"Barsac take off his hat and bow to madame." (Joseph had now reached for his own and was illustrating the incident with an appropriate gesture.) "'Madame Mariguy,' said Barsac, 'I make ten thousand pardons. I respect the devotion of the mother,' and he went back to Paris, and Mariguy got into the carriage and go away with the mother." "But, Joseph, of course that was not the last of it?" "Yes, my Lord, until one year ago." "Why, did they have another quarrel, Joseph?" "No, not another--never but that one. They were for a long time what you call friends of the bosom. Every day after that they see each other, and every night they dine at the Louis d'Or below the Luxembourg. Then pretty soon the doctor, he have to take his degree and come back to Basle to live, and Monsieur Mariguy also have take his degree and become a great advocate in Paris. Every week come a letter from Barsac to Mariguy, and one from Mariguy to Barsac." Joseph stopped in his narrative at this point, noticing perhaps some shade of incredulity across my countenance, and said parenthetically: "I am quite surprised, my Lord, that you have not this heard before. It was quite the talk of Paris at the time. No? Well, then, I will tell you everything as it did happen, for I do assure you that it is most exciting. "All this time--it was quite ten years, perhaps fifteen--not one word does Monsieur Barsac say to Monsieur Mariguy about the insult of the long hair. All the time, too, they are together. For the summer they go to a little village in the Swiss mountains, and for the winter they go to Nice, and 'most every night they play a little at the tables. It was there I met them. "One morning at Basle the doctor was at his table eating the breakfast when the newspaper is put on the side. He read a little and sip his coffee, and then he read a little more--all this, my Lord, was in the papers at the time--I am quite astonished that you have not seen it--and then the doctor make a loud cry, and throw the paper down, run upstairs, pack his bag, jump into a fiacre and go like mad to the station. The next morning he is in Paris, and at the house of his friend Mariguy. In three days they are at Surèsne again--not in the little wood, but in the garden of Monsieur Rochefort, who was his second. It was against the law to go into the little wood to fight, so they took the nearest place to their old meeting--a small sentiment, you see, my Lord, which Monsieur the Doctor always enjoys. "They toss up for the sun, and Monsieur Barsac he gets the shade. At the first pass, no one is hurt. At the second, Monsieur Barsac has a little scratch on his wrist, but no blood. The seconds make inspection most careful. They regret that the encounter must go on, but the honor is not yet satisfied. At the third, Monsieur Mariguy made a misstep, and Monsieur Barsac's sword go into Monsieur Mariguy's shirt and come out at Monsieur Mariguy's back.