So Colonel Bro had arranged for a day's shooting at Adolphe's and my entreaty and had fixed a Sunday, as on that day Adolphe and I were free from our desks and could take part. The rendezvous was to be at Colonel Bro's house at seven o'clock. We left the rue des Martyrs in three carriages and were at Enghien by nine. Here a breakfast, worthy of a Saxon thane, awaited the guests. At ten o'clock we began our sport; by five we again found a good meal served, and by eleven at night we were all back in our various homes. I was always ready before other people if it were a question of shooting, so I turned up at Colonel Bro's house by half-past six in the morning. I was shown into a little boudoir, where I found myself tête-à-tête with an immense blue-and-red Carolina parroquet. The parroquet was on its stand and I sat down on a sofa. Now I have always felt the greatest respect for men with large noses and animals with big beaks; not because I think them pretty, but because I believe Nature has her reasons when she produces a monstrosity. And on these grounds, Colonel Bro's parrot was fully entitled to my most profound respect. So I addressed a few polite words to it, as I sat down, as I have said, on a couch opposite its perch. The parroquet looked me over for a minute with that melancholy expression peculiar to parroquets; then, with that precaution which never deserts them, it slowly climbed down each branch of its perch, by the help of its claws and beak; then, finally, down the main pole of the perch itself, until it reached the ground. Then it came across to me, waddling, stopping, looking round it on all sides, and uttering a cry at every step it took, until it had reached the toe of my boot, when it began to try to climb my leg. Touched by this mark of confidence on the bird's part, I stretched out my hand to spare it the trouble of the climb; but, whether it was under a misapprehension as to the friendliness of my intentions, or whether it disguised a premeditated attack behind a benevolent exterior, it had scarcely caught sight of my hand within reach when it seized my fore-finger and gave me a double bite above the first joint right through to the bone. The pain was all the more violent because it was unexpected. I uttered a shriek, and, by a convulsive movement, my leg stiffened with the elasticity of a steel spring, and I kicked the parrot spinning with the end of my hunting-boot, in the centre of its breast, sending it flat against the wall. It fell to the floor, and lay there without a movement. Was its death caused by the kick or by the blow that followed? Was it caused by my boot or by contact with the wall? I never found out, and I made no attempt to ascertain, for I heard footsteps in the next room. I seized hold of the bird, which was still motionless, I raised the cover of the couch, I pushed it with my foot underneath into the dark depths, I let fall the cover again and I sat down as though nothing extraordinary had happened. Next, I bound up my finger I with my handkerchief, and then Colonel Bro entered. We exchanged greetings and, as I kept my hand in my pocket, nothing was noticed.
Everyone came, and we set out without a single cry or movement, or sign of existence from the parroquet buried under the couch.
When we reached Enghien, one of our party seemed to have his hand bandaged up like mine, and fellow-feeling opened up a current of sympathy between us. I asked him how he had met with his accident. A door had been violently shut by the wind just as he had his hand between it and the doorpost, and his fingers had been caught. As for myself, I simply told him I had cut myself with the flint of my gun; for in those days I still used a flint-gun for shooting. This sportsman who was maimed in the same hand as I was turned out to be the celebrated Doctor Ferrus. Directly he heard my name he asked me if I was the son of General Alexandre Dumas, and, on my replying in the affirmative, he related the story of the lifting of the four muskets with four fingers, that I gave on his authority in the early portion of these Memoirs.
We had with us, too, among the shooters, a friend of Telleville Arnault—a man who was certainly one of the bravest, wittiest and most original people who ever breathed—Colonel Morrisel. He wore spectacles and looked anything but a colonel. He had just fought an unsuccessful duel which made more sensation than if it had come off successfully.
In those days, there was a café called the café Français in the rue Lafitte, which was the rallying-place of fashionable young men. The head waiter was a great billiard player named Changeur, and one night he was playing with a very young man, who found it necessary to take lessons at three francs the game, when M. le Baron de B——, accompanied by one of his friends, entered the establishment. M. le Baron de B was somewhat of a tricky character, and notorious, besides, because of two or three lucky or unlucky duels (according to the degree of philanthropy with which the reader may be endowed, and whether he think it fortunate or unfortunate to wound or kill his neighbour); he came up to the billiard-table and, without even addressing the young man, he said—
"Changeur, get us some coffee, and let us have the billiard-table."
"Excuse me, Monsieur le Baron," said Changeur, in amazement, pointing to the young man, "but I am engaged in a game."
"Well, then, you will stop the game, that's all."
"Monsieur," said the young man timidly and politely, "we have only a few points more to make; in ten minutes the billiard-table will be at your service."
"I am not asking for it in ten minutes, but at once.... Come, Changeur, come, my lad, give me your cue."