all his nerves were on edge.
"Ilya Petrovitch!" the head clerk was beginning anxiously, but stopped short, for he knew from experience that the enraged assistant could not be stopped except by force.
As for the smart lady, at first she positively trembled before the storm.

But, strange to say, the more numerous and violent the terms of abuse became, the more amiable she looked, and the more seductive the smiles she lavished on the terrible assistant.

She moved uneasily, and curtsied incessantly, waiting impatiently for a chance of putting in her word: and at last she found it.
"There was no sort of noise or fighting in my house, Mr.Captain," she pattered all at once, like peas dropping, speaking Russian confidently, though with a strong German accent, "and no sort of scandal, and his honour came drunk, and it's the whole truth I am telling, Mr.Captain, and I am not to blame....

Mine is an honourable house, Mr.Captain, and honourable behaviour, Mr.Captain, and I always, always dislike any scandal myself.

But he came quite tipsy, and asked for three bottles again, and then he lifted up one leg, and began playing the pianoforte with one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, and he _ganz_ broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I said so.