Here Furst could not resist making a little joke. He announced himself
by a chuckle-like the click of a clock about to strike.

"He's got to make the most of his liberty. He doesn't often get off
duty. We know, we know." He laughed tonelessly, and winked at Krafft.

Krafft quoted:

In der Woche zwier--

"Now, you fellows, shut up!" said Schilsky. It was plain that banter
of this kind was not disagreeable to him; at the same time he was just
at the moment too engrossed, to have more than half an car for what
was said. With his short-sighted eyes close to the paper, he was
listening with all his might to some harmonies that his fingers played
on the table. When, a few minutes later he rose and stretched the
stiffness from his limbs, his face, having lost its expression of rapt
concentration, seemed suddenly to have grown younger. He set about
dressing himself by drawing off his nightshirt over his head. At a
word from him, Furst sprang to collect utensils for making coffee.
Heinrich Krafft opened his eyes and followed their movements; and the
look he had for Schilsky was as warily watchful as a cat's.

Schilsky, an undeveloped Hercules--he was narrow in proportion to his
height--and still naked to the waist, took some bottles from a long
line of washes and perfumes that stood on the washstand, and,
crossing to an elegant Venetian-glass mirror, hung beside the window,
lathered his chin. It was a peculiarity of his only to be able to
attend thoroughly to one thing at a time, and a string of witticisms