"Watch!"
"In God's name, Madame Girie, be good enough to hold your tongue!"
A small man, whom I had not yet seen, as he was hidden by the crowd, succeeded in passing his perfectly curled blonde head under Madame Girie's ear rings, and said, gesticulating freely after the manner of Mr. Punch, for he bore a strong resemblance to a marionette:
"Allow me! allow me! we must try to understand each other. Monsieur says he came to my cousin Pamphile Girie's wedding party by mistake; but a mistake like that don't last an hour, and monsieur's been with us more than an hour. I noticed him; he drank punch every minute; he made more noise than all the rest of the company, and I said to myself: 'That man's a boute-en-train![A] Oh! he's a famous boute-en-train!' But monsieur must have discovered that he didn't know us; that the bride and groom were not the ones who invited him. It seems to me that that's good, logical reasoning. I'm a logical man!"
The little automaton was not such a fool as one would have supposed at first sight. Balloquet was at a loss for a reply to his speech. I made haste to take the floor.
"Messieurs, my friend Arthur Balloquet has not deceived you; he is a most estimable physician, and incapable of offending you intentionally. He mistook the salon, that is all; you must not see anything more in the affair than there really is in it."
"And I was so comfortable where I was," said Balloquet, "that I could not make up my mind to go away."
This compliment allayed the ferocity of the vitreous-eyed gentleman. However, he was about to repeat his demand for proofs, when, on turning his head, he saw Monsieur Guillardin, who had come out to ascertain the cause of the uproar, accompanied by Madame Dauberny. She came to my side and whispered:
"I presume that your friend Balloquet has been putting his foot in it?"
As I said yes with my eyes, we heard a cry of surprise: