As Dezső Kosztolányi put it once, “To translate is to dance in bonds”1 (Bart 307). Even more so, when one is to translate Rejtő, an outstanding figure of Hungarian literature. In spite of the fact that he wrote mainly “pulp” novels, these works are widely read, and praised by critics. The atmosphere and the characters of his works are unforgettable, the plot is usually fascinating, the dialogues are witty and full of puns, and Rejtő’s humour is simply inimitable. Moreover, he consciously used short sentences to move the story forward, a technique that reminds us of movie cuts. These features make his novels enjoyable for readers and challenging for translators; and that is exactly why I have chosen five chapters of Dirty Fred, the Captain to be the objects of my translation. The purpose of this analysis is to show the challenges I had t face as the translator of this text, to demonstrate the various translation techniques I used and the reason why I chose a particular solution over the other possible variants in certain problematic cases.