When he reached the street he saw indistinctly in the darkness that a little farther along the assistant was still walking up and down before Barnabas’s house; sometimes he stopped and tried to peep into the room through the drawn blinds. K. called to him; without appearing visibly startled he gave up his spying on the house and came towards K. “Who are you looking for?” asked K. , testing the suppleness of the hazel switch on his leg. “You,” replied the assistant as he came nearer. “But who are you?” asked K. suddenly, for this did not appear to be the assistant. He seemed older, wearier, more wrinkled, but fuller in the face, his walk too was quite different from the brisk walk of the assistants, which gave an impression as if their joints were charged with electricity; it was slow, a little halting, elegantly valetudinarian. “You don’t recognise me?” asked the man, “Jeremiah, your old assistant.” “I see,” said K. tentatively producing the hazel switch again, which he had concealed behind his back, “But you look quite different.” “It’s because I’m by myself,” said Jeremiah. “When I’m by myself then all my youthful spirits are gone.” “But where is Arthur?” asked K. “Arthur?” said Jeremiah, “the little dear? He has left the service. You were rather hard and rough on us, you know, and the gentle soul couldn’t stand it. He’s gone back to the Castle to put in a complaint.” “And you?” asked K. “I’m able to stay here,” said Jeremiah, “Arthur is putting in a complaint for me too.” “What have you to complain about, then?” asked K. “That you can’t understand a joke. What have we done? Jested a little, laughed a little, teased your fiancée a little. And all according to our instructions, too. When Galater sent us to you⁠—” “Galater?” asked K. “Yes, Galater,” replied Jeremiah, “he was deputising for Klamm himself at the time. When he sent us to you he said⁠—I took a good note of it, for that’s our business: You’re to go down there as assistants to the Land Surveyor. We replied: But we don’t know