"Yes, sir. You can shout if you like, and insult me, and even strike me. I'm only a poor man, so what does it matter? But I have to carry out my orders. And the landlady, who is a fine woman, and highly respectable, doesn't want anyone in this house with dangerous ideas in their heads, nor any woman like that!"
Monsalvat lost all the serenity that still remained to him after the events of the day. He clenched his fists, ready to attack this man, at the first word of allusion to Nacha.
"So that's why, sir, I'm asking you to let us have your room. We are very sorry, of course; but it can't be helped! As to the young lady you're so friendly with, let me tell you—if my respectable tenants here present will excuse the word—we don't want any street-girls in this house!"
His hearers, now fairly numerous, burst into a loud guffaw. Monsalvat, exasperated beyond endurance, seized the man by the shoulder and said to him in a voice that shook with anger:
"You'll get what's coming to you, you hypocrite!"
But something made him glance around. Mauli was standing close to him, smiling his crooked smile. He stopped short. This evil-looking individual represented law and order, force and reason, organized society, of which he was one of the props! He was the enemy, hidden until that moment, but now revealed, his enemy, indeed, for Monsalvat felt himself to be the only champion there of the justice and goodness in human nature!
The superintendent made no move to defend himself from Monsalvat's threatened attack, but appeared to shrink, become more humble still. He smiled however, a treacherous and evil smile, and with lowered eyes, he murmured meekly:
"You ain't fair to me—but I don't need to defend myself! I'll trust to getting my reward in Heaven! No, I'm not going to fight this here gentleman, but I am going to ask the landlady to get him a pretty suit of striped clothes, and have his head shaved, and put him where he can have plenty of cold showers...."
His audience greeted this allusion with explosions of mirth; and encouraged by his success, the superintendent continued: