I don’t often like to quote at length from another work. This is almost too good, though — too apt for Running After My Hat. It’s from “The Tramp’s Tale,” one of Czech author Karel Capek‘s Nine Tales for Children. The man who’s telling this story has interrupted a court proceeding (which is where “the judge” comes from) in such a way that he is about to exonerate a condemned man.
“My hat,” said the man. “Oh, what a lot of trouble it’s been! It’s already a year now since I was walking along the street and the wind wind suddenly took my hat. I gave somebody my suitcase, I didn’t even know who it was, and off I went running after my hat. But my hat was very badly behaved and it rolled along over the bridge to Sychrov and from Sychrov to Zálesí and then to Rtyni and through Kostelec to Zbecník and all through Hronov to Náchod and from there on as far as the border with Prussia. I went on after it; I nearly had it there but I was stopped by the border guard who wanted to know what I was running after and I told him I was running after my hat. Before I had finished explaining this to him the hat was away again with the dust. So I found somewhere to sleep and set off after my hat again in Prussia in the morning through Levín and Chudoba, oh the water was very bad there… ”
“Wait,” said the judge. “This is a court of law, not a geography lecture.”
“I’ll cut the story short, then,” said the unkown man. “In Chudoba I learned that my hat had been there and drunk a glass of water, bought itself a walking stick and then got on a train and went to Svídnice. I, of course, went after it. In Svídnice my naughty hat spent the night in a hotel without even paying the bill and then went off somewhere without saying where. After asking lots of people, I learned that it had been seen in Cracow, and was even making plans to marry a widow. So I went off to Cracow after it.”
“And why did you chase after your hat in this way?” the judge asked.
“Well,” said the man, “that hat was still new, and not only that, but I’d put my return railway ticket from Svatonovice to Starkoš under its band. It was because of that return ticket, sir.”
“Ah,” said the judge, “now I understand.”
“I didn’t want to have to buy my ticket all over again,” said the man. “Now, where was I? Ah yes, I was on my way to Cracow. So I arrived in Cracow, but by then my naughty hat had travelled on to Warsaw, first class and pretending to be a diplomat.”
“That was dishonest,” exclaimed the judge.
“That’s why I told the police about it,” said the man, “and they sent a telegram from Cracow to Warsaw saying it should be arrested. But by then my hat had got itself a fur coat as it was nearly winter, grown a beard, and travelled on to Moscow.”
“And what did it do in Moscow?” the judge asked.
“Well, what would a hat do in Moscow,” said the man. “It got involved in politics, the blighter, and became a journalist. Then it got it into its head that it would take over the government, but then the Russians arrested it and condemned it to death by firing squad; but as soon as they got it against the wall where it was to be shot there was a gust of wind and the vagabond began to roll along the street, slipped through between the soldiers’ legs and rolled off all the way through Russia as far as Novocherkask. There it put on the lambskin cap and became an ataman of the cossacks on the Don. I was still chasing after it and finally caught up with it; and then, the blighter, he whistled to his cossack friends and told them to shoot me.”
“And what happened then?” the judge asked, anxious to hear more.
“What happened then,” the stranger said, “is that I told them that we’re not afraid of cossacks: ‘We cut them into slices and we eat them with our soup!’ And that frightened the cossacks so much that they let me go. Meanwhile though, my good-for-nothing hat had jumped onto a horse and galloped off to the east. And, of course, I went after it. At Oranienburg it got onto a train and went on to Omsk and right the way across Siberia, but in Irkutsk I lost its trail; it seems it somehow came into some money while it was there, but then it was attacked by some robbers who took it all from him again and it was lucky to escape with its life. In Blagovyeshchensko I came across my hat in the street, but it was clever enough to escape from me again and rolled off all the way through Manchuria as far as the Sea of China. On the coast, there, I caught up with it because it was afraid of water.”
“So you finally caught your hat there?” the judge asked.
“If only!” the stranger replied. “I ran after it all along the coast, but just as I was about to catch it the wind changed and my hat went bowling off towards the west again. I went after it and chased it all the way through China and Turkestan, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a sedan chair, sometimes on horseback and sometimes on a camel until, in the city of Tashkent, he got on a train and went back Oranienburg. From there it went to Kharkov and Odessa, then to Hungary, then, back in Czechoslovakia, it rolled along into Olomouc, then Ceská Trebová, then Týnište then finally back here to Prague. And here I finally caught it, just five minutes ago in the square as it was about to go into a resaurant for some dumplings and sauce. So, here it is.”
And he showed them all the hat; it was beaten and tatty, but there was nothing else about it to suggest it was such a complete rascal.
Oh, I love the idea of a rascally hat!
(Read the whole thing here, for now — in all its diacritically correct glory.)
A couple weeks ago, I 
The Missus and I are not alone in having a dog who barks rabidly during thunderstorms. But alone or not, we do. She may be little, and her bark may be a mere yip! compared to the more conventional woof! of full-size hounds, but she is determined to scare the storm away.
From 
