At this unexpected explosion, the strange lady jumped up from her chair and looked suddenly round. But directly she saw the captain, she screamed out and fainted away all at once.

I must do my uncle the justice of admitting that when he noticed the remarkable effect he had produced, he exhibited a slight gesture of surprise; which, however, soon passed off. Without calling any help, in four strides he reached the lady's side, and supported her against the table, raising up her pretty head which had fallen back, and slapping her hands. Then, having satisfied himself that she had completely lost consciousness, he began without any more ado to unfasten her dress, tore open her collar, and, with admirable dexterity, unhooked the upper part of her stays--thereby revealing to our gaze two charming globes, imprisoned in lace.

This spectacle, I avow, might have made any other man pause in his zealous operations,--not so my uncle, however; he did not think twice about it, but with his usual unconcerned air proceeded to open out the fair one's stays, then took up the water-bottle, and emptied it with one dash into the hollow between her rounded charms.

A convulsive start, and another scream, indicated immediately the successful effect of this triumphant measure.

"There!" he said to me, "you see that's all that was needed."

Just at this moment the gentleman who belonged to the lady came in. It is hardly necessary to add that when he saw my uncle occupied upon a business so distinctly his own, the new-comer evinced some temper.

"_Bon Dieu!_" he shouted out as he rushed forward, "What's the meaning of this? What's the meaning of this?"

"Nothing serious!" answered the pasha. "Your lady has simply been in a swoon, nothing more; it's all over now!"

"But what have you been about, sir? What do you mean by throwing water like that, right upon people's bosoms--?"

"It was all to do you a service," replied this saviour, quite composedly.

The lady, for her part, looked as if she was going off in another fit, but my uncle, judging no doubt that he had fulfilled his part of the duties, and without troubling himself any further about the mingled alarms and stares of the people of the house who came up, made one of his ceremonious bows to the whole company, and took me away with him, saying,

"Come, let us drink our madeira."

So we went out.

Being accustomed to Barbassou-Pasha's ways, I was certainly not surprised at such a trifle as this. The waiter having served us, ten minutes had elapsed, and while we were discussing the irreparable loss of the Xerez and Douro vines, all of a sudden the door opened. It was the lady's cavalier, and he came in raging like a storm.

"_Bagasse!_" he exclaimed with a furious look, and his hair bristling up like a porcupine. "But you won't get off quite so easily as that, sir!

Who ever heard of such a thing? Undressing a defenceless woman like that, and quite a stranger too!! Not to mention that you have spoilt her dress, which looks as if she had been under the pump!"

His words rolled on like a torrent, in the purest Provencal accent. This made my uncle smile, as if at some pleasant reminiscence; and putting on his most engaging expression, he asked the new-comer in a gentle tone of voice:

"What are you to this lady?"

"She is my sister-in-law, sir!" he replied in a fury, his voice swelling louder and louder: "She is my brother's wife, sir; and he's no fool, no more am I, sir!----Twenty-one years of service, eleven campaigns, and sub-lieutenant of the Customs at Toulon, sir!----So you shall just let me know how it was my sister-in-law fainted through your fault; and what you meant by taking the liberty of exposing her in a way that no decent man would be guilty of, not even with the consent of her family, nor if she were in mortal danger of her life, sir!"

"And where do you live?" continued my uncle, sipping his madeira, and still fixing upon the fair one's brother-in-law the same charming gaze.

"Hotel des Bouches-du-Rhone, Rue Pagevin. I am escorting my sister-in-law, and I am responsible for her to her husband."

"My compliments to you, sir! She is a charming young person."

This magnificent composure of my uncle's so completely disconcerted the lieutenant of the Customs that he stopped short. But he had been carried on too far by his hot meridional temper not to launch out again very soon. He followed up with a perfect flood of abuse, interlarded with the most approved insults, with violent epithets and noisy oaths. My uncle listened to him quietly, stroking his chin, and contemplating him as if watching the performance of some surprising feat. The Toulonnais said that he considered this fainting fit of his sister-in-law's, and the very unceremonious proceedings which had followed it, equally suspicious and irregular.

"My brother's honour has been outraged," and so on, he observed.

But at last the good fellow was obliged to pause in order to take breath. Barbassou-Pasha took advantage of the opening.

"Pray what is _your_ name?" he asked, still smiling affably.

"My name, my good man," loftily replied the man of Toulon, "is Firmin Bonaffe, lieutenant in the Customs, seen twenty-one years of service and eleven campaigns. And if that is not enough for you----"

"Why, dear me! then this charming young person has married your brother, has she?"

"A week ago, sir, at Cadiz, where she lives! It was because he had to go back over the sea to Brazil that he confided her to my charge. And you must not imagine that I can let your outrageous behaviour to her pass without further notice, sir!"

"You are a man of spirit, sir, that I can see!" replied my uncle. He was gradually falling into his native _assent_, charmed, no doubt, by the soothing example of his adversary. "I can understand your feelings," he continued; "and for my part, my good fellow, I confess I should not have the slightest objection to taking a sabre and slicing off a piece of your person." (He uttered this latter word, _individu_, in French, with the Marseillais pronunciation, _inndividu_.) "Indeed," he continued quite placidly, "I should have no objection to throwing you through the window here, just as you are."

This, following upon his imperturbable coolness throughout, had, I can aver, a most aggravating effect. Being a little man and a braggart, Firmin Bonaffe felt the insult all the more hotly.

"Throw me through the window? _Me!_" he exclaimed, drawing himself up as if he wanted to touch the sky. "Try then! Just try!"

"By-and-by," said my uncle, pacifying him with a good-humoured gesture; "but for the present let us have a talk, my good fellow! Certainly I sympathise with your annoyance; for you must have perceived that I know this lady, and that she knows me. There has even been a little _liaison_ between us----"

"_Bagasse!_ You confess to it, then?"

"I confess to it!" responded the captain, in a conciliatory manner.

"But, my dear fellow, a brother's horns, as the saying goes, need not trouble one so much as one's own. You will of course agree with me on that point."

"I agree with you there!" replied the Toulonnais, quite gravely, as if struck by a specious argument. "But it does not follow from that----"

"Stop a moment!" interrupted my uncle, who wished to pursue his argument. "_I_, whom you see here, have also had the honour of being made a cuckold, as they say in Moliere. You are acquainted with Moliere, I dare say?"

"I am; go on!" said the lieutenant, who had made up his mind to restrain himself while my uncle was developing his explanations.

"Very well! as you have read him, you ought to know that a misadventure like that is not such a great matter after all. A second or two and it is all over, just like having a tooth out. Besides, remember this, the tooth cannot be replaced, while in the case of a woman, one can find plenty to take her place."

"That's true!" returned Firmin Bonaffe, who opened his eyes wide, as if he wished to follow this chain of reasoning, which evidently astonished him by its perspicuity.

The issue began to be cleared.

"Then we have arrived at the same opinion," continued Barbassou Pasha.

"All that remains is to come to an understanding."

"By no means! by no means! I repeat, my brother confided his wife to my charge. You have insulted her in public, and in the name of decency--"

"Oh, no!" interrupted my uncle; "you are exaggerating! In the first place, my nephew and I were the only persons present; therefore there was no very great harm done. Then you brought the people up by your shouting; consequently it is I who have cause to complain."

"_Te!_ Are you trying to make a fool of me?" exclaimed the Toulonnais, bursting out upon us like a bomb with another explosion. "Do you suppose, then, that I am going down on my knees to thank you for having undressed Jean Bonaffe's wife?"

"Jean Bonaffe's wife? No, no, my good fellow!" briefly replied my uncle.

"Why 'No'?"

"Why, in the first place, because she is actually my own wife!"

"Yours?"

"As I have the pleasure of informing you. And consequently it is I who would be entitled not to be at all pleased by your intervention in the little domestic occurrence which took place just now."