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not to mention three glasses of strong Hungarian wine, at this moment without rivals. He was invited to sit down
but demurred gracefully with a vague gesture toward the entrance where
the carriage was waiting for him. Still, he couldn't refuse to answer a few questions: who was the handsome young man in civilian clothes?-Ah,
an actor!-Elrief?-No one had heard of him. The theatre here wasn't
much to speak of, maintained Frau Kessner; there was not much more
than operetta here. But with a promising glance she intimated that when
the lieutenant came the next time, they could perhaps go together to visit
the Arena Theatre.

    "The nicest thing would be to take two boxes side by side," observed Fraulein Kessner, and smiled in the direction of Elrief, who
smiled back enthusiastically.
    Willi kissed the hand of all the ladies, once more saluted in the direction of the officer's table, and a minute later was sitting in the consul's
carriage.
    "Hurry," he said to the coachman. "You'll get a good tip."
    In the indifference with which the driver received this promise,
Willi thought he detected an annoying lack of respect. Still, the horses
maintained a good clip, and in five minutes they were at the station. But
at precisely the same moment the train, which had arrived just a minute
earlier, began to move from the gate in the station above. Willi leaped
from the carriage, started after the brightly lit coaches as they moved
slowly and heavily forward across the viaduct, heard the whistle of the
locomotive fade into the night air, shook his head, and didn't quite know
whether he was angry or pleased. The coachman sat indifferently on his
high seat and was stroking one of the horses with the handle of his whip.
"There's nothing to be done," Willi finally declared. And, turning to the
coachman, he directed, "Back to the Cafe Schopf."
    VI
    It was pleasant to whirl through the small town in a carriage, but next
time it would be even more pleasant to drive out into the country, either
to Rodaun or to the Rote Stadl, on such a mild summer evening as this, in
the company of an attractive female creature, and to have supper outdoors. Ah, what bliss not to have to turn every gulden over twice before
being able to decide to spend it! Careful, Willi, careful, he told himself,
and firmly resolved not to risk all his winnings but only half of them at most. Moreover he would use Flegmann's system: begin with small bets,
don't increase them until you have won, and then never risk the whole
amount at once but only three-fourths of it, and so on. Dr. Flegmann always began with this system, but he didn't have the discipline to carry it
through. So of course he got nowhere with it.

    In front of the cafe, Willi swung himself off the coach before it had
even stopped, and gave the coachman a generous tip, so much that he
could have hired a carriage himself for the same amount. The coachman's gratitude still left something to be desired, but he was amiable
enough.
    The card party was still assembled and now included the consul's
girlfriend, Fraulein Mitzi Rihoscheck-a stately-looking woman with
excessively black eyebrows but otherwise not too highly made up, wearing a light summer dress and a flat-brimmed straw hat with a red band on
her brown, well-waved hair. She sat next to the consul, one arm thrown
across the back of his chair, watching his cards. He did not look up as
Willi approached the table, yet the lieutenant could feel that the consul
was at once aware of his arrival.
    "Missed the train!" observed Greising.
    "By half a minute," answered Willi.
    "That's the way it goes," remarked Wimmer, and dealt the cards.
    Flegmann was just excusing himself, having lost three times in a
row with a small bet against a large one. Elrief was still in, though he had
not a kreuzer left. A heap of bills lay in front of the consul.
    "Big stakes tonight!" said Willi, and immediately bet ten gulden instead of the five he had intended.