"Is he going to squeal?" said Chicotin.
"There is no time wasted yet, messieurs, and his seconds may have kept him waiting.—But look, I see a carriage in the distance.—I'll wager that they're the people we expect."
The carriage reached the wood and they saw Jéricourt, Saint-Arthur and little Astianax at once alight from it.
"Saperlotte! the seconds are not big fellows," cried Chicotin; "I know 'em; both of 'em together wouldn't make one decent man. I could eat half a dozen of them without difficulty!"
Roncherolle imposed silence upon Chicotin with a glance. Jéricourt came forward with his two friends; Saint-Arthur acted as if he had a pain in his stomach, and little Astianax looked in both directions at once.
"What does this mean?" cried Jéricourt, as he scrutinized Chicotin, while Georget glared at him with flaming eyes; "what! Monsieur de Roncherolle chooses a messenger for his second? Really, I should have supposed that he could find some one better than that.—You see, messieurs, the honor that he does you, and with whom you are brought into relations!"
"What's that? what's that?" cried Chicotin, turning up his sleeves; "do I hear anybody sneering at me? Ah! as I live! I'll smash the principal and his seconds in a second."
"Be quiet," said Roncherolle sternly. Then, walking toward his adversary's two seconds, he said to them:
"I have brought this young man, messieurs, Monsieur Georget, because he is the fiancé, the future husband of the young girl whom monsieur attempted to ruin. No one has a better right to be here than he, for the honor of the woman whom he is to marry is the motive of this duel. As for my other second, this honest fellow here, he is only a messenger, it is true, but it was he who saved the young flower girl when, driven to desperation by contemptuous treatment and humiliation, and by the thought of passing for what she was not, she was on the point of jumping into the canal and seeking an end to her suffering there. Do you not think, messieurs, that this honest fellow who brought back hope to Violette's heart, also has a right to be present at a battle which is to rehabilitate her honor? Come, messieurs, which of you will undertake to maintain the contrary, and will blush to have to deal with such seconds? Neither of you, I am sure!"
Saint-Arthur and Astianax contented themselves with bowing low to Roncherolle, who continued: