like the wooden rocking-horses children play
with. "Come here, Rousselet; are you wheezy or foundered?"

"I have not as good legs as your horses," replied the old man, who
reached them at last, breathless, and took off his hat to wipe his
forehead.

"What does this mean, jumping out upon one from a corner in the woods
like two assassins?" asked Lambernier, foreseeing that this beginning
might lead to some scene in which he was threatened to be forced to play
a not very agreeable role.

"It means," said the coachman: "first, that Rousselet has nothing to do
with it; I do not need anybody's help to punish an insignificant fellow
like you; second, that you are going to receive your quietus in a
trice."

At these words he pushed his cap down over his ears and rolled up his
sleeves, in order to give freer action to his large, broad hands.

The three men were standing upon a plot of ground where charcoal had
been burned the year before. The ground was black and slippery, but
being rather level, it was a very favorable place for a duel with
fists or any other weapons. When Lambernier saw the lackey's warlike
preparations, he placed his cap and coat upon an old stump and stationed
himself in front of his adversary. But, before the hostilities had
begun, Rousselet advanced, stretching his long arms out between them,
and said, in a voice whose solemnity seemed to be increased by the
gravity of the occasion:

"I do not suppose that you both wish to kill each other; only uneducated
people conduct themselves in this vulgar manner; you ought to have
a friendly explanation, and see if the matter is not susceptible of
arrangement. That was the way such things were done when I was in the
twenty-fifth demi-brigade."

"The explanation is," said the coachman, in his gruff voice, "that here
is a low fellow who takes every opportunity to undervalue me and my
horses, and I have sworn to give him a good drubbing the first time I
could lay my hands upon him. So, Pere Rousselet, step aside. He will see
if I am a pickle; he will find out that the pickle is peppery!"

"If you made use of such a vulgar expression as that," observed
Rousselet, turning to Lambernier, "you were at fault, and should beg his
pardon as is the custom among educated people."

"It is false!" exclaimed Lambernier; "and besides, everybody calls the
Corandeuils that, on account of the color of their livery."

"Did you not say Sunday, at the 'Femme-sans-Tete', and