"
"Will it protect me from a sabre-thrust?" asked Philippe.
"Yes," replied the old lady.
"Then I have no right to wear that accoutrement any more than if it
were a cuirass," cried Agathe's son.
"What does he mean?" said Madame Hochon.
"He says it is not playing fair," answered Hochon.
"Then we will say no more about it," said the old lady, "I shall pray
for you."
"Well, madame, prayer--and a good point--can do no harm," said
Philippe, making a thrust as if to pierce Monsieur Hochon's heart.
The old lady kissed the colonel on his forehead. As she left the
house, she gave thirty francs--all the money she possessed--to
Benjamin, requesting him to sew the relic into the pocket of his
master's trousers. Benjamin did so,--not that he believed in the
virtue of the tooth, for he said his master had a much better talisman
than that against Gilet, but because his conscience constrained him to
fulfil a commission for which he had been so liberally paid. Madame
Hochon went home full of confidence in Saint Solange.
At eight o'clock the next morning, December third, the weather being
cloudy, Max, accompanied by his seconds and the Pole, arrived on the
little meadow which then surrounded the apse of the church of the
Capuchins. There he found Philippe and his seconds, with Benjamin,
waiting for him. Potel and Mignonnet paced off twenty-four feet; at
each extremity, the two attendants drew a line on the earth with a
spade: the combatants were not allowed to retreat beyond that line, on
pain of being thought cowardly.
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