"And if you're not the girl I wanted," said the giant, looking up from his boots, "you're a _girl_, aren't you? I've paid you, haven't I? A splendid state the world's coming to when a cocotte takes it into her head to argue with a Russian officer who pays her the honor of his attentions. The world's turning upside down. The people must have a lesson. Come, get off that bed and help me undo these boots." "Do you know that I'm English?" Sylvia said. "You'll find that even Russian officers cannot insult Englishwomen." "A cocotte has no nationality," the giant contradicted, solemnly. "She is common property. Come, if you had wished to talk, you should have joined my table earlier in the evening. One does not wish to talk when one is sleepy." The English acrobats slept next door to Sylvia, and she hammered on the partition. "Are you killing bugs?" the giant asked. "You need not bother. They never disturb me." Sylvia went on hammering; her arms were getting weaker, and unless help came soon she should faint. There was a tap on the door. "Come in," she cried. "Come in at once--at once!" Willie entered in purple silk pajamas, rubbing his eyes. "Whatever is it, Sylvia?" "Take this drunken brute out of my room." "Bobbie! Bobbie!" he called. "Come here, Bobbie! Bobbie! Will you come? You are mean. Oh, there's such a nasty man in Sylvia's room! Oh, he's something dreadful to look at!" The drunken officer stared at Willie in amazement, trying to make up his mind if he were an alcoholic vision; his judgment was still further shaken by the appearance of Bobbie in pajamas of emerald-green silk. "Oh, Willie, he's got a sword!" said Bobbie. "Oh, doesn't he look fierce? Oh, he does look fierce! Most alarming I'm sure." The intruder staggered to his feet. "_Foutez-moi le camp_," he bellowed, making a grab for his sword. "For Heaven's sake get rid of the brute," Sylvia moaned. "I'm too weak to move." The two young men pirouetted into the middle of the room, as they were wont to pirouette upon the stage, with arms stretched out in a curve from the shoulder and fingers raised mincingly above an imaginary teacup held between the first finger and thumb. When they reached the giant they stopped short to sustain the preliminary pose of a female acrobat; then turning round, they ran back a few steps, turned round again, and with a scream flung themselves upon their adversary; he went down with a crash, and they danced upon his prostrate form like two butterflies over a cabbage.