"So they've done it to us," said the cleaning woman to Mr. Svejk. "They've killed our Ferdinand."Svejk had been discharged from military service years ago when a military medical commission had pronounced him to be officially an imbecile. Now, he was making his living by selling dogs, ugly mongrel mutants that he sold as purebreds by forging their pedigrees. In addition to this demeaning vocation, Svejk also suffered from rheumatism and was just now rubbing his aching knees with camphor ice.
"Which Ferdinand, Mrs. Muller?" he asked. "I know two Ferdinands. One is the pharmacist Prusa's delivery boy, who drank up a whole bottle of hair potion once by mistake. And then, I know one Ferdinand Kokoska, who collects dog turds. Neither one would be much of a loss."
"But Mr. Svejk! They killed the Archduke Ferdinand, the one from Konopste, the fat one, the religious one."
The opening sentences from The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War by Jaroslav Hašek (New English translation by Zdenek Sadlon and Emmit Joyce.)
Is that the same novel as "The Good Soldier Schweik" -- it sounds like it. That is one of the funniest books I've read.