"Then I'll find a way to force you to."
"Yes, yes," said Jean Ficelle, from behind Sans-Cravate; "when a man entices a friend's mistress away from him, he can't refuse to give him satisfaction."
Paul cast a contemptuous glance at Jean Ficelle, and was about to answer him, when Sans-Cravate rushed at him like a madman and shook his fist in his face, crying:
"Will you fight?"
"No, for you are drunk! I am bound to overlook your foolish behavior."
"Oh! that's it, is it?"
And Sans-Cravate, utterly beside himself with jealousy, jumped at Paul, and, seizing him around the waist, threw him against the wall of the canal. The young man tried to save himself; but he stumbled and staggered, and, as he fell, his head struck a large paving stone which, unluckily, had been left lying there; its sharp edge made a deep wound, and the blood soon formed a pool about the wounded man.
Paul did not utter a sound; but Sans-Cravate, when he saw the blood flowing from the wound, stood as if turned to stone, horror-stricken, and his face became ghastly pale. Jean-Ficelle seized his arm.
"Let's be off!" he said; "let's be off! you've given him his dose, and that's all that was needed; now let's cut sticks."
"But he is wounded, he's bleeding," muttered Sans-Cravate.