“Aha, mon brave! c’est toi. Restez donc. Restez, tenant toujours la dame!”
The Pole, thus condemned, in the French idiom, “always to hold the dame,” mechanically raised the arms he had previously dejected, and the police officer, with an approving nod of the head, said,--
Monsieur Goupille, in equal surprise and indignation to see his better half thus consigned, without any care to his own marital feelings, to the arms of another, was about to snatch her from the Pole, when Monsieur Favart, touching him on the breast with his little finger, said, in the suavest manner,--
“Mon bourgeois, meddle not with what does not concern you!”
“With what does not concern me!” repeated Monsieur Goupille, drawing himself up to so great a stretch that he seemed pulling off his tights the wrong way. “Explain yourself, if you please! This lady is my wife!”
“Say that again,--that’s all!” cried the whiskered stranger, in most horrible French, and with a furious grimace, as he shook both his fists just under the nose of the epicier.
“Say it again, sir,” said Monsieur Goupille, by no means daunted; “and why should not I say it again? That lady is my wife!”
“You lie!--she is mine!” cried the German; and bending down, he caught the fair Adele from the Pole with as little ceremony as if she had never had a great-grandfather a marquis, and giving her a shake that might have roused the dead, thundered out,--
“Speak! Madame Bihl! Are you my wife or not?”
“Monstre!” murmured Adele, opening her eyes.
“There--you hear--she owns me!” said the German, appealing to the company with a triumphant air.
“C’est vrai!” said the soft voice of the policeman. “And now, pray don’t let us disturb your amusements any longer. We have a fiacre at the door. Remove your lady, Monsieur Bihl.”
“Monsieur Lofe!--Monsieur Lofe!” cried, or rather screeched the epicier, darting across the room, and seizing the chef by the tail of his coat, just as he was half way through the door, “come back! Quelle mauvaise plaisanterie me faites-vous ici? Did you not tell me that lady was single? Am I married or not: Do I stand on my head or my heels?”
“Hush-hush! mon bon bourgeois!” whispered Mr. Love; “all shall be explained to-morrow!”
“Who is this gentleman?” asked Monsieur Favart, approaching Mr. Love, who, seeing himself in for it, suddenly jerked off the epicier, thrust his hands down into his breeches’ pockets, buried his chin in his cravat, elevated his eyebrows, screwed in his eyes, and puffed out his cheeks, so that the astonished Monsieur Goupille really thought himself bewitched, and literally did not recognise the face of the match-maker.