“I fancy that you and I could manage him. It is a pity that neither of us has the faculty of hypnotising. This would be the proper time to use it.” “A great pity. But there are other things that will do almost as well.” “What, for instance?” “A little ether in a sponge. He would only struggle a moment, and then he would be much more really unconscious than if he had been hypnotised.” “Is it quite painless?” “Quite, if you give it gradually. If you hurry the thing, the man feels as though he were being smothered. But the real difficulty is what to do with him, as I said before.” “Take him home and get a keeper from the lunatic asylum,” the Wanderer suggested. “Then comes the whole question of an inquiry into his sanity,” objected Keyork. “We come back to the starting-point. We must settle all this before we go to him. A lunatic asylum is not a club in this country. There is a great deal of formality connected with getting into it, and a great deal more connected with getting out. Now, I could not get a keeper for Kafka without going to the physician in charge and making a statement, and demanding an examination, and all the rest of it. And Israel Kafka is a person of importance among his own people. He comes of great Jews in Moravia, and we should have the whole Jews’ quarter--which means nearly the whole of Prague, in a broad sense--about our ears in twenty-four hours. No, no, my friend. To avoid an enormous scandal things must be done very quietly indeed.” “I cannot see anything to be done, then, unless we bring him here,” said the Wanderer, falling into the trap from sheer perplexity. Everything that Keyork had said was undeniably true. “He would be a nuisance in the house,” answered the sage, not wishing, for reasons of his own, to appear to accept the proposition too eagerly. “Not but that the Individual would make a capital keeper. He is as gentle as he is strong, and as quick as a tiger-cat.” “So far as that is concerned,” said the Wanderer coolly, “I could take charge of him myself, if you did not object to my presence.” “You do not trust me,” said the other, with a sharp glance.