"What of it?... Don't you think it a jolly fine thing then?"
In a thick voice he continued to sing:
"Let us gather, and on the morrow..."
The severe and correct personage spoke.
"My friend, you would do better to hold your tongue!... You forget that there is a police station close by!..."
But the incorrigible plumber caught the correct personage by his coat tails.
"If I sing the Internationale, it's because I'm a free man—ain't I?... A free man can sing if he likes, can't he? Eh!... Why don't you sing then?... Eh!..."
The correct personage drew himself up stiffly: tried to push the obnoxious plumber away.... The workman had now reached that stage of drunkenness when discussions tend to become interminable.
The gentleman pushed the drunken man aside, saying:
"Come! Come! Go away!... Leave me alone!"