Mademoiselle Pauline encouraged me in my progress, and was pleased to take a great interest in me, much to the disgust of her admirer, Jacques Millefleurs, who began to look upon me as a probable rival. I daily improved in the French language under my fair tutor, and day by day she gained upon me, for she certainly had the most winning manners. The more I talked with her, the less I thought of Sally, till at last she succeeded in completely supplanting her in my heart, and I found myself, before I was well aware of it, head over ears in love with the fascinating grisette. Here was a to do. Murder will out. Love and a cough are two things one can't hide, as the proverb says. The odious Jacques _must_ discover my passion ere long, and a quarrel will be inevitable. Not that I feared the likes of him, gentlemen. Don't suppose it for a moment. Why, I'd take half a dozen or so of such fellows one off and another on, and thrash the whole lot of them as easy as a game of ninepins. Well, but to proceed, gentlemen. What I foresaw soon happened. One day while taking my French lesson under Mademoiselle Pauline, and we were chatting away merrily enough without taking any notice of Jacques, who was arranging pots of bears' grease on the shelves in the background, our heads drew very close together, and we were looking very fondly into each other's eyes and whispering rather low. Now, I knew that there was no engagement between her and Jacques, therefore I had every right to pay her just the same attention that he did, and I intended to let him know it. Well, my head might have touched hers, or my locks may have intermingled with hers as we pored over the French grammar together. However this may have been, something or other seems to have exasperated my rival, for I heard him mutter to himself something like _Cochon d'un Anglais_. I was getting on in my French now and understood the words, so turning round, I said, "Did your remark refer to me, Monsieur Jacques?" "_Oui a vous_," he said, furiously, now losing all command over himself, and heedless of the consequences; "and I repeat my remark." Here he repeated his obnoxious epithet with an invective against my countrymen in general. "Hold there!" I cried, for I began to feel my English blood boil in my veins, and in the best French I could muster, said, "Retract your words. I give you one chance to apologise, and if you refuse----"