"Before God, Mr. Fargus—" the frightened waiter started to protest, but Fargus, with a contemptuous laugh, waved him off, crying:
"Discharged, discharged!"
"What, you turn me out," Bastien said sullenly, "because you haven't found fault with me?"
"Yes! It is impossible, I say, to be so virtuous without some evil purpose."
"But not for good, sir—I can come back?"
"No!" Fargus shouted with a crash of his fist. "No you don't! You gave yourself away that time! If you were innocent you wouldn't take it so meekly. I only suspected before, now I KNOW!"
Bastien, helpless before such madness, remained a moment staring stupidly at him. Then suddenly, convinced of the hopelessness of appeasing such an obsession, he forgot the waiter, and as a man, outraged and indignant, raised his fists and cursed him. At the uproar the clerks and the waiters ran in, while Fargus, rubbing his hands with delight, shouted above the din of oaths:
"So, at last you rage! Now you show your true character! And for three years you have tried to put me to sleep with your meek face! You villain, I'll tell you what I'll do—I'll have your accounts investigated, before you get a cent!"
Bastien, purple in the face, screamed that he would have a lawyer.