"She's a good woman, a really good woman," agreed the gendarme. "I came past the farm the other day on my way from the Przykop, and found the servant lounging at the gate--Marianna Sroka, from Althof, you know, a buxom lass, but awfully cheeky. 'Panje,' said she in a low voice, and crept close up to me, 'Panje, there's murder in that house.' She pointed to the Tirallas' house and made such eyes, she looked quite mad. She 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 Ziëntek 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 Ziëntek'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.