"Catch hold. I want a lesson."
"There you go, there you go!" said Joubert, putting the foil under his arm, and finishing the coat. "Always when I am busy, and monsieur's clothes——"
"Never mind monsieur's clothes," I replied. "I want a lesson. See here: do you remember telling me a trick of Carduso's——"
"A hundred. Which one?"
"A trick of pinking a man in a certain place in the arm, where the big nerve runs, so that his arm is paralysed, and he can't go on fighting."
"Mais oui," said the old fellow, bending the rapier with the button on the tip of his boot.
"Well, show me it."
"Aha!" said Joubert, his eyes lighting up, "la monsieur going to fight?"
"Yes; it has come to that, Joubert. It seems that a man cannot live quietly in this Paris of yours without fighting for his life like some beast in an African forest. But I don't want to kill my man—only to put him out of action."