"No! no! I don't want you to fight because monsieur pinched your wife. Mon Dieu! what a terrible thing! In the first place, Pétronille had no business to tell you of it. God! if the late Girie had fought every time anyone pinched me! But I didn't tell him! I took good care not to complain! I was too fond of my husband to do that; and he--oh! he loved his lovely blonde! You ought to hand monsieur over to the watch.--Watch! watch!" Madame Girie persisted in shrieking: "Watch!" waving her arms, striking everybody within reach, and increasing the confusion immeasurably by trying to restore peace. It was at that moment that I succeeded in reaching Balloquet's side, and released him from the man with the glassy eyes. "What's all this, messieurs?" I exclaimed.--"What has happened to you, my dear Balloquet? Why are all these people so incensed with you?" Balloquet uttered a cry of joy at sight of me, and cast a haughty glance at his adversaries, saying: "You see that I didn't lie to you, messieurs; here's my friend, who is a guest at the other wedding and has come in search of me.--Isn't it true, Rochebrune, that you have come to fetch me, and that I am Arthur Balloquet, medical practitioner, and that I am not the sort of man to be turned out of doors?" "Proofs! proofs! proofs!" "I don't want my son to fight!--Listen to your mother, Pamphile!" "You pinched Pétronille; I stick to that!" "But I made a mistake!" "Watch!" "In God's name, Madame Girie, be good enough to hold your tongue!" A small man, whom I had not yet seen, as he was hidden by the crowd, succeeded in passing his perfectly curled blonde head under Madame Girie's ear rings, and said, gesticulating freely after the manner of Mr. Punch, for he bore a strong resemblance to a marionette: "Allow me! allow me! we must try to understand each other. Monsieur says he came to my cousin Pamphile Girie's wedding party by mistake; but a mistake like that don't last an hour, and monsieur's been with us more than an hour. I noticed him; he drank punch every minute; he made more noise than all the rest of the company, and I said to myself: 'That man's a _boute-en-train_![A] Oh! he's a famous _boute-en-train_!' But monsieur must have discovered that he didn't know us; that the bride and groom were not the ones who invited him. It seems to me that that's good, logical reasoning. I'm a logical man!" The little automaton was not such a fool as one would have supposed at first sight. Balloquet was at a loss for a reply to his speech. I made haste to take the floor. "Messieurs, my friend Arthur Balloquet has not deceived you; he is a most estimable physician, and incapable of offending you intentionally. He mistook the salon, that is all; you must not see anything more in the affair than there really is in it." "And I was so comfortable where I was," said Balloquet, "that I could not make up my mind to go away."