"Shut your head, Titi—you're drunk. Isn't he drunk, that fellow? But, as I was telling you," Piatte went on, "we took the road past the railway, and came to that little pub 'The Three Jolly Comrades,' where there's a sign-board where they've painted a Dragoon, a Piou-piou,[39] and a Gunner walking arm-in-arm—you know the place, don't you?"
I didn't, but assured Piatte that I knew it well.
"'Let's go in,' says Titi: but I says, 'No.' Fancy going into a place where they put a Dragoon arm-in-arm with a Piou-piou! But Titi, he says, 'Oh, never mind their bally sign-board if their wine's good,' and I says, 'There's sense in that,' so in we goes.
"There was a billiard-table in the place, so I says to Titi, 'After we have had a drink we will have a game, Titi.' We called for a drink, and a jolly nice girl comes to serve us. You should have seen her, old chap; she was a regular ripper—plenty of flesh and some to spare. I had taken her hand, and was telling her what a fine girl she was when half a dozen Piou-pious walked in the place. The girl tries to take her hand away and blushes, and I see one of the Piou-pious stare at me like mad. Well, I didn't say nothing, but I let go the girl's hand, and she brings us our wine and a flask of brandy; we finish our bottle, and just as we were drinking our last glass I see one of the Piou-pious take off his coat, and they all take billiard cues and calls out for balls; so I get up and I say, 'No, look here; 'tis our game and not yours.' One of them says, 'First come, first served.' I says, 'Just so; we came first, and first we play.' But the Piou-pious wouldn't give in, and the one that had stared at me, he calls the landlord. When the old man comes I say, civil like, 'Now, look here, landlord: I have come into your house, although I didn't like that 'ere board on the outside. How dare you call that "The Three Jolly Comrades," and put up a picture of a Dragoon walking arm-in-arm with a dirty mean bug of Piou-piou, like if any Dragoon would lower himself in that way!'
"'Dirty mean bug!' shout all the Piou-pious together. 'You filthy citrouille!' (A nickname given to Dragoons, meaning "pumpkin.")
"This was too much for me, so I turns to Titi and I says, 'Did you hear that?'
"'Didn't I!' he says. 'What shall we do—chuck all these dirty shrimps out of the window, eh?'
"'That's it,' I say, and I goes to open the window. I must tell you Titi and I had taken off our swords and put them in a corner when we came in. I had just opened the window when one of them takes his billiard cue by the tip and hits me with the thick part of it; but it just struck on my helmet, and you can see it hit hard. Look," added Piatte, picking up his helmet, which was quite bashed in. "Oh, then," he went on, "my blood was up and I went for that chap, and without more ceremony I take him by his coat-tails and his collar, and I send him, cue and all, right over the billiard-table, where he falls all of a heap and stops there. At the same time the four others had set on Titi, so I rushed to his help; he was down, and they were hammering at him like mad; so I hit one here, I hit another there, I gave the third a dig in the chest with my head, I sent the fourth against the billiard-table with a kick, and Titi gets on his legs. The others, except the one I had chucked over the billiard-table, had also got up, and we were fighting like mad when three other devils who were passing along the road stepped in and joined in the row. 'Oh,' I says, 'is that so? Helmets, then!' Titi understands me; we take our helmets off, and swinging them by the end of the horse-tail, we strike right in among them promiscuous like. My boy, if you had seen them: they drops one after the other; only three of them remained standing up, and while Titi was having it out in the corner with one of the chaps I stood facing the two others. One of them, the coward, draws his sword-bayonet, but with a swing of my helmet I knocks it out of his hand, and as the window stood open I chucked him out of it. The other one, in the meantime, had caught hold of me from behind, but I soon shook him off, and lifting him from the ground—he was a miserable little cur—I shook him like a rat. I bang him against the wall, and at last he cries, 'Oh don't, don't.' 'Going to beg pardon?' I asked. 'Oh yes,' he says, 'I beg pardon.' 'Very well, then,' I says, sticking him on the ground standing with his back to me, 'if you move God help you!' at the same time I holler, 'Prepare to receive cavalry!' and didn't he receive cavalry, just! With one kick in the back I sent him flying to join the others."
At the recollection of this Piatte burst into such a roar of laughter that it awoke Titi, who had fallen asleep on my shoulder, and he, too, began to guffaw idiotically.