Beside him
there crouched a woman with a faded, pretty face, and between Toby
and the rest of the room there stood a box in which lay a baby with
large, wakeful eyes.
Toby's body tingled with excitement, for this was a new thing; he had
never seen it before, he had never seen anything before.
The voice of the woman at the table rose and fell steadily without a
pause; she was abusing the other woman, and the two drunken men were
laughing at her and shouting her on; Toby thought the other woman
lacked spirit because she stayed crouching on the floor and said
nothing.
At last the woman stopped her abuse, and one of the men turned and
shouted an order to the woman on the floor. She stood up and came
towards him, hesitating; this annoyed the man and he swore at her
brutally; when she came near enough he knocked her down with his
fist, and all the three burst out laughing.
Toby was so excited that he knelt up in his corner and clapped his
hands, but the others did not notice because the old man was up and
swaying wildly over the woman. He seemed to be threatening the man
who had struck her, and that one was evidently afraid of him, for he
rose unsteadily and lifted the chair on which he had been sitting
above his head to use as a weapon.
The old man raised his fist and the chair fell heavily on to his
wrinkled forehead and he dropped to the ground.
The woman at the table cried out, "The pension!" in her shrill voice,
and then they were all quiet, looking.
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