tent'... that is
the device of the hidden part of my business--you observe the parallel,
do you not?' Achilles holding himself aloof from the army and young men
like yourself who prefer the gentle pursuits of peace to the sterner
profession of war! Clients of mine who have enjoyed a classical
education have thought very highly of the humour of my device."
The cab dropped us at the corner of the Friedrich-Strasse, which was
ablaze with light from end to end, and the Linien-Strasse, a narrow,
squalid thoroughfare of dirty houses and mean shops. The street was all
but deserted at that hour save for an occasional policeman, but from
cellars with steps leading down from the streets came the jingle of
automatic pianos and bursts of merriment to show that the Linien-Strasse
was by no means asleep.
Before one of these cellar entrances the Jew stopped. At the foot of the
steep staircase leading down from the street was a glazed door, its
panels all glistening with moisture from the heated atmosphere within.
Kore led the way down, I following.
A nauseous wave of hot air, mingled with rank tobacco smoke, smote us
full as we opened the door. At first I could see nothing except a very
fat man, against a dense curtain of smoke, sitting at a table before an
enormous glass goblet of beer. Then, as the haze drifted before the
draught, I distinguished the outline of a long, low-ceilinged room,
with small tables set along either side and a little bar, presided over
by a tawdry female with chemically tinted hair, at the end. Most of the
tables were occupied, and there was almost as much noise as smoke in the
place.
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