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But his plan was easier said than done. He took pains to fall down; the knees of the spectators held up his hump. His face was a death mask already, his crooked legs gave way, instead of his mouth, which was much too small, his nose breathed its last, his tightly closed eyes came open, stark and sightless. The preparations were premature, the plan ran aground on his hump. Fischerle heard the reproaches heaped upon him. It was a sin and a shame for the poor Baron. For a pearl necklace; as if it was worth it. The terrible shock to the young baroness. Poor woman, she'd never be the same again; no husband left. Maybe she'd marry again. No one could force her. A dwarf would get twenty years. Capital punishment ought to be re-introduced. Cripples ought to be exterminated. All criminals are cripples. No, all cripples are criminals. What's he got to look so silly for, like a hick come up for the day? Why can't he earn an honest penny. Taking bread out of people's mouths. What's he want with pearls, a cripple like him, and that Jew nose ought to be cut off. Fischerle was wild; all this talk of pearl necklaces, like blind men talking about colour! Ah, if he only ad one.

Then suddenly the strangers' knees caved in, his hump was released, at long last he sank to the ground. With his sightless eyes he soon ascertained that they had abandoned him. Even while they were abusing him, the crush had seemed less. The cry: 'The cripple!' sounded even louder, but now in the direction of the church. "There, look what you've done,' he said reproachfully, stood up and looked round at the few fans left to him. 'That's the one you want.' Their eyes followed his right hand, which indicated the church; with his left he rapidly gleaned three pockets, contemptuously threw away the comb, the only thing he found, and took to his heels. 

Fischerle never discovered to whom he owed his miraculous escape. At the accustomed place, in company with the others, the Fishwife had waited for him, and to her alone the waiting had seemed too long.

For the sewerman never noticed at all how long his employer was away. He could stand on his two feet for hours at a time, and think of nothing whatever. Time never passed too quickly or too slowly for him. All other men remained strangers to him, for they were either dawdling or hurrying. His wife called him, his wife sent him off to work, his wife received him home again. She was his clock and time of day. He felt at his best when he was drunk, because then time was abolished for other people too.

The blind man whiled away his waiting-time like a king. The large tip yesterday had gone to his head; he hoped for an even larger one today. Moreover he was soon going to retire from the firm of Siegfried Fischer and, with the large sums he had earned, establish an emporium. It must be of vast dimensions, say for ninety saleswomen. He d make his own selection. None under thirteen stone stood a chance. He was the boss and could take on whom he liked. He paid the biggest salaries; he whisked away the heaviest ones from all competitors. Wherever a fat woman might be, she would be sure to hear the true rumour, at Johann Schwer's emporium you get the biggest pay. The proprietor, once a blind man, is a keen-eyed gentleman. He treats every single employee like his own wife. She can snap her fingers at other men and come to him. In his emporium you can buy everything: pommade, real tortoiseshell combs, hair nets, clean handkerchiefs, gent's hats, dog biscuits, dark glasses, pocket mirrors, anything you like. Not buttons. In the windows hang huge notices:
NO BUTTONS SOLD HERE.

The hawker, on the other hand, was still hunting in the church for morphia drugs. Their proximity made him sleepy. At intervals he came across the secret parcel, but he knew he hadn't really got it, he was too clever.

All three men were silent.

The Fishwife alone expressed an increasing anxiety. Something's happened to Fischerle. He's not coming yet and he's such a little chap. He always does what he says. Five minutes, he said, he'd be back. There was an accident in the early papers this morning; she thought of Fischerle at once. Two steam engines ran into each other. One was killed on the spot. The other was taken to hospital, seriously injured. She'd better go and see. If he hadn't told her not to, she'd go. They've set on him because he's the chief. He makes a lot of money and carries it with him. She says, he's a big shot. His wife put them up to it, because he doesn't care for her. She's too old for him. Let him get a divorce, any girl under the Stars of Heaven would have him. It's black with people in front of the church. Fischerle must have been run over. She'll just go and have a look see. The others must stay where they are. He can create, proper. His eyes, she's frightened of them. He looks at her, she'd like to run away, she can't. What about the other three, he's the boss. They ought to be frightened too. Under the wheel he lies. His hump is squashed. Fischerle's lost his chessboard. He's looking for it in the Theresianum because he's the world champion. Then he gets in a rage and gets excited. She'll have him ill yet. She'll have to nurse him. This very morning she felt it in her bones. It was in the papers. He never reads them any more. Now she'll go see; now she'll go see.

After every sentence she stopped, and anxiously wrinkled her brow. She walked up and down, waggled her hump, and when she had collected up some more words, went up to her colleagues and whispered them loudly. She could tell that they were all as worried as she was. Not even the blind man said a word, and he knew how to talk when he was in a good temper. All by herself she wanted to look for Fischerle and was afraid the others would come after her. 'I'll be back at once!' she called two or three times as she made off, the further the louder. The men didn't budge; in spite of her fears, she was overjoyed. She would find Fischerle. He must not fret himself about his employees on top of his other fearful misfortunes. He had told them, they were to wait.

Softly she crept round to the square in front of the church. She had long since got round the corner; instead of hurrying, she slackened her naturally minute footsteps and twisted her little head anxiously, backwards. If the hawker or the sewerman or that button-fellow followed her, she'd stop dead, just like the car which had run over Fischerle, and say: 'I'm only looking.' When they went back she would move again. Sometimes she waited a minute: she thought she'd seen a pair of trousers behind the church, but there weren't any, so she crept on. Not for a long time had she seen so many people together. If everyone bought a paper she'd have money for a week. But the whole bundle was lying under the Stars of Heaven; she had no time for papers to-day because she'd got her job with Fischerle. He paid twenty schillings a day, of his own accord, he would have it that way because it was a big firm. She hid herself, so as to find him; she made herself even smaller; somewhere on the ground he'd be lying. She heard his voice. Why couldn't she see him; She stroked the ground with her hand. 'He's not as small as all that,' she whispered and shook her head. She was already in the midst of the crowd, and because she was stooping nothing but her hump could be seen. How would she ever find him among all these big people? All crushed her at once; they must be crushing him too; Fischerle had been crushed to death, they must let him go! He can't breathe, he suffocates, it'll be the end of him!

Suddenly somebody shrieks next to her: 'The cripple!' and hits her on the hump. Others shriek too, others hit her. The crowd falls upon her, they had been too far off to hit Fischerle, they pay with interest now. The Fishwife falls to the ground. She lies on her belly and keeps quite still. They mess her up terribly. They go for the hump, but hit her everywhere. From all over the place the crowd gathers together round her. No doubt about the genuineness of the hump. The crowd breaks over it. As long as she can, the Fishwife trembles for Fischerle's fate and gasps: 'He's all I've got in the world.' Then she loses consciousness.

All was well with Fischerle. Behind the church he found, of his four employees, three waiting for him; the Fishwife was not there. 'Where is she?' he asked and held out his hand, flat, just at the height of his stomach. He meant the little one. 'Absconded,' answered the hawker promptly; he slept light. 'Of course,' said Fischerle, 'a woman; she can't wait; she's got something to do; she's busy; she's lost her money, she's ruined, all women are abortions.' 'You leave my women alone, Mr. Fischerle!' interjected the blind man, threateningly. 'My women aren't abortions. Speak civil.' He almost began to describe his emporium. One glance at lus competitors convinced him of a cleverer way. 'At my place, buttons are prohibited, by order of the police!' he said, merely, and fell silent. 'Gone,' mouthed the sewerman. This powerful response, at length formulated, referred back to Fischerle's first question.

But the chief composed his face in perturbed folds. His head sank on his bosom and his wide-open eyes filled with tears. Disconsolately he gazed from one to the other and said nothing. With his right hand he smote, not his forehead, but his nose, and his crooked legs trembled as violently as his voice when at length he spoke. 'Gentlemen,' he whispered,'I'm a ruined man. My partner has — a spasm of indignation shook his expressive body — 'cheated me. Tell you what — he's stopped payment and taken my money to the police! The sewerman's my witness!' He paused for confirmation. The sewerman nodded, however, only after some minutes. In the interval the emporium collapsed, burying ninety saleswomen. The church fell in ana whatever dangerous drugs were inside it, or ought to have been inside it, were destroyed. Sleep could no longer be thought of. When the debris was cleared away, they found in the cellars of the emporium a colossal collection of buttons.

Excited and moved, Fischerlc sought in his trouser pockets. His distress at his own ruin had fled; he had worked himself into a heat as he spoke and forgot the immensity of the disaster so far as it affected him personally. He was the embodied Helping Hand; far more than with nis own fate, was he concerned with that of his friends. He knew how empty his pockets were. He turned the torn lining of the left-hand one inside out; in the right-hand one he found to his amazement a schilling and a button. He drew out both — no good spoiling the ship for a ha porth of tar — and croaked, ecstatic: 'I'll share my last schilling with you! Four employees and the chief; that's five in all. Twenty groschen each. I'll keep the Fishwife's for her, because the schilling's mine. Maybe I'll meet her. Who's got change?' After complicated calculations — for no one had a whole schilling in change — the share-out was at least partially accomplished. The hawker got the schilling and gave up his sixty groschen. In return he contracted a debt of twenty groschen to the sewerman, who had nothing to give to his wife and therefore had not the smell of a pennypiece about him. Out of the hawker's change, the blind man took his single, and Fischerle his double portion. 'You can laugh!' said Fischerle, who was the only one laughing. 'I can make myself small with twenty groschen in my pocket; you ve got your work; rich, you are! But I ve got my pride; I'm like that. I'd like everyone in the Stars of Heaven to say: Fischerle's gone, but he had a noble mind!'

'Where shall we find another chess champion?' wailed the hawker, 'now I'm the only champion, at cards.' In his pocket the heavy schilling danced lightly. The blind man stood there motionless; he had closed his eyes from habit, he was still holding his hand out from habit. His portion, two nickel pieces, lay on it, neavy and stiff, like their new master. Fischerle laughed:'Another champion, at cards!' It seemed comical to him that the world chess champion should be talking to such people, a sewerman with a wife and family, a hawker with insomnia, a suicide on account of buttons. He noticed the outstretched hand, quickly put the button in it and shook himself with laughter. 'Good-bye all!' he crowed, 'and be good, folks, be good!' The blind man opened his eyes and saw the button; he had sensed something and wanted to convince himself of the opposite. Shocked to death he stared after him. Fischerle turned round and called: 'Good-bye, till we meet in a better world, dear friend, don't take it to heart!' Then he hurried off, the fellow was just the kind who mightn't see a joke. In a side street he had his laugh out because men are such fools. He slipped into a doorway, put his hands under his hump, and swayed to left and right. His nose ran, the nickel pieces jingled, his hump ached, he hadn t laughed so much in all his life; he laughed for at least a quarter of an hour. Before he went on, he wiped his nose on the wall, poked it into his armpits and sniffed once at each. Stowed in there was his capital.