It
was possible for a bold spirit to dash across a swaying plank with
stick extended, make a swift downward stroke at the heaped beets, and
race back with the prize impaled on the stick. Half a dozen boys had
got safely away with their plunder. It was my turn. I was half-way
along the plank, something startled me, and the next thing I knew was
that the Danube was wet and cold, that men were shouting, women
screaming, and that it took a long time to drown. I draw a veil over
what happened when I was taken home.
The
next day Kainz fished out half a forlorn beet which he had secreted,
and insisted I should take it. His generÂosity resulted in a tummy-ache
such as I never experienced before or after.
Forty
years went by. I had become a trader and a traveller. I had measured
the globe with my yardstick, had sailed the seven seas, pitted my wits
for a livelihood against white, yellow, brown and black men's cunning.
Small wonder that my two boyhood friends had become less than a memory.
Yet I returned to Vienna for a week and met them both within
twenty-four hours. Minewarter was still the neat Aryan, and his
ambition had been achieved. Very reserved, very patrician, very
Catholic, he had become a third-class clerk in the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. In those post-war days he was obviously finding it difficult
to keep a decent collar round his neck. He told me that he thought it
was crazy to learn foreign languages when Esperanto would so soon
displace them all. With tepid good wishes we parted.
I was crossing the Graben when I saw Kainz, a cabby
