The girl took the pot with the flowers and left. Then Swidwicki thrust his hands into his pockets and began to stare at Laskowicz as if he had before him, not a human being, but some singular animal. Laskowicz looked at him in the same way, and during that short interval they acquired for each other a mutual dislike.
Finally Swidwicki asked:
"Ah, esteemed Sir Benefactor, of what party? Socialist, anarchist, or bandit? I beg of you! without ceremony! I do not ask your name, but it is necessary to be acquainted somehow."
"I belong to the Polish Socialist Party," answered the student with a certain pride.
"Aha! Then to the most stupid one. Excellent. That is as if some one said: To the atheistic-Catholic or to the national-cosmopolitan? I am truly delighted to bid you welcome."
Laskowicz was not in the least meek by nature, and besides he understood in a moment that he had before him a man with whom he would gain nothing by meekness; so, gazing straight into Swidwicki's eyes, he replied almost contemptuously:
"If you, sir, can be a Catholic and Pole, I can be a socialist and Pole."
But Swidwicki laughed.
"No, Sir Chieftain," he said, "Catholicism is a smell. One can be a cat and have a fainter or stronger odor, but one cannot be a cat and dog in one and the same person."
"I am no chieftain; only a third-class agent," retorted Laskowicz. "You, sir, have given me a refuge and yourself the right to mock me."