Well, then, the drop of water entitled Hradec Králové is memorable to the chronicler because he used to race about in it like a tiny organism, as an infusorian of the grammar school there, and not surprisingly thought it the universe; but enough of that.

The Greatest War found Hradec Králové armed with only a single Karburator, and that was in the brewery still standing to this day behind the Church of the Holy Spirit, which is next to the residence of the Canons. Perhaps it was this hallowed environment which reacted on the Absolute in such a way that it began to brew a plentiful and ardently Catholic beer and thereby brought the citizens of Hradec to a condition in which the deceased Bishop Brynch would have taken sincere pleasure.

However, Hradec Králové is too close to the railway, and so it very soon fell into the hands of the Prussians, who in their Lutheran fury destroyed the Karburator in the brewery. Nevertheless, mindful of its historical continuity, Hradec maintained an agreeable religious temperature, especially when the enlightened Bishop Linda took over the diocese. And even when the Bobinets, the Turks, and the Chinese came, Hradec did not lose its proud consciousness that (i) it had the best amateur theatre in all Eastern Bohemia; (ii) it had the tallest steeple in Eastern Bohemia; (iii) the pages of its local history contained the greatest battle in Eastern Bohemia. Heartened by these reflections, Hradec Králové withstood the most terrible trials of the Greatest War.

When the Mandarin Empire collapsed, the city was under the government of that circumspect Burgomaster, Mr. Skocdopole. Amid the prevailing anarchy his administration was blessed with comparative peace, thanks to the wise counsels of Bishop Linda and the Worshipful City Fathers. But one fine day there came to the city a poor tailor, Hampl by name; he was, Heaven help us, a native of Hradec, but he had knocked about the world ever since childhood and had even served with the Foreign Legion in Algeria—in fact, an adventurer. He marched with Bobinet’s troops to the conquest of India, but deserted near Baghdad, and had slipped like a needle through the lines of the Bashi-Bazouks, French, Swedes and Chinese, back to his native city.

Well, this Hampl, the little tailor, had caught a whiff of Bobinetism, and as soon as he got back to Hradec he thought of nothing but how he could seize command. Stitching away at clothes didn’t suit him any longer, thank you; so he began agitating and criticizing, saying that one thing and another was not right, that the whole City Council was under the thumb of the parsons, and what about that money in the Savings Bank, and Mr. Skocdopole was an incapable old dodderer, and what not. Wars, unfortunately, bring with them a demoralization and a weakening of all authority, and so Hampl found several followers and with their assistance founded the Social-Revolutionary Party.