“You can’t doubt,” said la Peyrade, “that the virtuous Cerizet is at the bottom of it; he has thrown this firecracker between your legs by way of revenge.”
“Cerizet, or anybody else who wrote that diatribe is an insolent fellow,” cried Thuillier, getting angry, “and the matter shall not rest there.”
“For my part,” said la Peyrade, “I advise you to make no reply. You are not named; though, of course, the attack is aimed at you. But you ought to let our adversary commit himself farther; when the right moment comes, we’ll rap him over the knuckles.”
“No!” said Thuillier, “I won’t stay quiet one minute under such an insult.”
“The devil!” said the barrister; “what a sensitive epidermis! Do reflect, my dear fellow, that you have made yourself a candidate and a journalist, and therefore you really must harden yourself better than that.”
“My good friend, it is a principle of mine not to let anybody step on my toes. Besides, they say themselves they are going on with this thing. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to cut short such impertinence.”
“But do consider,” said la Peyrade. “Certainly in journalism, as in candidacy, a hot temper has its uses; a man makes himself respected, and stops attacks—”
“Just so,” said Thuillier, “‘principiis obsta.’ Not to-day, because we haven’t the time, but to-morrow I shall carry that paper into court.”
“Into court!” echoed la Peyrade; “you surely wouldn’t go to law in such a matter as this? In the first place, there is nothing to proceed upon; you are not named nor the paper either, and, besides, it is a pitiable business, going to law; you’ll look like a boy who has been fighting, and got the worst of it, and runs to complain to his mamma. Now if you had said that you meant to make Fleury intervene in the matter, I could understand that—though the affair is rather personal to you, and it might be difficult to make it seem—”
“Ah ca!” said Thuillier, “do you suppose I am going to commit myself with a Cerizet or any other newspaper bully? I pique myself, my dear fellow, on possessing civic courage, which does not give in to prejudices, and which, instead of taking justice into its own hands, has recourse to the means of defence that are provided by law. Besides, with the legal authority the Court of Cassation now has over duelling, I have no desire to put myself in the way of being expatriated, or spending two or three years in prison.”