HORACE
I protest against this!
ALMERIC
Throw the rotter out of the window!
PIKE
[particularly addressing ETHEL]
This afternoon I tried to help a poor devil—a broken-down [pg 145] Russian running away from Siberia, where he'd been for nine years.
[She rises; her eyes eagerly meet his.]
A poor weak thing, hounded like you've seen a rat in the gutter by dogs and bootblacks. Some of your friends here saw us bring him into this apartment; they know we've got him here now. If I don't agree to hand over you and seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the money John Simpson made, it means that the man I have tried to help goes back to rot in Siberia and I go to an Italian jail for two years, or as much longer as they can make it.
HAWCASTLE