"Madame! madame! call off your dog!" shouted the amazon; "he is biting my horse! you will be responsible for what may happen!"

"The dog is not mine, madame; but I am thankful for his arrival at this moment, for it has prevented you from doing a cowardly thing."

"Oh! you haven't heard the last of this, madame! The cursed dog! And I shall find this little wretch again, too. We shall see! we shall see! I will find that dog's master!"

But hara.s.sed by Ami, who tried to bite her legs, and obliged to attend to her horse, whom the constant attacks of the dog were driving to frenzy, Thelenie had no choice but to abandon the field of battle. She plunged her spurs into the beast's sides, and gave him the rein; he instantly galloped away at the top of his speed, and horse and rider soon disappeared altogether.

Ami started to pursue them, but Honorine called him back so vehemently that he returned to her side at last, still excited by the battle he had fought.

The young woman looked about in every direction, but to no purpose; the dog's master did not appear. She was about to return to the house, when she noticed that little Emile was still by her side.

"Why did you throw a stone at that horse just now?" she asked.

"It wasn't a stone, it was a lump of dirt."

"No matter; you hoped to hit that lady, I suppose?"

"Yes, I aimed it at her."

"That was a very naughty thing for you to do. Just think of all that might have happened: the lady galloped her horse at you----"

"And at you too."

"And if it had not been for this good dog that arrived just in time, you might be badly hurt."

"And you too."

"None of those things would have happened if you had not thrown that lump of dirt."

"What made that dragoon strike me with her whip?"

"Why didn't you stand aside to let her pa.s.s?"

"She could pa.s.s well enough; there was plenty of room. Does she need the whole road for her and her horse?"

"My child, do you mean always to be naughty? You have already forgotten what I told you the other day; make people love you instead of making them fear you, and you will be much happier."

The boy looked at the ground and muttered in a low voice:

"No one wants to love me!"

Honorine took a small coin from her purse and gave it to Emile.

"See, I will give you this," she said, "but only on condition that you won't throw any more stones or dirt at anybody. If I learn that you have done it again, I will never give you anything more."

"Not cherries?"

"Neither cherries nor anything else; now go."

Ami listened to this conversation, seated on his haunches, with the gravity of an examining magistrate. Then he followed Honorine to the garden gate, where she turned and said to him:

"Are you coming in with me, good dog? No; you won't. Your master isn't with you, so you came all by yourself to pay me a visit; that was very nice of you. When you choose to come again, just scratch at this gate, and you will always be welcome."

Ami, who seemed to understand her words perfectly, yelped once or twice, then bounded away toward the Tower, barking loudly and joyously.

XII

THE BARON VON SCHTAPELMERG

Thelenie galloped to her house, without once drawing rein. As she rode into the courtyard, she almost over-turned her husband, who was just starting out for a walk, and had barely time to jump into the stable.

Then she dropped the reins, jumped to the ground, tossed her crop in the face of the servant who stepped forward, and, still in a rage at having been forced to retreat, cried:

"Where is monsieur? where is he hiding? tell him to come to me instantly."

Chamoureau made bold to put his head out of the stable.

"Here I am, my love," he said; "I am here. Your infernal horse came near upsetting me! Is it possible you didn't see that? Your horses are too restive, they'll play you some bad trick one of these days. You look annoyed; have you had a fall?"

"Hold your tongue, monsieur! It's natural for you to fall; you know nothing about bodily exercise!"

"What's that? I know nothing about bodily exercise! Why, it seems to me that there are some kinds in which I----"

"I am furious, monsieur; I am exasperated!"

"The deuce!"

"Yes; for I have been insulted, outraged, laughed at! But it shall not pa.s.s off so! I must have reparation; and I look to you for that!"

Chamoureau, scenting a duel in what his wife had said, and feeling no vocation for that sort of amus.e.m.e.nt, was strongly tempted to return to the stable. He walked about the courtyard, muttering:

"I had something in hand; what in the devil did I have in hand?"

"Be kind enough to listen to me, monsieur. I tell you that your wife has been insulted!"

"Insulted! you! Madame de Belleville! That strikes me as most extraordinary, for everybody in the neighborhood bows to the ground before us. They don't talk about anything else but the dinner we gave them. They think that you ride a horse like Madame Saqui, like the late Franconi, I should say; they shout 'hurrah!' when you pa.s.s, and they are constantly throwing bouquets to us."

"That's just the reason, monsieur, why it's an outrage that a woman, a child and a dog should have formed a league against me!"

"What! it was a dog, and a woman, and a child, who had the audacity to insult you?" cried Chamoureau, recovering all his courage when he found that there was no man concerned in the affair. "_Fichtre_! bless my soul! _vive Dieu_! where are the rascals, pray, that I may punish them!

I will whip the woman, I mean the child--no, I mean the dog; in fact, I will castigate all three of them."

"When it comes to administering punishment, I shall not need you, monsieur; what I want of you is that you should make inquiries and find out, first, whom the child belongs to--a little boy of seven or eight, I should think, who looks like a little villain, and who threw stones at my horse."

"Ah! I'll chastise that little scamp. What! he dared! Really, there aren't any children nowadays!"