"Dear?" The telephone said nothing. "Are you still there?" "I am," his wife said, "and so are the Belgian endives. You ordered them, remember? You absolutely had to eat baked Belgian endives tonight. Any idea about the price of Belgian endives?" "We could eat them tomorrow," the commissaris said. "Tonight. Once they're out of the freezer, they can't go back." The commissaris looked for support in the glowing end of his cigar, and in the begonia flowers on the windowsills; he also glanced at the encouraging smiles on the lions' heads above his chair. He stood next to his desk and tried to skip airily onto its top. He didn't jump high enough and knocked his hip. "Ouch." "Did you hurt yourself?" "And to think," the commissaris said, "that I was once a prizewinning gymnast. I flywheeled around the bar, and then swung onto the mat, and bowed, and straightened up to my full athletic length again, and didn't the audience applaud?" 'Does it still hurt?" 'No," the commissaris said, "but I do have to go to Friesland, really.
