e wouldn't let me go. Then I got curious, and felt I must go
into the house. The woman came out of the room at once. 'Where's Mr.
Tiralla?' I asked, and at the same moment I heard a voice saying, 'Who
is it, Sophia darling? Come in, come in, it's very comfortable here.'
He was in high spirits, and we were all very happy together, although
Marianna kept rolling her eyes about and winking at me quite openly as
if to say, 'Take care!' What a horrid person she is, a real serpent.
And Mrs. Tiralla is just like her husband, and continues to warm such a
creature at her bosom. She's a good mistress, you can take my word for
that. 'Please,' she said, and 'Thank you,' when Marianna brought
something up from the cellar. But that's just like that kind of person.
She's as comfortable with them as she can possibly be anywhere, and
still she abuses them. I said to Mrs. Tiralla, 'How do you like your
[Pg 65] servant?'--I wanted to introduce the subject, but she answered,
'Oh, she's very good, very good,' and praised her highly."

"A very nice feature," remarked the priest.

Everybody was filled with indignation against Jokisch. How dared he say
a single word against Mrs. Tiralla, even when he was drunk? The
schoolmaster had been quite right this time. Jokisch was to keep a
civil tongue in his head. He was a henpecked husband, a tattler. All
the bachelors jeered at the inspector. Little Zientek poured the dregs
from his tumbler over his head, and when he resisted, and snorted and
swore loudly as he hit about him, they drew the chair from under him,
so that he sat down on the floor on which everybody had been spitting.
On any other occasion the gendarme would have separated the men, but
now he looked on with the utmost calm. It served the man quite right.
The priest had at first watched the proceedings very doubtfully, and
had kept an eye on the door to see if anybody were spying upon them.
But when the others took their tumblers, and, following Zientek's
example, poured the dregs over the man's head, he almost split his
sides with laughing.

He saw, however, that it was about time for him to be going, so he got
up from his seat and disappeared as quietly as he had come; and the men
were laughing, quarrelling, and shouting so loudly that they hardly
noticed his departure.

The schoolmaster felt like a hero, as he tramped home through the snow.
He was her knight; he had just paid that vulgar, disgusting fellow out.
Jokisch had receive