"What is that?"
"The two corks that you put in your nose when you go out on a windy night. Look out! there's a man with a torch beside you; don't turn, your nose would blow it out."
"Ah! Monsieur Plumard is pleased to be sarcastic.—However, you have a right to swagger; you know that I won't take you by the hair."
"Wait! just wait! I will give you a drubbing, you miserable dwarf!"
The two clerks approached to exchange blows; but as the Chevalier Passedix was between them, they used him as a rampart behind which to shelter themselves, and that rampart received many of the blows which the young gentlemen intended for each other.
"Sandioux! here are two rascals fighting between my legs now! Have you nearly finished, pygmies? If you force me to draw Roland from its sheath, I promise you that you will both be spitted like starlings!"
The two clerks, trying to run away in order to escape the effects of the Gascon's wrath, collided with two women from the market, who pushed them away with so much force that Monsieur Plumard fell to the ground, and, to put the finish to his misfortunes, he lost his cap in the fall, so that that youthful head was disclosed to view, already almost bald, having only a narrow band of vegetation left, just above the ears.
A general laugh arose, and the merriment was increased by the furious manner in which the unfortunate clerk ran through the crowd on all fours, looking between every pair of legs, and shouting:
"My cap! my cap! don't step on it!"