“At your service; and, if in two seconds from this you haven’t told me . . .”
“Patrice Belval! And you are M. Siméon’s enemy? And you want to . . . ?”
“I want to do him up like the cur he is, your blackguard of a Siméon . . . and you, his accomplice, with him. A nice pair of rascals! . . . Well, have you made up your mind?”
“Unhappy man!” gasped the porter. “Unhappy man! You don’t know what you’re doing. Kill M. Siméon! You? You? Why, you’re the last man who could commit a crime like that!”
“What about it? Speak, will you, you old numskull!”
“You, kill M. Siméon? You, Patrice? You, Captain Belval? You?”
“And why not? Speak, damn it! Why not?”
“You are his son.”
All Patrice’s fury, all his anguish at the thought that Coralie was in Siméon’s power or else lying in some pit, all his agonized grief, all his alarm: all this gave way, for a moment, to a terrible fit of merriment, which revealed itself in a long burst of laughter.
“Siméon’s son! What the devil are you talking about? Oh, this beats everything! Upon my word, you’re full of ideas, when you’re trying to save him! You old ruffian! Of course, it’s most convenient: don’t kill that man, he’s your father. He my father, that putrid Siméon! Siméon Diodokis, Patrice Belval’s father! Oh, it’s enough to make a chap split his sides!”