Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/145

 Klosterneuburg, and he had been put in prison on account of two bicycles. Two rubber-tired bicycles which he had seen while out for a walk with his comrade, who had also been in prison since that morning on the first storey; the bicycles were lying by the roadside in a field, and they both declared that they did not know how they had got there; but the examining superintendent declared that they did know how they got there. Although he saw that I was reading and did not want to be disturbed, he had already come up to me three times and explained that he was innocent, and how the bicycles were lying there, and how they had gone past quite by chance and had caught sight of them,—it was not untilI pointed out to him that it was their duty for one of them to wait by the things they had found, and for the other to go and report it immediately, and when Mr. Fels told him that I had been a soldier and that my opinion would probably be correct, then he went away once and for all, came to terms with the artillery-man who told him the story of his confounded boots, whereupon they started gambling.

Papritz had me called into the office.

He stood up in front of me, looked me up and down several times from tip to toe, and burst forth: "You have sent in an application to be allowed to get your food from a restaurant? What ground have you for that?"

"I have sent in no application, I have no ground."

"There lies your application" he thundered.

"It is not my application."

"But you know about it."

"Yes, Dr. Frank showed it to me, and I asked him in most emphatic terms to throw it into the waste-paper basket."

"So you want to dictate to us what we are to do? A fine state of things! You have been ill under an operation, you will get your