"Tell my concierge, if you choose; it makes confounded little difference to me, after all."
"What does that tone mean, monsieur?"
"It means that you make me very weary with all your nonsense; and if you're not satisfied with the tone I adopt, why, I'll give you satisfaction as soon as I have done with the count; or before, if you choose."
"Monsieur!"
The discussion was on the verge of ending in a quarrel, when the Auvergnat, seeing that things seemed to be approaching a crisis, shouted in stentorian tones:
"Very well, fouchtra! very well! We agree, I say!"
This outburst was delivered in such unique fashion by the water-carrier, that the younger of the count's seconds roared with laughter again, and Cherami himself could not keep a sober face. He turned his back and put his handkerchief to his mouth. The old gentleman alone retained an air of displeasure; but his young companion said to him earnestly:
"Come, Monsieur de Maugrillé, let us not have trouble over an affair which really seems to me quite simple.—Monsieur de la Bérinière selects swords; he wishes to fight to-morrow, about nine o'clock, in Vincennes Forest; we will meet at the entrance to the forest, near Porte Saint-Mandé, on the highroad. Those are our conditions, messieurs; are they satisfactory to you?"
Then or never was the time for the water-carrier to repeat the phrase he had been taught; but, just as it frequently happens on the stage, that, when an actor has begun his lines too soon, he is silent when he ought to speak, so did the Auvergnat look stolidly at the others and utter never a word.
Cherami, who was gazing at him impatiently, at last walked up behind him and struck him in the side, crying: