The man suddenly slipped outside the door like a cat. With his back to the door and his right hand bulging in his coat pocket he faced Gypo. He was a stocky, bulgy fellow, with a criminal face. He had rushed out with the intention of giving Gypo a thrashing with the “blackjack” that was concealed on his person, but when he saw the kind of customer with whom he had to deal his jaw dropped. Gypo gazed at the fellow angrily. “So you’re the pimp,” he gurgled ferociously. He took a little hurried breath, shot out his right hand and seized the pimp by the throat. The pimp gasped. His right hand dropped the “blackjack.” He reached up with his two hands to grip the giant hand that held his throat. “Lemme go,” he screamed. But Gypo contemptuously hurled him away from the door and sent him sprawling along the hall into the darkness. Then he sent the door flying open with a push of his shoulder and strode blinking into the room. The room was crowded with people. It was very large. It had a stone floor and a wide, open hearth where an immense turf fire was blazing in a huge grate, with steaming kettles on either side, on the hobs. There was a dresser loaded with shining Delftware of all colours. The ceiling was high and white-washed. The walls were covered with pictures of women, in amorous postures and in the varying degrees of nakedness that might be expected to arouse libidinous desires in the minds of all types of men. Everything in the room was spotlessly clean, but the air was warm and heavy, due to the rather intense heat of the fire and the combined odour of perfume and of alcohol. This heavy, languorous odour exalted Gypo. He rolled his eyes round the room, drawing in a deep breath through his expanded nostrils. Everybody was looking at him. There were eight men present, three students from the University, an artist, a doctor and three young gentleman farmers, up from the country “on a tear.” They had hired the brothel for the night and ordered the proprietress to admit nobody; but they did not take umbrage at Gypo’s appearance. They were just at that moment in the delicious stage of intoxication when the most strange incidents become normal and welcome, to minds that are cloyed with alcohol fumes and the contemplation of bodily pleasures. The scuffle outside the door and the manner of Gypo’s entrance made no impression on them. His appearance, huge, towering, in a suit of dungarees, with his little round hat perched on his massive skull, intrigued them with a feeling that this was some new kind of pleasure provided for their entertainment. They looked at him, half laughing, half serious, with that dim and distant look in their eyes that comes with the initial stages of drunkenness.