So I got off and I said to him, 'I think you better stop right there or I'm

gonna have to teach you a lesson.' And he said, 'You and who else?' So I let him

have it. He went down. I was about to help him up but he started kicking me from

there on the ground. So I kneed him one and slugged him a couple of times. His

face was all bloody. I asked him if he'd had enough. He said, 'Yes.' " All this

time, Sintes was fiddling with his bandage. I was sitting on the bed. He said,

"So you see, I wasn't the one who started it. He was asking for it." It was true

and I agreed. Then he told me that as a matter of fact he wanted to ask my

advice about the whole business, because I was a man, I knew about things, I

could help him out, and then we'd be pals. I didn't say anything, and he asked

me again if I wanted to be pals. I said it was fine with me: he seemed pleased.

He got out the blood sausage, fried it up, and set out glasses, plates, knives

and forks, and two bottles of wine. All this in silence. Then we sat down. As we

ate, he started telling me his story. He '>vas a little hesitant at first. "I

knew this lady . . . as a matter of fact, well, she was my mistress." The man

he'd had the fight with was this woman's brother. He told me he'd been keeping

her. I didn't say anything, and yet right away he added that he knew what people

around the neighborhoodwere saying, but that his conscience was clear and that

he was a warehouse guard.

 

'To get back to what I was saying," he continued, "I realized that she was

cheating on me." He'd been giving her just enough to live on. He paid the rent

on her room and gave her twenty francs a day for food. "Three hundred francs for

the room, six hundred for food, a pair of stockings every now and then-that made

it a thousand francs. And Her Highness refused to work. But she was always