“Come, Josaphat, get up!” said Slim. He spoke very gravely and gently and a little sadly. “May I help you? Give me your hands! No, no. I shall not take the cap away from you.... I am afraid I was obliged to hurt you very much. It was no pleasure. But you forced me into it.”
He let go of the man, who was now standing upright, and he looked around him with a gloomy smile.
“A good thing we settled the price before-hand,” he said. “Now the flat would be considerably cheaper.”
He sighed a little and looked at Josaphat.
“When will you be ready to go?”
“Now,” said Josaphat.
“You will not take anything with you?”
“No.”
“You will go just as you are—with all the marks of the struggle, all tattered and torn?”
“Yes.”