He tried to imagine the straits of the fallen inventor. He managed to picture a horribly shaggy and dishevelled head, surrounded by dismal paper walls like those in a film. There is no furniture, only a mattress in the corner, and a pitiful model made of spools, nails, and match-ends on the table. A murky window looks out on a little yard. Upon this scene of unspeakable indigence enters a visitor in rich furs. “I have come to have a look at your invention.” The half-blind inventor fails to recognize his old schoolfellow. He humbly bows his tousled head, looks about for a seat to offer to his guest, and then, oh Heaven! with his poor, stiff, shaking fingers he tries to get his sorry invention going—it’s some crazy perpetual motion device—and mumbles confusedly that it should work, and certainly would work, if only he had . . . if only he could buy. . . . The fur-coated visitor looks all around the garret, and suddenly he takes a leather wallet from his pocket and lays on the table one, two (Mr. Bondy takes fright and cries “That’s enough!”) three thousand-crown notes. (“One would have been quite enough . . . to go on with, I mean,” protests something in Mr. Bondy’s brain.)

“There is . . . something to carry on the work with, Mr. Marek. No, no, you’re not in any way indebted to me. Who am I? That doesn’t matter. Just take it that I am a friend.”

Bondy found this scene very pleasant and touching.

“I’ll send my secretary to Marek,” he resolved; “to-morrow without fail. And what shall I do today? It’s a holiday; I’m not going to the works. My time’s my own . . . a wretched state things are in! Nothing to do all day long! Suppose I went round to-day myself.”

G. H. Bondy hesitated. It would be a bit of an adventure to go and see for oneself how that queer fellow was struggling along in Břevnov.

“After all, we were such chums! And old times have their claim on one. Yes, I’ll go!” decided Mr. Bondy. And he went.

He had rather a boring time while his car was gliding all over Břevnov in search of a mean hovel bearing the number 1651. They had to inquire at the police-station.

“Marek, Marek,” said the inspector, searching his memory. “That must be Marek the engineer, of Marek and Co., the electric lamp factory, 1651, Mixa Street.”

The electric lamp factory! Bondy felt disappointed, even annoyed. Rudy Marek wasn’t living up in a garret, then! He was a manufacturer and wanted to sell some invention or other “for personal reasons.” If that didn’t smell of bankruptcy, his name wasn’t Bondy.

“Do you happen to know how Mr. Marek is doing?” he asked the police inspector, with a casual air, as he took his seat in the car.