Groaning, I waited for them to stop but no, they were in for the long haul. So I propped myself up on some pillows, got comfortable, and ran the last night’s events over again in my mind. Somewhere along the line the wattlebirds must’ve stopped, because I dozed off, and when I awoke it was nine o’clock and I felt grateful for the extra sleep. I climbed down the ironbark ladder, got dressed, and like some honorary treasurer of old decided I had better attend to the banking. There’s never any mention in Hugo Ball’s diary account of the Cabaret Voltaire of who managed the Dada money and how. Presumably they just cut all the banknotes up for collages and used the coins as gypsy necklaces. For The Grand Hotel, however, the money was siphoned off into a black Aquila shoebox at the end of each night. This shoebox was then taken under my arm out to the barn when I went to bed, where I placed it inside an old canvas fishing bag flung into a corner full of rods and nets and reels.
