“There is my address,” said I, seizing a pen, and writing on a piece of paper before me.
“Ha!” said De Beauvais, as he threw his eye on the writing; “he has got his grade, it seems: all the better that,—I half shrunk from the ridicule of an affair with a cadet. So you are serious about this?”
“Sir!” said I, all my efforts being barely enough to repress my rising passion.
“Well, well! enough about it. To-morrow morning; the Bois de Boulogne; the rapier. You understand me, I suppose?”
I nodded, and was about to leave the place, when I remembered that in my confusion I had neither asked my antagonist's name nor rank.
“And you, sir,” said I, “may I have the honor to learn who you are?”
“Pardieu, my young friend!” cried one of the others; “The information will not strengthen your nerves. But if you will have it, he is the Marquis de Beauvais, and tolerably well known in that little locality where he expects to meet you to-morrow.”
“Till then, sir,” replied I, touching my cap, as I turned into the street; not, however, before a burst of laughter rang through the party at a witticism of which I was the object, and the latter part of which only could I catch.
It was De Beauvais who spoke: “In which case, Crillac, another artist must take his measure.”
The allusion could not be mistaken, and I confess I did not relish it like the others.