“Ah!” cried Andre-Louis, with a grimace.  “You hurt me, monsieur.  I have told you not to push against me.”  He raised his voice that all might hear him, and once more impelled M. de Chabrillane back into the rain.

Now, for all his slenderness, his assiduous daily sword-practice had given Andre-Louis an arm of iron.  Also he threw his weight into the thrust.  His assailant reeled backwards a few steps, and then his heel struck a baulk of timber left on the ground by some workmen that morning, and he sat down suddenly in the mud.

A roar of laughter rose from all who witnessed the fine gentleman’s downfall.  He rose, mud-bespattered, in a fury, and in that fury sprang at Andre-Louis.

Andre-Louis had made him ridiculous, which was altogether unforgivable.

“You shall meet me for this!” he spluttered.  “I shall kill you for it.”

His inflamed face was within a foot of Andre-Louis’.  Andre-Louis laughed.  In the silence everybody heard the laugh and the words that followed.

“Oh, is that what you wanted?  But why didn’t you say so before?  You would have spared me the trouble of knocking you down.  I thought gentlemen of your profession invariably conducted these affairs with decency, decorum, and a certain grace.  Had you done so, you might have saved your breeches.”

“How soon shall we settle this?” snapped Chabrillane, livid with very real fury.

“Whenever you please, monsieur.  It is for you to say when it will suit your convenience to kill me.  I think that was the intention you announced, was it not?” Andre-Louis was suavity itself.

“To-morrow morning, in the Bois.  Perhaps you will bring a friend.”

“Certainly, monsieur.  To-morrow morning, then.  I hope we shall have fine weather.  I detest the rain.”

Chabrillane looked at him almost with amazement Andre-Louis smiled pleasantly.

“Don’t let me detain you now, monsieur.  We quite understand each other.  I shall be in the Bois at nine o’clock to-morrow morning.”

“That is too late for me, monsieur.”

“Any other hour would be too early for me.  I do not like to have my habits disturbed.  Nine o’clock or not at all, as you please.”

“But I must be at the Assembly at nine, for the morning session.”

“I am afraid, monsieur, you will have to kill me first, and I have a prejudice against being killed before nine o’clock.”

Now this was too complete a subversion of the usual procedure for M. de Chabrillane’s stomach.  Here was a rustic deputy assuming with him precisely the tone of sinister mockery which his class usually dealt out to their victims of the Third Estate.  And to heighten the irritation, Andre-Louis — the actor, Scaramouche always — produced his snuffbox, and proffered it with a steady hand to Le Chapelier before helping himself.

Chabrillane, it seemed, after all that he had suffered, was not even to be allowed to make a good exit.