"Make inquiries of the devil!" replied Schomberg in a hoarse mutter.

Davidson's purpose in addressing the hotel-keeper had been mainly to
make Mrs. Schomberg safe from suspicion; but he would fain have heard
something more of Heyst's exploit from another point of view. It was
a shrewd try. It was successful in a rather startling way, because the
hotel-keeper's point of view was horribly abusive. All of a sudden, in
the same hoarse sinister tone, he proceeded to call Heyst many names, of
which "pig-dog" was not the worst, with such vehemence that he actually
choked himself. Profiting from the pause, Davidson, whose temperament
could withstand worse shocks, remonstrated in an undertone:

"It's unreasonable to get so angry as that. Even if he had run off with
your cash-box--"

The big hotel-keeper bent down and put his infuriated face close to
Davidson's.

"My cash-box! My--he--look here, Captain Davidson! He ran off with a
girl. What do I care for the girl? The girl is nothing to me."

He shot out an infamous word which made Davidson start. That's what the
girl was; and he reiterated the assertion that she was nothing to him.
What he was concerned for was the good name of his house. Wherever he
had been established, he had always had "artist parties" staying in his
house. One recommended him to the others; but what would happen now,
when it got about that leaders ran the risk in his house--his house--of
losing members of their troupe? And just now, when he had spent seven
hundred and thirty-four guilders in building a concert-hall in his