"I will tell you why I do!" roared Dubosc above the roaring crowd.
"I went to this man in straight and civil style. If he had any explanation
it could have been given in complete confidence. He refuses to explain.
He refers me to two strangers in a cafe as to two flunkeys.
He has thrown me out of the house, but I am going back into it,
with the people of Paris behind me!"

A shout seemed to shake the very facade of mansions and
two stones flew, one breaking a window above the balcony.
The indignant Colonel plunged once more under the archway and was heard
crying and thundering inside. Every instant the human sea grew wider
and wider; it surged up against the rails and steps of the traitor's house;
it was already certain that the place would be burst into like
the Bastille, when the broken french window opened and Dr Hirsch came out
on the balcony. For an instant the fury half turned to laughter;
for he was an absurd figure in such a scene. His long bare neck and
sloping shoulders were the shape of a champagne bottle, but that was
the only festive thing about him. His coat hung on him as on a peg;
he wore his carrot-coloured hair long and weedy; his cheeks and chin
were fully fringed with one of those irritating beards that begin
far from the mouth. He was very pale, and he wore blue spectacles.

Livid as he was, he spoke with a sort of prim decision,
so that the mob fell silent in the middle of his third sentence.

"...only two things to say to you now. The first is to my foes,
the second to my friends. To my foes I say: It is true I will not
meet M. Dubosc, though he is storming outside this very room.
It is true I have asked two other men to confront him for me.
And I will tell you why! Because I will not and must not see him--