"Sir." said he. "I told you before that I was not sufficiently credulous to take you for a nobleman. Your conduct at the table has proved that I did well to doubt you. Yourself and friends have shown that you are strangers to the duties of cavaliers, and utterly ignorant of the manners of good society."

"Ah!" cried Belleville, "this offence demands satisfaction."

"I am ready to grant it," said Baron Marshal; "name the time and place of meeting."

"You know well," cried Belleville, "that I am a prisoner, and have given my word of honor not to use my sword!"

"So you were impertinent and shameless, because you knew you were safe? You knew that, thanks to your word of honor, you could not be chastised!"

"Sir," cried Belleville, "you forget that you speak not only to a nobleman, but to a soldier."

" Well, I know that I speak to a Frenchman, who lost his powder- mantle and pomatum-pot at Rossbach."

Belleville, beside himself with rage, seized his sword, and half drew it from the scabbard.