I nodded at the stack of cartoned mackerel.

"I see this stuff is bound for Germany."

"No fooling?" he said, scratching away.

But I didn't flinch under this plodding effort to be sarcastic. The
witticism found no target upon me. Instead, I lapsed into a serious
silence.

"Say Naylor, or Baylor, or whatever it is -- what do you think of
modern Germany? Do you agree with Hitler's Weltanschauung? "

No response. Not a word, merely a scratching. And why not? Because
Weltanschauung was too much for him! I much for any rat. It baffled,
stupefied him. It was the first time and the last he would ever hear
the word uttered in his life. I put the pencil in pocket and peered
over my shoulder. He had to get up on his tiptoes to do it, he was
such a preposterous!} dwarfed little runt.

....

He walked away. The low words rolled under his breath -obscenities
meant for me. So that was it! I thumbed my nose at his retreating
back. I despised him, a low person, a boob of limited vocabulary,
unable to express his own thoughts, however nasty, except through the
brummagem medium of foul language. A rat. He was a rat. He was a
nasty, evil-tongued rat who knew nothing about Hitler's
Weltanschauung.

Pee on him!

...

...I had something on my mind. I
knocked on the door. He turned around.

"Hello there. What's your trouble?"

"No trouble at all," I said. "I merely wanted to get your view on a
matter."

"Well, shoot the works. What is it?"

"A little matter I tried to discuss with you earlier this afternoon."

He was drying his hands on a black towel.

"I can't remember. What was it about?"

"You were very uncivil about it this afternoon," I said. "Maybe you
won't want to discuss it."

"Oh," he smiled. "You know how it is when a man's busy. Sure, I'll
discuss it. What's the trouble?"

"Hitler's Weltanschauung. What is your opinion of the Fuhrer's
Weltanschauung?"

"What's that?"

"Hitler's Weltanschauung."

"Hitler's what? Weltan - what?"



"Hitler's Weltanschauung?"

"What's that? What's Weltanschauung? You got me there, boy. I don't
even know what it means."

I whistled and backed away.

"My God!" I said. "Don't tell me you don't even know what it means!"

He shook his head and smiled. It was not very important to him; not as
important as drying his hands, for instance. He was not at all ashamed
of his ignorance -- not in the least shocked. In fact, he seemed
rather pleased. I tsk-tsk-tsked with my tongue and backed out of the
door, smiling hopelessly. This was almost too much for me. What could
I do against an ignoramus like that?

"Well, if you don't know, well, I guess you don't know, and I guess
there's no sense in trying to discuss it, if you don't know, and,
well, it looks as if you don't know, so, well, goodnight, if you don't
know. Goodnight. See you in the morning."

He stood so surprised he forgot to keep drying his hands. Then he
called suddenly. "Hey!" he called. "What's this all about?"

But I was gone, hurrying through the darkness of the vast warehouse,
only the echo of his voice reaching me. On the way out I passed
through the wet clammy room where they dumped mackerel, from the
fishing boats. But tonight there were no mackerel, the season had just
ended, and instead there were tuna, the first real tuna I ever saw in
such numbers, the floor littered with them, thousands of them
scattered over a carpet of dirty ice, their white corpse-like bellies
blundering through the semi-darkness.