Engstrand. Was the poor girl to go and increase her load of shame by talking about it? Just suppose, sir, for a moment that your reverence was in the same predicament as my poor Joanna.

Engstrand. Good Lord, sir, I don't mean the same predicament. I mean, suppose there were something your reverence was ashamed of in the eyes of the world, so to speak. We men ought not judge a poor woman too hardly, Mr. Manders.

Manders. But I am not doing so at all. It is you I am blaming.

Engstrand. Will your reverence grant me leave to ask you a small question?

Engstrand. Shouldn't you say it was right for a man to raise up the fallen?

Engstrand. And isn't a man bound to keep his word of honour?

Manders. Certainly he is; but--

Engstrand. At the time when Joanna had her misfortune with this Englishman--or maybe he was an American or a Russian, as they call 'em--well, sir, then she came to town. Poor thing, she had refused me once or twice before; she only had eyes for good- looking men in those days, and I had this crooked leg then. Your reverence will remember how I had ventured up into a dancing- saloon where seafaring men were revelling in drunkenness and intoxication, as they say. And when I tried to exhort them to turn from their evil ways--