"You are a fool yourself, with your hunting-horns and your tankards," cried Sphex, angrily. "What can there be in common, I should like to know, between the Marquis and the course amusements of gladiators and drunkards?" added the doctor, with an expression of supreme contempt. "You wouldn't have fallen into such an error, my dear baron, if you had heard Létorière recite and comment upon the admirable verses of the king of the Latin poets of antiquity!" . . .
"I!"—cried the baron in a rage—"I believe what my eyes have seen, and not the dream of a sickly imagination! In my presence the Marquis has killed a deer with the finest possible stroke of the knife! In my presence he has wound a horn better than the first huntsman of the imperial hounds! In two days he has drank, in my presence, more beer, more Rhine wine and more kirchenwasser than you ever drank in all your life, Dr. Sphex! In my presence he has mounted my old Elphin, which many huntsmen have found difficult! Well, once again I tell you, you and Flachsinfingen both, that Létorière, a rough and bold cavalier, is too well acquainted with the spear, the hunting-horn and the glass, to lose his time in turning pale before old he-goats, or blushing before a woman! Again I tell you, you are two dreamers."
At this outburst the two other councillors fell foul of one another, and the discussion soon became so violent, that the three judges, all speaking at once, could not make themselves heard.
The presence of an usher of the council was necessary to put a stop to this incomprehensible conversation.
The usher approached Flachsinfingen, and whispered in his ear. . . .
"Gentlemen," said he, "my wife desires to speak to me; will you listen to her? She will inevitably throw light on this discussion, for she has conversed for two whole hours with M. de Létorière. . . . Listen to her, and you will see that what I have said is the exact truth."
"Let her come in, if she wishes," cried the baron. "But in spite of all the petticoats in Germany, I repeat that I have seen Létorière kill a deer with his own hand, and that he can drink as much as I can."
"And in spite of all the hunters, whippers-in, and drinkers in Germany," cried Dr. Sphex, "I maintain that I have heard Létorière recite verses of Persius, and comment upon them more learnedly than the most learned professors of our universities could do. And you will never make me believe, baron, that so erudite a man, with such a refined mind, could hunt in the forest like a poacher, or drink like a pandour."
"And I, in spite of all the professors, all the huntsmen, all the drinkers in the empire, will maintain that I have seen Létorière tremble like a child before my wife, who was obliged to reassure him, and that I heard him quote Scripture as piously as a minister," cried Flachsinfingen,—exasperated in his turn. "One need only to see the Marquis to be assured there is nothing in his appearance or manner that smacks of the gladiator."
The conseillère entered in the midst of these contradictory allegations.