Mysteries Read Online Free Page A

but I won’t begrudge you twenty-five. I’m raising your wages. There!”
    “Please, don’t torture me anymore, I won’t do it.”
    “You won’t do it? You refuse?”
    “God in heaven, won’t you ever stop and leave me alone! I’m not going to humor you anymore for the sake of that coat, I’m a human being, after all. What do you want with me?”
    “Now let me tell you something. As you can see, I’m flicking this bit of cigar ash into your glass, right? And I take this ordinary match here and that trifle of a match there and drop them into the same glass as you watch. There! And now I guarantee you that you will drink your glass to the dregs, despite everything. Yes, you will.”
    Miniman jumped up. Visibly trembling, his gray hair again falling over his eyes, he looked the deputy squarely in the face. This went on for several seconds.
    “No, that’s too much, that’s too much!” the peasant woman cries out. “Don’t do it! Ha-ha-ha! Lord help me, the way you go on!”
    “So you won’t? You refuse?” asks the deputy. He, too, gets up and remains standing.
    Miniman made an effort to speak, but couldn’t utter a word. Everybody was looking at him.
    Then, suddenly, Nagel rises from his table by the window, puts his paper down and walks across the room. He takes his time and makes no noise, and yet he attracts everybody’s attention. Stopping beside Miniman, he puts his hand on his shoulder and says in a loud, clear voice, “If you pick up your glass and throw it in the face of that cub over there, I’ll give you ten kroner in cash and save you from all possible consequences.” He pointed straight at the deputy’s face and repeated: “I mean that cub there.”
    Suddenly there was dead silence. Terror-stricken, Miniman looked from one to the other and said, “But—oh, but—?” He got no further, but repeated his words in a trembling voice again and again, as if asking a question. Nobody else said anything. Bewildered, the deputy backed off a step and found his chair; he had turned white as a sheet and could say nothing, like the rest. He was all agape.
    “I repeat,” Nagel went on, in a loud, deliberate voice, “that I’ll give you ten kroner if you throw your glass into that cub’s face. I’m holding the money right here, in my hand. You shouldn’t worry about the consequences.” And, in fact, Nagel did hold out a ten-krone bill so Miniman could see it.
    But Miniman behaved very strangely. He immediately slipped away to a corner of the café, running with short, crooked steps, and sat down there without answering. His head bowed, he looked furtively in every direction, repeatedly pulling up his knees as if terrified.
    Then the door opened and the hotel keeper came back in. He began puttering with his own things by the counter and paid no attention to what was going on around him. Only when the deputy jumped up and raised both his arms with a furious, nearly voiceless yell in front of Nagel, did he notice and ask, “What on earth—?”
    But nobody answered. The deputy gave a couple of wild blows, but each time ran up against Nagel’s fists. He was getting nowhere. Goaded on by his bad luck, he foolishly beat the air as if trying to fight off the world, until he finally lurched sideways toward the tables, tumbled against a stool and fell to his knees. He breathed heavily, and his whole figure was altered beyond recognition by rage; what’s more, he had numbed his arms knocking against that pair of sharp fists shooting up wherever he gave a blow. At this point pandemonium broke loose in the café; the peasant woman and her party fled toward the exits, while the rest yelled in chorus and tried to intervene. Finally the deputy gets on his legs again and walks up to Nagel, stops and screams, his hands extended straight in front of him—screams in ludicrous despair at not finding the right words, “You confounded—you damn dude—oh, go to hell!”
    Nagel looked at him and smiled, walked