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"Every worker must understand that the only way to a happy future is through struggle and the struggle is growing harder and harder. On the one hand..."
A knock at the door interrupted Bauman. He stopped speaking and first looked at the people sitting round him, and then at the dentist, in whose waiting-room they were having their secret meeting.
"Are you expecting any patients?" he asked.
Everybody understood what Bauman's question meant. They didn't even speak to each other, they didn't have to be reminded what to do. One of them accompanied the dentist into the surgery, while the others sat down on the chairs standing along the wall and pretended to be patients waiting their turn. It didn't take them long. When everything was ready, the dentist's maid went to answer the knock and soon came back with an unexpected visitor, who tried to go straight into the surgery.
"I say, it isn't your turn," a 'patient' sitting next to the door said to him.
"I can't wait. I've got a terrible toothache," the man answered, hurriedly examining everybody's face.
Bauman, who pretended that he was reading a newspaper, didn't even turn his head to look at the strange visitor. He could, however, clearly see the man's face, and recognized him at once. He was a spy, the same man he had often seen before.
"Has he brought the police with him?" ... One thing was clear: it was necessary to keep the spy in the flat as long as possible, so that he would believe that they were real patients. Bauman looked up at the newcomer, and for a moment it seemed to him that there was joy in the man's eyes. Then Bauman said as politely as he could.
"We don't mind if the dentist sees him first, do we?" and then, turning to the spy, "Since you have a bad toothache, you can go next."
The spy didn't know what to say. At that moment the surgery door opened and the dentist asked the next patient in. Bauman, who went on watching the spy, immediately said, "Anyone with bad teeth should certainly have them out."
