er to lie easily. It is a very nasty
wound, and the nastiest thing about it is that Bellegarde's adversary
was not shot. He put his bullet where he could. It took it into its head
to walk straight into Bellegarde's left side, just below the heart."

As they picked their way in the gray, deceptive dawn, between the
manure-heaps of the village street, Newman's new acquaintance narrated
the particulars of the duel. The conditions of the meeting had been that
if the first exchange of shots should fail to satisfy one of the two
gentlemen, a second should take place. Valentin's first bullet had done
exactly what Newman's companion was convinced he had intended it to do;
it had grazed the arm of M. Stanislas Kapp, just scratching the flesh.
M. Kapp's own projectile, meanwhile, had passed at ten good inches from
the person of Valentin. The representatives of M. Stanislas had demanded
another shot, which was granted. Valentin had then fired aside and the
young Alsatian had done effective execution. "I saw, when we met him
on the ground," said Newman's informant, "that he was not going to be
commode. It is a kind of bovine temperament." Valentin had immediately
been installed at the inn, and M. Stanislas and his friends had
withdrawn to regions unknown. The police authorities of the canton had
waited upon the party at the inn, had been extremely majestic, and had
drawn up a long proces-verbal; but it was probable that they would
wink at so very gentlemanly a bit of bloodshed. Newman asked whether a
message had not been sent to Valentin's family, and learned that up to
a late hour on the preceding evening Valentin had opposed it. He had
refused to believe his wound was dangerous. But after his interview with
the cure he had consented, and a telegram had been dispatched to his
mother. "But the marquise had better hurry!" said Newman's conductor.

"Well, it's an abominable affair!" said Newman. "That's all I have
to say!" To say this, at least, in a tone of infinite disgust was an
irresistible need.

"Ah, you don't approve?" questioned his conductor, with curious
urbanity.

"Approve?" cried Newman. "I wish that when I had him there, night before
last, I had locked him up in my cabinet de toilette!"

Valentin's late second opened his eyes, and shook his head up and down
two or three times, gravely, with a little flute-like whistle. But they
had reached the inn, and a stout maid-servant in a night-cap was at the
door with a lante