TITLE PAGE     GERMAN    

TO BLACK BELL

Happiness is where we are not. -
Let's move a bit and find a spot
To meet our luck. - No cash? Who cares!
The dingaling train will change our fares.

You just have to take hold and make the most of opportunities. - The old engine snorted like an impatient horse: it was given a bit more oil. The final preparations for departure were made; loading the parcels was hard work; there were farewell kisses. Now was the time. Bobby Box, the poet, swung himself up from the back of the train through an open window into a compartment, moved on a bit further, climbed up on to the luggage rack and lay down there as a stowaway. - "The good seats belong to those who pay!" Bobby thought modestly and he turned his face to the wall. He heard the whistle announcing their departure, felt the iron horse stamping and starting off, and then he fell fast asleep. - He slept so peacefully that the little bottle which the two fiends had attached to his coat-tails also hung peacefully suspended from the luggage rack. The terrible word "Nitroglycerine" was clearly visible on the label. (It is a sensitive explosive which wreaks great havoc on exploding!) - Somebody was lying asleep down below on the seat - one of the good seats. It was a "wild man", a bandit who lived by the principle: "Careful with the dough!" and only paid in blue beans. He lay there among his belongings, his pistol in his hand with its safety catch off, snoring so loudly that his long unkempt moustache rose and fell like the tide. The train had been zigzagging through the landscape for three hours when the bandit awoke, straightened up and sat upright on his seat. The little bottle was hanging right between his eyes, and when he took a deep breath, he almost inhaled the word "Nitroglycerine" into his nose. His whole body was paralysed with terror - he already saw himself being catapulted into the air together with the entire train. - Ni-tro-gly-ce-rine!! - He grabbed the emergency cord; the bell rang out. Rrrrrrruck! and the little train stood still. The terrible word "Nitroglycerine" echoed piercingly through the uncanny silence. Get out! Clear off! were the slogans. The passengers scattered as though propelled by gales in a storm. The train soon stood abandoned on the wide plain, all its doors wide open - an ancient vehicle, a forgotten remnant of the previous century.

Night fell. The sound of gentle snoring could be heard through the dreary windows and doors of the abandoned compartment. Bobby Box was dreaming about his angelic Marygold. But he was not a little astonished on awaking. He yawned sleepily at the moon and asked: "Where am I?!" The moon grinned and showed the questioner the wide lonely prairie bathed in her silvery light. - This was a six mark question: what could a poet alone in such a wilderness do with this iron monster? But Bobby laughed cheerfully: "That is an interesting case; we will soon deal with it!" He set to work with enthusiasm: - he lit the lamps - he checked the water levels, - then he used the big bellows to get the fire going and shovelled in firewood and coal. Bobby listened for a while intently and heard the boiler begin to hum. Now he tried one lever after the other: one of them had to be the right one. - Piff! paff! puff! he heard here and there, but the monster remained motionless. Now Bobby moved a large weight that was attached to a gear lever. Aha! thereupon the iron horse trembled, snorted and hissed, bared its teeth, spat out a huge ring of smoke and moved jerkily forward.. - "Hey, we are moving!" Bobby Box shouted in delight. They moved forward slowly, but there was something wrong. Water trickled and steamed out of every aperture, pipe and grating. With sparks flying, its stomach rumbling, red to the rails, the steam engine finally reached Black Bell station. The station staff fled in horror as the glowing monster approached out of the night. - Bobby applied the brakes. The bold engine-driver abandoned ship, black as stove pipe. Bobby Box was now alone on the deserted platform: there was nobody to be seen in the vicinity. All the world seemed to have become extinct. Bobby turned to all sides calling: "Hey there!" And then he noticed something dangling from his coat tails. He took hold of it: it was a bottle, a tiny little thing, which had caused such panic. He uncorked it - contrary to what the label indicated, there was no nitroglycerine, there were no explosives inside. It was empty. Only an overpowering smell of moth-balls stung his nose and made him feel sick. He quickly threw the bottle away. As it clattered to the ground, smashed and broke into a thousand pieces, Bobby suddenly felt wide awake for the first time. - Had it all just been a diabolical joke?

A joke? But he was covered in soot! - Suddenly he noticed movement all around him and from all sides the station staff emerged from their hiding places. Bobby somehow felt guilty; he took a firm hold of his bag and stick and began to run. He went around many corners, along all sorts of fences, past bushes and objects of all kinds until at last he reached a quiet little lake lying in peace and tranquillity in the moonlight. There was a large board on which he saw the words clearly written: "No swimming!" - "Okay!" said Bobby to himself, "people who don't need to bathe are forbidden to swim here. But as a sooty mortal I badly need to! - So let's go for a swim!" -

  BOBBY BOX    THIRD ADVENTURE