“Could you oblige me with a light?”
A truly inopportune request. What was this interloper up to? The pomaded one bristled.
“Clear off! I haven’t any matches!” he snapped.
“But you have. A minute ago you were smoking,” the interloper asserted. [[17]]
Beside himself, the lady-killer tried to thrust him away. Not succeeding in doing so and being unable even to move his arms, he looked down to see what was paralyzing them. He appeared thunderstruck. The two hands of the interloper gripped his hands in such a manner that it was impossible to move them. An iron band could not have paralyzed them more thoroughly. And the interloper did not cease to repeat in obstinate, worrying accents:
“Please oblige me with a light. It would be most unfortunate if you were to refuse me a light.”
The group that had gathered round them began to laugh. The exasperated lady-killer snarled:
“Will you leave me alone? I tell you I haven’t got a light!”
The interloper shrugged his shoulders with a melancholy air.
“Most uncivil, I call it,” he said mournfully. “I never heard of any one refusing a light when he was asked for it politely. But since you make such a fuss about rendering me this slight service—”