Who would have thought so much time had flowed by? Our Mr. Povondra isn’t even the doorman any more at G.H. Bondy’s house; now, you might say, he is a venerable old man who can enjoy the fruits of his old and industrious life in peace as a pensioner; although his pension doesn’t go very far these times of high wartime prices! He still goes out now and then to do some fishing; sitting in his boat with his fishing rod and watching how the water flows by day after day and all the things that go by with it! Sometimes he hooks a dace, sometimes a bass; there seem to be more of them nowadays, maybe because all the rivers are so much shorter. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with a nice bass; It’s a bit boney sometimes, but the flesh is nice, tastes a bit like almonds. And mother knows just how to cook it. What Mr. Povondra doesn’t know, though, is that mother usually uses those newspaper cuttings that he used to collect and arrange for the fire to cook the bass. He didn’t keep up his collection, though, not went he started taking his pension; he got himself an fish tank instead where he keeps some goldfish; and he keeps some little newts in there too; sits there for hours, he does, watching them as they lay in the water without moving, or climbing out onto the little bank he made them with some gravel; then hell turn round and say: “Who’d have thought it, mother?” But you’ve got to do more than just sit there and watch, that’s why Mr. Povondra took up keeping fish. Keep yourself busy, you’ve always got to keep yourself busy, thought Mother Povondra contentedly. Better than if he went out drinking or got involved in politics.

A lot of water, truly a lot of water had flowed under the bridges on the Vltava. Even little Frank isn’t at school learning about geography any more, he’s not even a young man tearing his socks as he rushes after the silly things young men rush after. He’s getting older himself, young Frank; he’s got himself a good job at the post office, he has, so it’s turned out quite useful that he did learn all that geography. He’s starting to get a bit of sense too, thought Mr. Povondra as he guided his boat out onto the water by one of the bridges. Hell be coming round, today; it’s Sunday and he won’t be working. I’ll take him out in the boat and we can go upstream up to the tip of St?elecky Island; the fish bite better up there; and Frank can tell me all about what’s in the papers. Then we can go back home to his wife and the two nippers - it wasn’t long since Mr. Povondra had relaxed into the quiet joy of being a grandfather. Mind you, it was already a year now since little Marie had started school, she likes school; and there was little Frank, his grandson, nearly weighs five stone already, he does. Mr. Povondra had a strong and deep feeling that everything was right with the world.

But there was Frank waiting on the bank waving to him, and Mr. Povondra rowed over. “Glad you’ve come, mind you it’s no more than you should do,” he added. “Mind you don’t fall in the water now.”

“Are they biting?” his son asked.

“Not really,” the old man grumbled. “Lets go upstream a bit, shall we?”

It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon; still not time when those madmen and layabouts all come out from their football matches or whatever else they do. Prague was empty and quiet; the few people who wandered along the sides of the river and over the bridges weren’t in any hurry as they ambled along decently and with dignity. They were decent reasonable people, not like those crowds who gather and laugh at the fishermen on the Vltava. Once again, Father Povondra had that nice deep feeling that all was well with the world.

“What’s in the papers then, Son?” he asked with the curtness of a father.

“Nothing much, Dad,” his son answered. “I saw that those newts have got up as far as Dresden, though.”

“Germanys had it then,” Mr. Povondra asserted. “They’re funny people you know, those Germans. They’re well educated, but they’re funny. I knew a German once, chauffeur he was for some factory; and he wasn’t half coarse, this German. Mind you, he kept the car in good condition, I’ll say that for him. And now look, Germanys disappearing from the map of the world,” Mr. Povondra ruminated. “And all that fuss they used to make! Terrible, it was: everything for the army and everything for the soldiers. But not even they were any match for these newts. And I know about these newts, you know that, don’t you. Remember when I took you out to show you one of them when you were only so high?”

“Watch out, Dad,” said his son, “you’ve got a bite.”

“That’s only a tiddler,” the old man grumbled as he twitched on his rod. Even Germany now, he thought to himself. No-one even bats an eyelid at it these days. What a song and dance they used to make at first whenever these newts flooded anywhere! Even if it was only Mesopotamia or China, the papers were full of it. Not like that now, Mr. Povondra contemplated sadly, staring out at his rod. You get used to anything, I suppose. At least they’re not here, though; but I wish the prices weren’t so high! Think what they charge for coffee these days! I suppose that’s what you have to expect if they go and flood Brazil. If part of the world disappears underwater it has its effect in the shops.

The float on Mr. Povondra’s line danced about on the ripples of the water. How much of the world is it they’ve flooded so far then?, the old man considered. There’s Egypt and India and China - they’ve even gone into Russia; and that was a big country, that was, Russia! When you think, all the way up from the Black Sea as far the Arctic Circle - all water! You can’t say they haven’t taken a lot of our land from us! And their only going slowly . . .

“Up as far as Dresden then, you say?” the old man spoke up.

“Ten miles short of Dresden. That means almost the whole of Saxony will soon be under water.”

“I went there once with Mr. Bondy,” Father Povondra told him. “Ever so rich, they were there, Frank. The food wasn’t much good though. Nice people, though. Much better than the Prussians. No comparison.”

“Prussia’s gone now as well, though.”

“I’m not surprised,” the old man said regretfully. “I don’t like those Prussians. It’s good for the French, though, if Germanys in trouble. Give them a chance for some peace, now.”

“I don’t think so, Dad,” Frank objected. “They were saying in the papers not long ago how a good third of France is under water now.” Mr. Povondra sighed deeply.

“There was a Frenchman working for us at Mr. Bondy’s, a servant, Jean his name was. And he was a one for the ladies, ruddy disgrace it was. See, it always comes back to you if you’re not responsible, like that.”

“But they say the newts are within ten miles of Paris,” his son, Frank, told him. “They had tunnels everywhere and then blew the whole place up. They slaughtered two army divisions, they say.”

“They make good soldiers, the French,” said Mr. Povondra with the air of an expert. “That Jean never used to put up with anything either. I don’t what made him like that. Smelt just like a perfume shop, but if he got into a fight he really would fight. But two divisions in the newts’ army - that’s not much really. When you think about it,” the old man considered, “people were better off when they were fighting with other people. And it didn’t take them all this time either. It’s twenty years it’s been going on with the newts, now, and still nothing’s happened, they’re still making preparations for getting the best positions. But when I think of when I was a young man, now those were battles! Three million people there were on one side and three million on the other,” and the old man gesticulated and made the boat rock, “and then it was a Hell of a battle when they got together - but they can’t even get themselves a proper war these days. They’ve always got the same concrete embankments up and never even come together with bayonets. Not a bit of it!”

“But newts and people can’t go into battle like that, Dad,” said Povondra junior in defence of the modern style of warfare. “You just can’t make a bayonet charge underwater.”

“You’re quite right,&rd............