CHAPTER XL
It continued to rain. Armed with a white flag, the fat cousin arrived to propose to Prokop that he should give in; in return he should get back his laboratory. Prokop announced that he would not do so, that before that he would allow himself to be blown into the air. Further, that he was going to do something; let them wait and see! On receiving this dark threat the cousin withdrew. In the castle they were evidently very displeased at the fact that the proper entrance was blockaded, but did not make a fuss about it.
Dr. Krafft, the pacifist, was overflowing with wild and belligerent proposals. He wanted to cut off the current from the castle and cut off their water supply; to manufacture some sort of poison gas, and release it in the castle. Holz had discovered a lot of old newspapers; he produced a pair of pince-nez from some mysterious pocket and spent the whole day in reading, looking extraordinarily like a university lecturer. Prokop was painfully bored; he was burning to take some military step but did not know how to set about it. Finally he left Holz to guard the little house and went out with Krafft into the park.
There was nobody to be seen in it; the enemy’s forces were concentrated in the castle. He walked
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