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 had been happening; the censorists had lost several shirts from their boxes, Papa Declich missed his cigars, Budi's tobacco-case had disappeared. And it was ascertained that Karl, our orderly, never went out for exercise, but that during this period he was always visited by the artillery-man, our former colleague, who instead of going out for exercise, came into our cell, chatted with Karl and disappeared in good time. It had further been discovered that Karl and the artillery-man had recently been living in a certain state of prosperity; they smoked, drank and evinced satisfaction at labours well performed; Dr. Povich-Rosetti therefore intervened in higher quarters, and now informed us in a whisper that the "landlord from number 58" was coming to be our orderly.

The landlord from number 58 was a good-humoured giant. Cut an elephant into two halves, place the larger portion of its body upon its hind-legs, put on that a large human head with a horrible red scar in place of the left eye, and you will have a faithful replica of our future orderly. His history was a familiar one; he had been in the army, had come home and caught his wife with somebody else,—he had shot both her and himself. He had killed her and severely wounded himself, but had escaped with his life. And he had escaped only to be tried and sentenced to twenty years, and all that was now left to him of life he contemplated with only one eye. His voice was soft and kindly, everybody was fond of him; he walked about without a coat, always wearing a green vest.

Within five minutes Karl had learnt that he was leaving number 60, and who would be his successor.

He was furious. He said he would go to the superintendent, he would find out who had slandered him and how, he would discover whether there was still any fairness and justice in the world. And