Chapter I: Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes

Misspelled words have been corrected. These are identified by ♦, ♣
symbols in the text. The change description is shown immediately
below the paragraph or section in which the correction appears.

Details and other notes may be found at the end of this text.

EMIL
AND THE DETECTIVES

_A Story for Children_

BY

ERICH KÄSTNER

Translated by

MAY MASSEE

ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER TRIER

Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Garden City New York

COPYRIGHT, 1929, 1930

BY DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
But the Story Does Not Begin Yet 1
I Emil Helps to Shampoo 35
II Policeman Jeschke Keeps Still 45
III The Trip to Berlin Can Start 53
IV A Dream in Which There Is Much Running 63
V Emil Gets Off at the Wrong Station 75
VI Street Car Line 177 85
VII Excitement in Schumann Street 95
VIII The Boy with the Auto Horn Turns up 101
IX The Detectives Assemble 113
X A Taxi Is Trailed 125
XI A Spy Slips into the Hotel 139
XII A Green Elevator Boy Bursts from His Cocoon 147
XIII Herr Grundeis Acquires a Guard of Honor 157
XIV Pins Have Their Good Points Too 167
XV Emil Visits Police Headquarters 177
XVI The Police Commissioner Sends His Regards 195
XVII Frau Tischbein Is All Excited 205
XVIII Can Anything Be Learned from It All? 219

ILLUSTRATIONS

Emil himself 15
Frau Friseuse Tischbein, Emil’s mother 17
A rather important train compartment 19
The man in the stiff hat 21
Pony Hütchen, Emil’s cousin 23
The hotel ♦on Nollendorf Place 25
The boy with the automobile horn 27 The little branch bank 29
Emil’ grandmother 31
The composing room of a great paper 33
Herr Grundeis slept and snored a bit 59
Emil ran away as fast as he could 69
“There, what do you say?” asked Gustav, his face all smiles 109
Little Dienstag noted it all down conscientiously 133
The ♣reporters had many questions to ask 189
Pony Hütchen ran from one to the other pouring chocolate 215

♦ “in” replaced with “on” ♣ “reporter” replaced with “reporters”

THIS EXPLAINS ABOUT SOME OF THE NAMES

There is no need to tell you that we like this story and believe you will like it too or we would not have translated it for you. But there is need for a word about the German names.

One of the ways to play with any language is to make up names that sound like real names when you roll them around on your tongue or that are real names, but perhaps are used as puns or in some way that pokes a little fun. You remember Henry Hagglyhoagly in the _Rootabaga Stories_? That name has a nice amusing sound and makes you know right away that Mr. Sandburg was enjoying himself when he invented it.

In the story about Emil we think Mr. Kästner has entertained himself in naming his people. Some of the names have no special meaning, but some of them have—and they all have a good German sound. So we have left the names just as they are in the German version. We thought you might like to pronounce them.

But so that you can know what some of the names stand for, if you want to, we are giving you the meanings here in the order in which the names appear in the book. If you read this through, you will understand the names when you come to them.

First you must know that _Herr_ is Mr., _Frau_ is Mrs., and _Fräu-lein_ is Miss. Then you must remember that _e_ is often pronounced like long _a_ and that _i_ is often pronounced like long _e_ so that _Emil_ is pronounced as if it began with a long _a_. It’s a good name. _Pe-ter-sil-ie_ means Parsley—a nice silly name in any language. _Di-a-mant-en Wasch-frau Leh-mann_ means Mrs. Lehmann who washes the diamonds. _Fie-del-bo-gen_ means Fiddle bow. _Nie-ten-führ_ means Riveter, and there’s point in that name as you will see. _Neu-ge-bau-ers_ means New builders. _Tisch-bein_ means Table leg. _Frau Fri-seu-se Tisch-bein_ is supposed to be rather elegant because _Friseuse_ is the French word. It means Hairdresser. _Klemp-ner-mei-ster_ means Master plumber. _Pony Hüt-chen_ means Pony Little cap, a pet name, of course. She is sort of staunch like a pony and rather saucy. _Müller_ is Miller. _Bäc-ker-mei-ster Wirth_ is really two names like a hyphenated name. _Bäckermeister_ means Master baker and _Wirth_ means Landlord—naturally a very important person. _Nau-mann_ is Newman. _Fleisch-er-mei-ster_ is Head butcher. _Grund-eis_ is Ground ice. _Kurz-hals_ is Short neck. _Neu-stadt_ is New city. _Diens-tag_ is Tuesday and means service day or sort of office day, so you’ll see the little _Dienstag_ was well named. _Krumm-biegel_ means Bandy legged. _Stuhl-bein_ means Chair leg, _Fisch-bein_ means Fish leg and _Über-bein_ means Extra leg. These names would not sound like names if they were translated, but in German they all sound like ordinary names. Only when you stop to think what they mean you can’t help smiling a little. They’re a sort of joke on German names. So we have left them just as they are and hope you will enjoy them with the story.

It only remains to give heartfelt thanks to Donald Robinson who corrected the whole translation as if it were a school exercise and to Rosika Schwimmer and Gretchen Gugler who read the corrected translation very carefully and gave much help with idioms and slang and to Ernest Reichl who found this book for us.

MAY MASSEE. Garden City, New York. August, 1930.

But the Story Does Not Begin Yet

I might as well tell you—this affair of Emil’s was a great surprise to me. As a matter of fact, I wanted to write an entirely different book: a book in which tigers would gnash their teeth and date palms rattle their coconuts in sheer terror! And the little black and white checked cannibal maid who swam across the Pacific Ocean to get herself a toothbrush from Drinkwater & Company in San Francisco was to be called Petersilie. By her first name only, of course.

A real South Sea romance was what I had in mind. Because once a man with a Santa Claus beard told me that was what you would like best to read.

And the first three chapters were all finished to the last dot. The chieftain, Carrion Crow, also called the Fast Mail, was just cocking his knife, piled high with baked apple, aiming in cold blood and counting as fast as he could to three hundred and ninety-seven....

All of a sudden, I didn’t know how many legs has a whale! I stretched myself flat on the floor, because I can always meditate better that way, and I thought it over. But this time it didn’t help a bit. I looked through the encyclopedia. I searched all through the “W” volume—not a word about it. And I had to know for certain if I was going to write any more. I absolutely had to _know_.

Because unless at this very moment the whale with the twisted leg were to come walking out of the primeval forest, the chieftain, Carrion Crow, also called the Fast Mail, could not possibly hit him.

And if he didn’t hit the whale with his baked apples, then the tiny black and white cannibal maid called Petersilie would never in her life meet the Diamanten-Waschfrau Lehmann.

And if Petersilie didn’t meet Frau Lehmann she never would receive the exchange coupon which you had to present to Drinkwater & Company in San Francisco if you wanted to get a brand-new shiny toothbrush free. Yes, and then....

My South Sea romance—and I had been so pleased over it—wrecked as it were on the legs of a whale! I hope you understand. I was frightfully sorry. And when I told Fräulein Fiedelbogen about it she almost wept. Only she really didn’t have time just then, because she had to set the table for supper, so she postponed the weeping till later. And then she forgot all about it. Just like a woman!

I wanted to call the book _Petersilie in the Jungle_. A swell title, wasn’t it? But at present the first three chapters are lying at home under the leg of the table to keep it from wobbling. And I ask you, is that the right sort of an occupation for a romance that started in the South Seas?

The head waiter, Nietenführ, with whom I frequently talk over my work, inquired a few days later whether I really ever had been down there.

“Down where?” I asked him.

“Why, in the South Seas and Australia and Sumatra and Borneo and around.”

“No,” I said, “but why?”

“Because a man can write only about things he knows and has seen,” he answered coldly.

“I beg to differ, my dear Nietenführ.”

“But that’s as clear as thick ink,” he went on. “The Neugebauers—they live right here in our neighborhood—actually had a little servant girl who had never watched anybody roast a fowl. And last Christmas she was supposed to be roasting the goose while Frau Neugebauer was doing her shopping, and when she came home there was a pretty mess! The girl had put the goose in the oven just as it had been bought in the market. Not singed, not cut open, not cleaned. There was a horrible stench, I can tell you.”

“What of it?” I answered, “and from that do I infer that you think roasting geese and writing books are one and the same thing? Do not be offended, dear Nietenführ, but I can’t help laughing at that.”

He waited for me to be through with my laughing. It didn’t take very long either. And then he said, “Your South Seas, and your man eaters, and your coral reefs—the whole show—that is your goose. And the story—that is your oven in which the Pacific Ocean and little Petersilie and the tigers are going to be cooked. And if you don’t know how to cook such a kittle-kettle, then there will be a glorious smell. Just as there was for the little servant girl at the Neugebauers’.”

“But that is exactly the way most authors do write!” I shouted.

“I wish them good appetites.” That was all he said.

I brooded over that for a while. Then I opened the conversation again. “Herr Nietenführ, do you know Schiller?”

“Schiller? Do you mean the Schiller who is foreman at the Castle Brewery?”

“Not at all,” I said, “but the poet Friedrich von Schiller, who wrote a lot of plays for the theater, over a hundred years ago.”

“Oh, yes, that Schiller! The one with all those monuments!”

“Right. Once he wrote a piece about what happened in Switzerland. It is called _William Tell_. School children always had to write exercises about it.”

“We did too,” said Nietenführ. “I know that Tell. It’s a great play, all right. You have to hand Schiller that. Give him what’s coming to him. But the questions they asked us about it were frightful. I remember one now. It was—‘Why did not Tell tremble when he aimed at the apple?’ I got a Five in that one. But then tests were never my——”

“Yes, yes, but now let me have the floor,” I said. “And, mark you, although Schiller never was in Switzerland in his whole life, still, that play of William Tell is Swiss to the last comma.”

“He’d probably read his cook books beforehand,” commented Nietenführ.

“Cook books?”

“Certainly. Where you find everything: How high the mountains of Switzerland are. And when the snow melts. And how it is when there’s a terrible storm on Lake Lucerne. And how it was when the peasants started a revolt against Governor Gessler.”

“You’re exactly right,” I said, “that’s certainly what Schiller did.”

“You see,” Nietenführ explained to me, as he flicked at a fly with his napkin, “you see, if you do the same and read your books beforehand, then of course you can write your kangaroo story of Australia too.”

“But that isn’t what I want to do at all. If I had the money I’d like to go there and see everything for myself. On the spot! But read books—bah!”

“Then I’ll give you an A-1 piece of advice,” he said. “It’s always best to write about the things you know yourself. For instance, subways and hotels and such things. And the children that run right before your nose every day and are just like what we used to be.”

“But the man with the Santa Claus beard who knew children like his own vest pocket told me emphatically that they didn’t like such stories.”

“Fiddlesticks!” snapped Herr Nietenführ. “You depend on what I tell you. I have children of my own. Two boys and a little girl. And on my day off I tell them about everything that happens right here in this place: If someone skips without paying his check, or once, of a man who was squiffed and made a grab for the cigarette boy but slapped a fine lady who happened to be going by, instead. Then my children listen, let me tell you, as if it was thundering in the cellar.”

“Well, if you think for a moment, Herr Nietenführ——” I said angrily.

“Just so, and you can take poison on that, Herr Kästner,” he called, as he vanished because a guest was rapping his knife sharply against his glass, wanting to pay his bill.

And so, simply because Headwaiter Nietenführ wanted it, I have written a story about things that we, you and I, have known about for a long time.

* * * * *

First I went back home, hung out of my window awhile, looked up and down Prager Street, and thought perhaps the tale I wanted would pass right by. Then I simply would have beckoned to it and said, “Oh, please, just come up one flight! I would like so much to write you.”

But the story came and came not. And I began to freeze. So I slammed the window down and ran around the table fifty-three times. And that didn’t help.

Finally I stretched myself out on the floor again, just as before, and spent a long time in deep meditation.

When you lie flat on the floor like that, the whole world takes on an entirely different look. You see chair legs, house slippers, flowers in the rug, cigarette ashes, rolls of dust, and table legs. And you even find your left glove under the sofa, the one you were hunting for in the cupboard three days before.

So I lay there looking curiously around, considering how different my surroundings were when seen from below than from above and suddenly I noticed, to my great astonishment, that the chair legs actually had calves, regular strapping dark-colored calves, as if they belonged to a family of little black boys, or to schoolboys with brown stockings.

And while I was still counting the chair legs and table legs to see how many little darkies or schoolboys were really standing around on my rug—this business about Emil came to me! Perhaps because I was just thinking of schoolboys with brown stockings? Or perhaps, instead, because Emil’s family name was Tischbein, too?[1]

At any rate, this affair of his popped into my head at that very moment. I stayed there absolutely quiet. Because thoughts or memories coming to you are just like dogs that are used to being whipped. If you move too suddenly, or if you speak to them, or if you try to pet them—zip—they are gone. And then you can wait for a month of Sundays before they will dare come back to you.

So I lay there without moving and just smiled pleasantly to my sudden inspiration. I wanted to give it courage. And it was so reassured that it almost began to trust me—took one step and another step nearer.... I grabbed it by the nape of the neck. And then I had it!

Only by the nape of the neck, though. That was all at the moment. For it makes a great difference whether it’s a dog you catch by his hair and hold fast or just a story that you are trying to recall. When you grab a dog by the neck you have him there, all of him, for better or for worse: his paws, his muzzle, his little tail, and everything else that belongs to a live dog.

You catch memories quite differently. You catch memories bit by bit. First, perhaps, you grab the topknot. Then in flies the left fore leg; then the right; then the tail end; then a left hind leg—piece by piece, like that. And when you think the story must be all there, presto! In floats another bit of an ear. And finally, if you are lucky, you have the whole thing.

I saw something once in the movies that reminds me of what I have just been describing. A man was standing in a room with nothing on but his shirt. Suddenly the door opened and his trousers flew in. He put those on. Then in whizzed his left shoe. Then his walking stick, then his bow tie. Then his collar. Then his vest, one sock, his other shoe, his hat, his coat, his other sock, his spectacles. It was crazy. But finally the man was all dressed, and everything was in its right place.

That’s just how it went with my story as I lay there in my study and counted table legs and thought about Emil. Probably the same sort of thing often has happened to you. I lay there and caught up the memories that were popping into my head from all sides, as is the way of ideas.

At last I had everything beautifully put together, and the story was done. Now I only had to sit down and write it all out in good order.

Of course, I did that too. For if I hadn’t you would not be holding the finished book about Emil in your hand now. But before that I hastily arranged something quite different. I scribbled down the parts just as they came running at me from the door, until I had them all together—the left shoe, the collar, the stick, the bow tie, the right sock, and so forth.

An adventure story, a romance, a fairy tale—these are all like living creatures, and perhaps they are of a sort. They have heads and legs, circulation and clothes, just like people. And if one of them has no nose on its face or is wearing two shoes that don’t match, you notice it if you look close.

But before I tell you the story as I have put it together, I want to show you the little bombarding force that tossed me the ideas and pieces to make the whole thing clear.

Perhaps you’ll be quick enough to make up the story from the different parts before I tell it to you? That would be a stunt—just as if you were given a pile of building blocks and you had to build a station or a church, and you had no plan, and you weren’t allowed to have one block left over.

It really is something like a test.

Brrr!

Only there’s no one to mark you.

Thank goodness for that!

First: Emil himself.

Second: Frau Friseuse Tischbein, Emil’s mother.

Third: A rather important train compartment.

Fourth: The man in the stiff hat.

Fifth: Pony Hütchen, Emil’s cousin.

Sixth: The hotel on Nollendorf Place.

Seventh: The boy with the automobile horn.

Eighth: The little branch bank.

Ninth: Emil’s grandmother.

Tenth: The composing room of a great paper.

Have you ever passed a newspaper building at night? It rattles and rings and rumbles and the walls shake.

There! Now, at last, we will begin!]

First Chapter

Emil Helps to Shampoo

“There!” said Frau Tischbein. “Now, just follow me with that pitcher of hot water.” She herself took another pitcher and the little blue jug with the liquid camomile soap and walked out of the kitchen into the living room. Emil took up his pitcher and followed his mother.

In the living room sat a woman with her head bent over the white washbowl. Her hair was undone and hung down like three pounds of wool. Emil’s mother poured the liquid camomile soap over the woman’s blonde hair and rubbed the strange head until it foamed.

“Is it too hot?” she said.

“Well, it will do,” replied the head.

“Oh, that’s Frau Bäckermeister Wirth. How do you do?” said Emil and shoved his pitcher under the washstand.

“You’re lucky, Emil. I hear you are going to Berlin,” remarked the head. And it sounded as if whoever was speaking was buried in whipped cream.

“At first he hardly wanted to go,” said his mother, rubbing busily at Frau Wirth’s head. “But why should a boy kill all his time here? He has never seen Berlin. And my sister Martha has invited us for a visit again and again. Her husband earns good money. He is in the post office. Inside work. Of course, I can’t go with him. Before the holidays there is so much to do. But he is big enough, and he must learn to look out for himself. And besides, my mother is meeting him at the Friedrich Strasse Station. They will pick him up at the flower stand.”

“He’s bound to like Berlin. It’s just made for children. We were there a year and half ago with the bowling club. Such a din! There are actually streets there that are just as bright at night as they are in the daytime. And the automobiles!” informed Frau Wirth from the depths of the washbowl.

“A good many foreign cars?” asked Emil.

“How should I know about that?” answered Frau Wirth, and had to sneeze. She’d got some soapsuds up her nose.

“There, run along and get yourself ready,” urged his mother. “I’ve laid out your good suit in the bedroom. Put it on so that we can eat as soon as I’ve done up Frau Wirth’s hair.”

“What shirt shall I wear?” Emil wanted to know.

“Everything is lying on the bed. And pull your stockings up carefully. And first wash yourself thoroughly. And put new laces in your shoes. Trot along, now!”

“Oh, heck!” remarked Emil, and strolled off.

When Frau Wirth had left, all beautifully waved and pleased with her looks in the mirror, Emil’s mother went into the bedroom and found her son wandering about dejectedly.

“Who invented best suits, anyway, can you tell me that?”

“No, I’m sorry. But why do you want to know?”

“Give me his address, and I’ll shoot the bird!”

“It’s too bad about you. Other children are unhappy because they haven’t any good suit. We all have our troubles.... Before I forget it—to-night be sure to ask Aunt Martha for a coat hanger and hang up your suit carefully. First it must be brushed, though. Don’t forget that. And in the morning you can wear your sweater again and this old robber’s jacket. Now, what else? The suitcase is packed. The flowers for Aunt Martha are done up. The money for Grandmother I’ll give you later. And now we’ll eat. Come, young man!”

Frau Tischbein put her arm around Emil’s shoulder and steered him toward the kitchen. There was macaroni with ham and grated Parmesan cheese. Emil ate like a farmhand. Only once in a while he sat back and looked over at his mother as if he feared she might think he had too good an appetite when he was going away so soon.

“And send me a card right away. I put one where you can find it in the suitcase, on top.”

“Sure thing,” said Emil, and scraped a bit of macaroni off his knee as quietly as possible. Fortunately his mother didn’t notice anything.

“Give them all my love. And keep your eyes open. In Berlin things are very different from Neustadt. On Sunday you will go with Uncle Robert to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. And remember your manners, so that people won’t think that we don’t know how to behave.”

“You can trust me,” said Emil.

Dinner over, they went into the sitting room. His mother took a tin box from the cupboard and counted out some money. Then she shook her head and counted it again. Then she asked, “Who was here yesterday afternoon anyway, hm?”

“Fräulein Thomas,” answered Emil, “and Frau Homburg.”

“Yes, but still it doesn’t come out right.” She thought a minute, looked over the piece of paper where she had jotted down her receipts, did some arithmetic, and finally announced, “It’s eight marks short.”

“The gas man was here this morning.”

“Sure enough. Now it comes out right, worse luck.” She gave a little whistle, probably of vexation over her worries, and took three bank notes out of the tin box. “There, Emil! There are a hundred and forty marks. A hundred and twenty for you to give to Grandmother, and twenty for you. Tell Grandmother not to blame me for not sending it before, but I would have run too short. That’s why you are bringing more than usual this time. And give her a kiss. Understand? The twenty marks over is for you. You can buy your return ticket out of that when you’re coming home. That will leave you about ten marks. I’m not just sure. Out of the rest you can pay for what you eat or drink when you go out. Besides, it’s always a good thing to have a few extra marks in your pocket that you don’t need at the moment. Then you’re all right, whatever happens. There! And here is the envelope from Aunt Martha’s letter. I’ll put the notes in here. And be careful not to lose it. What will you do with it?”

She placed the three notes in the neatly opened envelope, folded it in the middle, and gave it to Emil.

Emil thought hard for a minute. Then he put it in his right inside pocket way down, patted himself on the outside of his blue coat to make sure and announced with conviction, “There, that won’t climb out.”

“And don’t tell anybody on the train that you have so much money with you.”

“But, Mummy!” Emil was hurt. To accuse him of such stupidity!

Frau Tischbein put some more money into her pocketbook. Then she took the tin box back to the cupboard and hastily read over the letter from her sister in Berlin giving the exact time of the departure and arrival of Emil’s train....

Probably many of you will think that no one need make such a fuss over a hundred and forty marks as Frau Tischbein was making for Emil’s benefit. And if a person earned two thousand or twenty thousand or maybe a hundred thousand marks a month, of course he wouldn’t have to.

But in case you don’t know it—most people earn far less than that. And whether you like it or not, anyone who earns thirty-five marks a week must think that a hundred and forty marks he has saved is a great deal of money. For lots of people a hundred marks is almost as much as a million. You might say that they write “100” with six ciphers and how much a million really is they cannot imagine even in their dreams.

Emil had no father. So his mother had to dress hair in her sitting room, wash blonde heads and brown heads, and work endlessly to have enough to eat and to pay for gas and coal and the rent and clothes and books and school. Only once in a while she was ill and stayed in bed. Then the doctor would come and prescribe medicine. And then Emil would make hot compresses for his mother and cook for them both. And when she was asleep Emil would mop up the floor with wet flannel rags so that she wouldn’t say, “I must get up. The house is going to rack and ruin.”

I hope you’ll understand and not laugh when I tell you that Emil was a model boy. You see he loved his mother. And he would have been ashamed to death if he had been lazy while she worked and reckoned and worked again. So how could he loaf on his school work or crib from Richard Naumann? How could he skip school even if he had a chance? He saw her tire herself out so that he would not have to do without anything the other school children had. How could he cheat her and give her trouble?

Emil was a model boy. There it is. But he wasn’t one of the sort that can’t be anything else because they’re cowards and stingy and not real boys. He was a model boy because he wanted to be. He had made a resolution, the way people make resolutions not to go to the movies any more, or not to eat any more candy. He had made the resolution, and sometimes it was very hard for him to keep it.

But when he went home at Easter and could say, “Mother, here are my marks, and I am the highest again,” then he was very happy. He liked the praise he got in school and everywhere, not for himself, but because it made his mother happy. He was proud that in his own way he could pay back a little of what she had been doing for him his whole life long....

“Gracious!” said his mother, “we must get to the station. It’s quarter-past one. And the train leaves a little before two.”

“All right, let’s go, Frau Tischbein,” said Emil to his mother, “but I want you to notice that I’m carrying my suitcase myself.”

Second Chapter

Policeman Jeschke Keeps Still

In front of the house Emil’s mother said, “If the horse car comes we’ll ride to the station.”

Which one of you knows how a horse car looks? As it is coming round the corner and stopping because Emil waves to it, I will describe it for you quickly before it waddles on again.

Well—first of all, the horse car is a crazy thing. Furthermore, it runs on rails like a real grown-up street car, and the car is very much like one, but there is just an old cab horse hitched to the front of it. For Emil and his friends the old cab horse was simply a disgrace, and they dreamed of electric cars with wires overhead and underneath, and five spotlights in the front, and three in the rear. Only the Mayor of Neustadt thought that the four-mile run could be made well enough with one living horse power. Up to now there had been no talk of electricity, and the driver had nothing to do with steering wheels and levers. Instead he held the reins in his left hand and the whip in his right. Giddap!

And if a man lived at 12 Town Hall Street and he sat in the horse car and wished to get out, he simply knocked on the glass. Then Mr. Driver went, “Whoa!” and the traveler was home. The real stop was perhaps in front of Number 30 or 46. But that didn’t matter to the Neustadt Street Car Company. It had time. The horse had time. The driver had time. The Neustadt citizens had time. And if anyone happened to be in a special hurry he went on foot....

At the railway station Frau Tischbein and her son got out. And while Emil was fishing his bag off the platform a deep voice boomed behind them, “Well, you must be going to Switzerland.”

That was the chief of police, Jeschke. Emil’s mother answered, “No, my boy is going to relatives in Berlin for a week.” Everything turned suddenly dark blue, almost black, before Emil’s eyes. Because he had a very guilty conscience. Recently a dozen of the schoolboys on the way home from gymnastics on the river meadow had jammed an old felt hat down on the cool head of the monument to the Grand Duke, the one called Karl Crooked Face. And then Emil, because he could draw well, had been boosted up by the others and had to paint a red nose and a pitch-black mustache with colored crayons on the face of the Grand Duke! And while he was painting Officer Jeschke had turned up on the other end of the Square.

The boys had torn off like lightning. But there was the danger that he had recognized them.

However, he said nothing, but wished Emil a pleasant journey and then inquired of his mother about the state of her health and her business.

In spite of that Emil was not quite at ease. As he was carrying his bag across the Square to the station he was weak in the knees. And every minute he feared that Officer Jeschke would growl out suddenly behind him, “Emil Tischbein, you are arrested. Hands up!” But nothing at all happened. Perhaps the officer was just going to wait until Emil came back?

Then his mother bought a ticket at the window, a third-class ticket, naturally, and a platform ticket for herself. And they went to Track Number 1—Neustadt Station has four tracks, if you please—and waited for the train to Berlin. There were only a few minutes left.

“Don’t leave anything, dear! And don’t sit on the flowers. You can ask someone to lift your suitcase up into the baggage rack. But be polite about it and say, ‘Please.’”

“I’ll get my suitcase up myself. I’m no baby.”

“All right, then. Don’t forget to get out. You’ll be in Berlin at six-seventeen. At the Friedrich Strasse Station. Don’t get off before that, at the Zoo Station or some other.”

“Have no fear, young woman.”

“And above all, don’t be as fresh with other people as you are with your mother. Don’t throw the paper on the floor when you eat your sandwiches—and—don’t lose your money!”

Emil clutched his coat and dived into his right-hand breast pocket. Then he breathed a sigh of relief and murmured, “All safe.”

He took his mother’s arm and walked with her up and down the platform.

“And don’t overwork, Mummy! And don’t get sick! You would have nobody to take care of you. I’d take a flying machine on the spot and come home. And write me once in a while. And I’ll stay a week at the most, you know that.” Emil hugged his mother close, and she gave him a kiss on his nose.

Then the train for Berlin came thundering in and stopped. Emil gave his mother just another little squeeze and climbed up into a compartment with his suitcase in his hand. His mother handed him his bouquet and his package of sandwiches and asked if he’d found a seat. He nodded.

“Good, get off at Friedrich Strasse!”

He nodded.

“And your grandmother will be waiting at the flower stand.”

He nodded.

“And take care, you young rascal.”

He nodded.

“And be nice to Pony Hütchen. You probably won’t know each other at all!”

He nodded.

“And write me.”

“You me, too.”

And so probably it would have gone on for hours if there hadn’t been any time-table. The conductor with the red leather bag shouted, “All aboard! All aboard!” The doors clanged shut. The engine pulled out. And off they went.

The mother waved her handkerchief for a long time. Then she turned around slowly and went home. And because she had her handkerchief ready in her hand, as it were, she wept a few tears into it.

But not for long. Because at home Frau Fleischermeister Augustin, was waiting, and she wanted a good thorough shampoo.

Third Chapter

The Trip to Berlin Can Start

Emil took off his cap and said, “How do you do? Maybe there’s an empty seat here?” Of course there was an empty seat. And a fat woman who had taken off her left shoe because it pinched said to her neighbor, a man who puffed frightfully at every breath, “Such polite children are rare nowadays. When I think back on my childhood, my goodness, what a different spirit there was then.” And she wiggled her pinched toes in her left stocking in time with her talking. Emil looked on with interest. And the man could hardly nod for his puffing.

Emil had known for a long time that there are always people who say, “Ah, well, things used to be much better.” So he paid no attention when anyone announced that formerly the air was much more healthful or that the oxen had bigger heads. Because usually what they said wasn’t true, and they belonged to the sort who refuse to be satisfied with things as they are for fear of becoming contented.

Emil felt of his right breast pocket and was relieved when he heard the envelope crackle. His traveling companions all looked like trustworthy people and not like robbers or murderers. Next to the man who puffed so sat a woman who was crocheting a shawl. And by the window near Emil a man in a stiff hat was reading the newspaper.

Suddenly he laid the paper aside, took from his pocket a bar of chocolate, held it out to the boy, and said, “Well, young man, want some?”

“Thank you very much,” answered Emil and took the chocolate. Then he hastily took off his cap, as an afterthought, made a little bow, and said, “Emil Tischbein is my name.”

The passengers laughed. The man, for his part, solemnly lifted his hat and said, “Very pleased, my name’s Grundeis!”

Then the fat woman who had taken off her left shoe asked him, “Does the shopkeeper Kurzhals still live in Neustadt?”

“Yes indeed, Herr Kurzhals still lives there,” Emil informed her. “Do you know him? He has bought the lot where his store is.”

“Well, well, tell him Frau Jakob from Gross-Grünau wanted to be remembered to him.”

“But I’m going to Berlin.”

“It will be time enough when you get back,” said Frau Jakob. She wiggled her toes again and laughed until her hat fell over her face.

“So you’re going to Berlin?” asked Herr Grundeis.

“Yes, and my grandmother is waiting at the flower stand in the Friedrich Strasse Station,” answered Emil, and felt of his breast pocket. Thank goodness, the envelope crackled again as before.

“Have you ever been to Berlin?”

“No.”

“Well, it will astonish you! In Berlin nowadays there are houses a hundred stories high, and they have to fasten the roofs to the sky so they won’t blow away. And if a man is in a great hurry to go to another part of the city they clap him into a chest at the post office, pop it into a tube, and shoot it like a pneumatic letter to the post office of the section where he wants to go.

“And if you haven’t any money you go to a bank and leave your brains as a pledge, and you get a thousand marks. Naturally, you can’t buy them back from the bank unless you pay them twelve hundred marks. And now some wonderful medical appliances have been invented and——”

“It’s plain to see that you have left your brains at the bank,” said the man who puffed so horribly to the man with the stiff hat. “Quit your nonsense.”

The toes of the fat woman stood still in awe, and the woman who was crocheting held her breath.

Emil laughed uncertainly. And a long argument started between the men. Emil thought, “I should worry,” and got out his sandwiches, even though he had just eaten his dinner. As he was eating his third sandwich the train stopped at a station. Emil could not see the sign, and he didn’t understand what the guard shouted at the window. Most of the passengers got out—the puffing man, the crocheting woman, and also Frau Jakob. She was almost too late because she couldn’t get her shoe on.

“Well, remember me to Herr Kurzhals,” she said again, and Emil nodded.

And then he and the man with the stiff hat were left alone. Emil was not very well pleased at that. A man who divides his chocolate with you and tells you crazy stories is pretty queer. Emil wanted to feel of his envelope again for a change. But he didn’t dare. Instead he went into the toilet as the train started on, took the envelope out of his pocket, and counted the money. It was all there, and then he did not know what to do. Finally he had an idea. He took a pin that he found in his lapel, stuck it first through the three notes, next through the envelope, and finally through the lining of his jacket. You might say that he nailed the money tight. “There,” he thought, “now nothing can happen.” And then he went back into the compartment.

Herr Grundeis had made himself snug in a corner and slept. Emil was glad he didn’t have to talk and looked out of the window. Trees, windmills, fields, factories, herds of cows, and waving peasants all went by. And it was nice to see how they all whirled around just as if they were on a phonograph record. But you can’t stare out of a window forever.

Herr Grundeis slept on and on and snored a bit. Emil wanted to walk up and down, but if he did he might wake the man, and he didn’t care to do that at all. So he leaned back in the opposite corner of the compartment and watched the sleeping man. Why did he always keep his hat on? And he had a rather long face, and a tiny black mustache, and a hundred wrinkles around his mouth, and his ears were very thin and stuck out from his head.

Whoop! Emil shook himself and was terrified. He had almost fallen asleep. He didn’t dare do that under any circumstances. If only even one other person would get on. The train stopped several times, but no one came. It was only four o’clock, and Emil still had more than two hours to ride. He pinched his legs. That always helped in school when Herr Bremser gave the history lesson.

It worked for a while. Emil wondered how Pony Hütchen looked now. But he couldn’t remember her face. He only knew that on her last visit, when she and Grandmother and Aunt Martha were in Neustadt, Pony had wanted to box with him. Naturally, he had refused, because she was a lightweight and he was at least a welterweight. It would have been unfair, he said. And if he were to give her an uppercut they would have to peel her down from the wall. But she wouldn’t let him alone until Aunt Martha interfered.

Zowie! He almost fell off the seat. Asleep again? He pinched and pinched his legs. He must have black and blue spots all over already. And still it didn’t do any good.

He tried counting buttons. He counted down and then up again. Counting down there were twenty-three buttons, and counting up there were twenty-four. Emil leaned back and pondered over how that could be.

And he fell sound asleep.

Fourth Chapter

A Dream in Which There Is Much Running

Suddenly it seemed to Emil that the train was going around in a circle, just as the toy trains do that children play with. He looked out of the window and found it most curious. The circle was getting smaller and smaller. The engine was coming nearer and nearer to the last car. And it seemed as if it were doing that on purpose. The train turned around on itself just like a dog that tries to bite his own tail. And inside that black racing circle were trees and a glass windmill and a great house with two hundred stories.

Emil wanted to know what time it was and started to pull his watch out of his pocket. He pulled and pulled, and finally it was the big grandfather’s clock out of his mother’s room. He looked at the face, and there it said, “185 miles an hour. It is forbidden on penalty of your life to spit on the floor!” He looked out of the window again. The engine was coming nearer and nearer to the last car. And he was terribly worried. Because if the engine struck the last car naturally there would be a train wreck. That was clear. Emil did not want to wait for that on any account. He opened the door and ran along the outside steps. Perhaps the engineer had gone to sleep? Emil looked through the windows of the compartments as he worked his way along. There was no one sitting anywhere. The train was empty. Emil saw only one man, who had on a stiff hat made of chocolate. The man broke off a big piece from his hat brim and gulped it down. Emil rapped on the windowpane and pointed at the engine. But the man only laughed, broke himself another big piece of chocolate, and patted himself on the stomach because it tasted so good.

Finally Emil got to the coal car. Then he clambered up to the engineer’s cabin. The engineer was hunched up on a coachman’s seat, whirling his whip and holding the reins as if there were horses hitched in front of the train. And that’s just what there were! Six pair of horses dragged the train. They had silver roller skates on their hoofs, and they flew along over the rails singing, “Must I go, must I go to that city so far?”

Emil shook the coachman and shouted, “Pull up your horses or you’ll have an accident.” Then he saw that the coachman was none other than Officer Jeschke.

He gave Emil a piercing glance and shouted, “Who were the other youngsters? Who painted up the Grand Duke Karl?”

“Me,” said Emil.

“Who else?”

“That I won’t tell!”

“Then we’ll keep right on going in a circle!”

And Officer Jeschke whipped up his steeds so that they reared up and flew faster than ever toward the last car. And in the last car sat Frau Jakob, brandishing the shoes in her hand and frightened to death because the horses were already snapping at her toes.

“I’ll give you twenty marks, Officer,” shouted Emil.

“Please stop such nonsense!” shrieked Jeschke and plied his whip on the horses as if he were possessed.

Emil couldn’t bear it any longer, he jumped off the train. He turned twenty somersaults on the way down, but it didn’t hurt him. He stood up and looked back at the train. It was standing still, and the twelve horses turned their heads toward Emil. Officer Jeschke had sprung up and was whipping his horses and bellowing, “Up there and after him!” And then the twelve horses sprang off the tracks and sprinted after Emil, and the cars hopped about like rubber balls.

Emil wasted no time but ran away as fast as he could. Over a meadow, past many trees, through a brook, toward the skyscraper. Every now and then he looked behind him. The train thundered on with no let-up. It knocked the trees right and left and split them to pieces. Only one old oak was left standing, and on its topmost branch sat fat Frau Jakob, swaying in the wind and weeping because she couldn’t get her shoe on. Emil ran on.

In the house that was two hundred stories high there was a great black door. He ran in, through the house and out the other side. The train followed after. Emil would much rather have sat himself down in a corner to sleep, for he was fearfully tired and trembling in every limb. But he dared not go to sleep. The train was already rattling through the house.

Emil saw an iron ladder. It went up the house way to the roof. He began to climb. Luckily he was good at gym work. While he climbed he counted the stories. At the 50th floor he risked turning around. The trees had grown very small, and the glass windmill was hardly recognizable. But, oh, horrors! the train was running right up, up the side of the house. Emil climbed higher and higher. And the train snorted and clumped up the ladder rungs just as if they were tracks.

The 100th floor, 120th, 140th, 160th, 180th, 190th, 200th floor. Emil stood on the roof and had no idea what to do next. He could hear the neighing of the horses. Then the boy ran to the other end of the roof, took his handkerchief out of his pocket, and spread it out. And as the sweating horses came creeping over the edge of the roof with the train after them Emil stretched his handkerchief high above his head and sprang off into space. He could hear the train behind him knocking the chimneys over. Then for a little while he could neither hear nor see anything.

And then, crash! He plumped down into a meadow. At first he lay there exhausted with his eyes closed, and would have liked to dream a beautiful dream. But because he didn’t feel quite safe yet he looked up at the house, and there he saw the twelve horses on the roof, opening umbrellas. And Officer Jeschke had an umbrella too and was driving the horses on with it. They sat back on their haunches, gave themselves a jerk, and sprang off into the depths. And then the train sailed down toward the meadow, growing bigger by the minute.

Emil jumped up again and ran across the meadow toward the glass mill. It was transparent, and he saw his mother in there washing Frau Augustin’s hair. “Thank goodness!” he thought and ran through the back door into the mill.

“Mummy,” he called, “whatever can I do?”

“What’s the matter, my child?” asked his mother, and scrubbed away busily.

“Look through the wall!”

Frau Tischbein looked out just in time to see the train and the horses land in the meadow and come tearing across to the mill.

“Why, that is Officer Jeschke,” said his mother, and shook her head in astonishment.

“He has been chasing after me the whole time like mad.”

“Well, what in the world?”

“A while ago I painted a red nose and a mustache on the Grand Duke Karl Crooked Face in the market place.”

“Yes, and where else should you paint mustaches?” asked Frau Augustin, and sneezed violently.

“Nowhere else, Frau Augustin. But that isn’t the worst. He wants to know who else was there. And that I can’t tell him. That’s a question of honor.”

“Emil is right about that,” agreed his mother, “but what shall we do?”

“Put on the motor, dear Frau Tischbein,” said Frau Augustin.

Emil’s mother pushed down a lever that was underneath the table. The windmill sails began to turn, and as they were made of glass and the sun was shining on them, they shimmered and shone so that one could hardly bear to look at them.

And the twelve horses running with their train became so frightened that they shied and reared up and refused to take another step. Officer Jeschke swore so they could hear him through the glass walls. But the horses didn’t stir from the spot.

“There, now we can wash my scalp in peace,” said Frau Augustin. “Nothing more can happen to your boy.”

Frau Tischbein accordingly went on with her work. Emil sat down on a chair that was also made of glass and whistled to himself. Then he laughed out loud and said, “This is marvelous. If I had known before that you were here I’d never have climbed up that blamed house.”

“I hope you didn’t tear your suit,” said his mother. Then she asked, “Did you take good care of the money?”

At that Emil gave a great jump. And with a crash he fell off the glass chair.

And woke up.

Fifth Chapter

Emil Gets Off at the Wrong Station

As Emil awoke the train was just getting under way again. He had fallen off the seat in his sleep and was lying on the floor, frightened almost out of his wits without knowing why. His heart was beating like a trip hammer. There he squatted in the train and had almost forgotten where he was. Bit by bit it all came back to him. Right—he was going to Berlin. And he had fallen asleep. Just like the man in the stiff hat....

Emil sat bolt upright with a jerk and whispered, “Why, he’s gone off.” His knees trembled. Very slowly he got up and mechanically brushed the dust off his suit. Then the next question was, “Is the money still there?” And at that question he felt an indescribable terror.