Unless you don't understand French."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"I mean," screamed suddenly Lieut. Feraud, "to cut off your ears to
teach you to disturb me with the general's orders when I am talking to a
lady!"
A profound silence followed this mad declaration; and through the open
window Lieut. D'Hubert heard the little birds singing sanely in the
garden. He said, preserving his calm, "Why! If you take that tone,
of course I shall hold myself at your disposition whenever you are at
liberty to attend to this affair; but I don't think you will cut my ears
off."
"I am going to attend to it at once," declared Lieut. Feraud, with
extreme truculence. "If you are thinking of displaying your airs and
graces to-night in Madame de Lionne's salon you are very much mistaken."
"Really!" said Lieut. D'Hubert, who was beginning to feel irritated,
"you are an impracticable sort of fellow. The general's orders to
me were to put you under arrest, not to carve you into small pieces.
Good-morning!" And turning his back on the little Gascon, who, always
sober in his potations, was as though born intoxicated with the sunshine
of his vine-ripening country, the Northman, who could drink hard on
occasion, but was born sober under the watery skies of Picardy, made for
the door.
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