"Bravo!"
"Now what shall you do?"
"What about?"
"About this marriage."
"Oh, well, as I am quite unable to make a quatrain as good as yours, I shall say to her, 'Are you really going to marry a Russian, my poor Louise? I tell you, you are making a great mistake.'"
"I do not fancy that will have so much effect as my quatrain," said Adolphe.
"Neither do I; but what else can I do? One can only use one's own weapons. Now, if the Russian would meet me in a pistol Dud, I am quite sure he would never marry Louise!"
"You are a sportsman, then?"
"Rather. How could you imagine one would not be, surrounded by such a forest? Oh, stop! there is a water-hen!"
I pointed it out to him with my finger, flushing it with my stick as it swam among the reeds of the pond.