Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/175

 fits alternated with fever. Kranz slipped in several times each day, sat down on my bed, brought cognac, rum, sometimes a glass of hot tea, precious cigarettes, and always a new tale from his life. He related the story of how he had burgled the goldsmith's shop, and then did not know what to do with the watches, rings and chains;—he was not a tap to rig himself out with such valuables, nor did he have time to wind up some ninety watches daily; so he sold everything and then sat down in a café, and read in the paper that the police were looking for the burglar. He related how he had once left jail, proceeded to the wife of one of his fellow-prisoners, introduced himself to her as a locksmith who did jobs in the Grey House, and suggested that she should send ham, wine, a hundred crowns in small change, and a cycling suit to her husband; he obtained the lot, went into the Prater, transformed himself into a respectable man, ate and drank, and was so honest about it that he drank to the health of that good woman and her husband who was in prison. He related how he, with several companions, had procured military uniforms, he a sergeant-major's, had put on war decorations, and at night had masqueraded as military police in the streets of Vienna. They had pounced on volunteers and N.C.O's, had taken them off to the nearest commissariat, to be kept and watched there until they came for them. And how once,—that was a black Friday for Kranz,—they had planned to catch someone with a golden tassel; "I was loaded like a cannon, it was the devil who got me into mischief,—and so we stopped one of them just as he was coming out of a café in Mariahilferstrasse, but he wasn't one of the reserves, as we had expected, but one of these smart regulars, and no sooner had we asked him for his papers, than he began to swear and carry on, and within five minutes we were all at the commissariat; and that was my last performance as a free