“A challenge, eh? ... ha-ha! ho-ho-ho!... Tell your cousin, Monsieur Latour, that the duel is relegated to the limbo of opera-bouffe. Ho-ho-ho! We do not do these things in England.”
He prepared himself for a flight of oratory.
Gaston Latour nudged the other youth—they bowed solemnly and withdrew.
“Ho-ho! ha-ha-ha!” laughed Quogge Myre.
The following morning Mr. Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre’s name was posted in every club in Paris, and struck from the list of those to which he had belonged; so it came about that he had to live his day at cafés.
And it was as he stood at a table, giving authoritative utterance with loud yawing voice to a group of youths that sat about him, vowing that he had determined to shake the dust of Paris from off his splay feet and to start a great renaissance of the English drama, when a handsome young woman, sister to Gaston Latour, entered the place, walked straight up to Mr. Myre, and struck him a sounding buffet on the ear that sent his hat flying from his head.
Quilliam O’Flaherty stooping down in confusion to search for the hat, she kicked him violently behind.
There was a roar of laughter from the students seated round about, and they tapped the handles of their knives upon the tables, singing:
“Opera-bouffe, bouffe, bouffe! Opera-bouffe, bouffe, bouffe! Hey-hey-hey! bouffe-bouffe-bouffe!”
Then the girl flogged Quilliam with a horse-whip, thrice: