“You don’t want me to ask for more?”
“Oh, no! we mustn’t flay him. It’s understood then—in two hours you will go to the house.”
“Why not earlier?”
“My dear Poterne, how impatient you are! we must give the lovers time to breakfast and to abandon themselves to the joys of love. Deuce take it! everybody must amuse himself, after all; and consider, Poterne, that by leaving them together longer, you will inevitably take them in flagrante delicto! That is much the shrewder way. You are supposed to be the husband; your wife has been spirited away, and you find her in her ravisher’s arms; you bellow and roar and swear that you will kill them both—your wife especially! Chérubin pleads for mercy for her, and you refuse to accord it unless he signs notes of hand for sixty thousand francs.—You have some stamped paper, haven’t you?”
“Oh! I have all that I need. But suppose the young marquis defends himself, suppose he refuses to sign?”
“Nonsense! a mere boy! You must threaten him with prosecution for abducting your wife; you will have your dagger, and you can still insist on killing her; Chérubin is too generous not to try to save her.”
“I agree with you there.”
“In all this, Monsieur Poterne, take good care not to hurt anybody! Your dagger isn’t sharp, I trust?”
“Oh, no! there’s no danger.”
“And when you speak, assume some kind of an accent, so that he won’t recognize you.”