Making a wide detour, he found himself some minutes later walking into Nowomiejska Street again. Presently he heard the voice: ‘Guv, wanna buy a brick?’ and again he let himself be drawn against the wall.[…]
‘Give me that money,’ said the man in the bowler in a quiet, cold voice.[…] In the dim light a large revolver was gleaming black.[…] ‘Hand over the lot, to the last penny. All your takings.’ The merchant blinked his little eyes desperately.
‘Mate,’ he begged, ‘you can’t expect me to do that. I’m not working on my own account, this ain’t private enterprise. I’m employed, I am. What’ll I tell them back in the section? There ain’t no competition in this business, it’s a monopoly. If I don’t bring back nothin’, not even a few zloty, they’ll do me.’
‘What’s that you say?’ the man in the bowler was curious […] ‘What section are you in?’
‘The brick section,’ said the merchant hastily, ‘retail sale of building materials and such-like.’
‘Come on, be quick,’ said the man in the bowler phlegmatically, ‘hand it over!’ The merchant produced a bunch of crumpled bank-notes and handed them to the man in the bowler. […]
‘I don’t understand,’ the man in the bowler kept the conversation going tactfully, ‘why you ask so little for your bricks? A brick in your hands is worth a hundred or more.’
‘That’s just what I says,’ said the merchant, ‘but the boss don’t let me ask more. He says that no one minds paying twenty zloty and won’t even bother to call the cops. If they do, the cops won’t bother to look into it, ‘cos it don’t pay. Say I get fifty customers in an evening, a bloke can manage on that.’