screen⁠—“of course a clean breast must be made of the whole business.” “Scandalous!” said the lady teacher. “I am entirely of your opinion, Fräulein Gisa,” said the teacher. “You, janitor, are of course dismissed from your post for those scandalous doings. Your further punishment I reserve meantime, but now clear yourself and your belongings out of the house at once. It will be a genuine relief to us, and the teaching will manage to begin at last. Now quick about it!” “I shan’t move a foot from here,” said K. “You’re my superior, but not the person who engaged me for this post; it was the Superintendent who did that, and I’ll only accept notice from him. And he certainly never gave me this post so that I and my dependants should freeze here, but⁠—as you told me yourself⁠—to keep me from doing anything thoughtless or desperate. To dismiss me suddenly now would therefore be absolutely against his intentions; till I hear the contrary from his own mouth I refuse to believe it. Besides it may possibly be greatly to your own advantage, too, if I don’t accept your notice, given so hastily.” “So you don’t accept it?” asked the teacher. K. shook his head. “Think it over carefully,” said the teacher, “your decisions aren’t always for the best; you should reflect, for instance, on yesterday afternoon, when you refused to be examined.” “Why do you bring that up now?” asked K. “Because it’s my whim,” replied the teacher, “and now I repeat for the last time, get out!” But as that too had no effect the teacher went over to the table and consulted in a whisper with Fräulein Gisa; she said something about the police, but the teacher rejected it, finally they seemed in agreement, the teacher ordered the children to go into his classroom, they would be taught there along with the other children. This change delighted everybody, the room was emptied in a moment amid laughter and shouting, the teacher and Fräulein Gisa followed last. The latter carried the class register, and on it in all its bulk the perfectly indifferent cat. The teacher would gladly have left the cat behind, but a suggestion to that effect was negatived decisively by Fräulein Gisa with a reference to K. ’s inhumanity. So, in addition to all his other annoyances, the teacher blamed K. for the cat as