"By George, sir!"—I exclaimed, "know you! Why, did we not fight side by side at the battle of Arbela?"
At those words everybody burst out laughing, but the boaster, nothing daunted, said, with animation,
"Well, gentlemen, I do not see anything so very laughable in that. I was at that battle, and therefore this gentleman might very well have remarked me; in fact, I think I can recollect him."
And, continuing to speak to me, he named the regiment in which we were brother officers. Of course we embraced one another, congratulating each other upon the pleasure we both felt in meeting again in Parma. After that truly comic joke I left the coffee-room in the company of my inseparable preacher.
The next morning, as I was at breakfast with De la Haye, the boasting
Provencal entered my room without taking off his hat, and said,
"M. d'Arbela, I have something of importance to tell you; make haste and follow me. If you are afraid, you may take anyone you please with you. I am good for half a dozen men."
I left my chair, seized my pistols, and aimed at him.
"No one," I said, with decision, "has the right to come and disturb me in my room; be off this minute, or I blow your brains out."
The fellow, drawing his sword, dared me to murder him, but at the same moment De la Haye threw himself between us, stamping violently on the floor. The landlord came up, and threatened the officer to send for the police if he did not withdraw immediately.
He went away, saying that I had insulted him in public, and that he would take care that the reparation I owed him should be as public as the insult.