ENGSTRAND. [_With a sigh._] Yes! I suppose there’s no help for it. MANDERS. How can you possibly justify yourself? ENGSTRAND. Who could ever have thought she’d have gone and made bad worse by talking about it? Will your Reverence just fancy yourself in the same trouble as poor Johanna—— MANDERS. I! ENGSTRAND. Lord bless you, I don’t mean just exactly the same. But I mean, if your Reverence had anything to be ashamed of in the eyes of the world, as the saying goes. We menfolk oughtn’t to judge a poor woman too hardly, your Reverence. MANDERS. I am not doing so. It is you I am reproaching. ENGSTRAND. Might I make so bold as to ask your Reverence a bit of a question? MANDERS. Yes, if you want to. ENGSTRAND. Isn’t it right and proper for a man to raise up the fallen? MANDERS. Most certainly it is. ENGSTRAND. And isn’t a man bound to keep his sacred word? MANDERS. Why, of course he is; but—— ENGSTRAND. When Johanna had got into trouble through that Englishman—or it might have been an American or a Russian, as they call them—well, you see, she came down into the town. Poor thing, she’d sent me about my business once or twice before: for she couldn’t bear the sight of anything as wasn’t handsome; and I’d got this damaged leg of mine. Your Reverence recollects how I ventured up into a dancing saloon, where seafaring men was carrying on with drink and devilry, as the saying goes. And then, when I was for giving them a bit of an admonition to lead a new life—— MRS. ALVING. [_At the window._] H’m—— MANDERS. I know all about that, Engstrand; the ruffians threw you downstairs. You have told me of the affair already. Your infirmity is an honour to you. ENGSTRAND. I’m not puffed up about it, your Reverence. But what I wanted to say was, that when she came and confessed all to me, with weeping and gnashing of teeth, I can tell your Reverence I was sore at heart to hear it. MANDERS. Were you indeed, Engstrand? Well, go on. ENGSTRAND. So I says to her, “The American, he’s sailing about on the boundless sea. And as for you, Johanna,” says I, “you’ve committed a grievous sin, and you’re a fallen creature. But Jacob Engstrand,” says I, “he’s got two good legs to stand upon, he has——” You see, your Reverence, I was speaking figurative-like. MANDERS. I understand quite well. Go on. ENGSTRAND.