The sword, as we have said, had been transformed into a peacock's feather.
There was that in the scabbard which would have baffled Roland and the eleven peers of Charlemagne. Hiraux found therein what certainly neither the one nor the other of those valiant chevaliers did.
"You can see for yourselves, my friends," he said, as he showed the peacock's feather to his assailants, "you can see for yourselves I do not want to harm you."
No one could have resisted such artlessness. Threats gave way to shouts of laughter, masks fell off, and, when they had given Hiraux's legs time to recover their stability, all three returned amicably to the town.
Hiraux added one more adventure to his record.
Hiraux made me laugh so much in my childhood, and I loved him so dearly, that my sympathy for the musician overcame my antipathy to music and I agreed to take violin lessons.
But I insisted that they should buy me a violin in Paris, and not one of those for sale in the old curiosity shops of Villers-Cotterets, which did not satisfy my pride as good enough.
My mother always let me go my own way; so it was decided that Hiraux should buy me a violin the next time he went to Paris, and that my musical education should begin on his return.
Only, when would that journey be likely to take place? It looked at first as though I had counted on a postponement to the Greek Kalends. But such was not to be: chance, or rather a new joke, of which Hiraux was the victim, decreed otherwise.
The journey to Paris was arranged at the close of a dinner, at which Hiraux and some friends of his were present—among others were his two intimate friends, Mussart and Duez, whose names we mention now as we shall hear of them again presently.