The Eternal Philistine Read Online Free PDF

least bit perturbed.
    “Hey there!” he called out to him. “Pardon me, but I had such a dreadful taste in my mouth. Speaking of which, I heard you sold the clunker. Congratulations!”
    “Thanks,” said Kobler meekly, and waited angrily for him to try and mooch some money off of him. “How come every crook already knows about me cheating Portschinger?” he asked himself desperately. He thought, “Just try and mooch some money off me, and I’ll smash in your unsavory face!”
    But quite the opposite happened. The count placed ten Reichsmarks on the table with a chivalrous gesture. “Much obliged,” he smiled suavely, and kept gurgling like nothing special had happened. “It seems,” he remarked casually, “you’ve forgotten that you loaned me ten marks.”
    “What a day!” thought Kobler.
    “I can pay you back today without any problems because tonight,” the count continued, “I’m going to do some inheriting. You see, my great-uncle, who is ten months younger than me, is dying. He’s got cancer. The poor guy’s suffering terribly. Cancer is incurable, you know. We still don’t even know whether it’s a bug or a tumor. He won’t make it through the night, that much is certain. I’ll go to Sopot once he’s been relieved of his suffering. No, not through Poland, but up and around.”
    “Does Sopot still belong to Germany?” inquired Kobler.
    “No, Sopot is in the Free State of Danzig, which reports directly to the League of Nations,” lectured the count. “By the way, if I were you, I’d take a trip now too. You couldn’t invest your six hundred any better. If you do it like me, you just spend ten days in a luxury hotel, meet some rich woman and then everything else will fall into place real easy like. You really do make a good appearance. You’ll have the most fabulous connections for the rest of your life, guaranteed. You still remember the tall Kammerlocher, right? You know, the one who used to be with the lancers, the aspiring cadet, the one who skipped out on the bill at the Maxim Bar? He went to Merano with a whopping two hundred Schillings, put himself up in a luxury hotel there, and on that very same evening engaged an Egyptian broad with a few pyramids for a Boston waltz, flirted with her, and then wound up marrying her because he had debauched her. Now he owns half of Egypt. And what did he have? He didn’t have anything. And who had he been? He had been a pervert. He used to put on long, silk stockings and look at his legs in the mirror. A narcissist!”
    “I’ve still got to think long and hard about the best way to spend my money,” said Kobler pensively. “I’m no narcissist,” he added. Kammerlocher’s long legs, the luxury hotel, and the pyramids had slightly discombobulated him. He mechanically offered the count one of his eight-pfennig cigarettes.
    “Those are Macedonians,” said the count. “I’ll just go ahead and take two.”
    They were smoking.
    “I’m definitely going to Sopot,” repeated the count.
    The clock struck eleven.
    “It’s already twelve,” said the count. He was very dishonest.
    Then he suddenly got nervous.
    “Well, then, so I’m going to Sopot,” he repeated once again. “I’ll do some gambling there. You see, I’ve got a system that’s founded on the laws of probability. You always bet on the number that’s most likely to come up. You’ll likely win. It’s very likely. On the subject of likely, let me have back those ten marks. I just realized that it would be best if I got them back to you tomorrow, otherwise I won’t be able to pick up my laundry. I had to borrow one of your handkerchiefs earlier.”

CHAPTER 5
    PERZL BROUGHT KOBLER THE FRESH TOWEL WHILE he was shaving. “All’s well that ends well,” she said triumphantly. “I’m very grateful to you for finally ushering out that count with such vigor. I’m so happy that I’ll never have to see that pimp again!”
    “Shut your face, Perzl!” thought Kobler. He