it had
escaped, he indifferently turned his head and finished his interrupted
discourse:--

"Where did I stop? Aha, at my making them both promise that they would
shoot across the bear skin! The gentlemen cried out: 'That is sure death,
almost barrel to barrel!' But I laughed to myself, for my friend Maro had
taught me that the skin of a beast is no ordinary measure. You know, my
friends, how Queen Dido sailed to Libya, and there with great trouble
managed to buy a morsel of land, such as could be covered with a bull's
hide.90 On that tiny morsel of land arose Carthage! So I thought that over
attentively by night.

"Hardly was day dawning, when from one side came Dowejko in a gig, and
from the other Domejko on horseback. They beheld that over the river
stretched a shaggy bridge, a girdle of bear skin cut into strips. I
stationed Dowejko at the tail of the beast on one side, and Domejko on the
other side. 'Now blaze away,' I said, 'for all your lives if you choose,
but I won't let you go until you are friends again.' They got furious, but
then the gentry present fairly rolled on the ground for laughter; and the
priest and I with impressive words set to giving them lessons from the
Gospel and from the Statutes. There was no help for it; they laughed and
had to be reconciled.

"Their quarrel turned later into a lifelong friendship, and Dowejko
married the sister of Domejko; Domejko espoused the sister of his
brother-in-law, Panna Dowejko: they divided their property into two equal
portions, and on the spot where so strange an occurrence had happened they
built a tavern, and called it the Little Bear."

BOOK V.--THE BRAWL

ARGUMENT

Telimena's plans for the chase--The little gardener is prepared for
her entry into the great world, and listens to the instructions of
her guardian--The hunters' return--Great amazement of Thaddeus--A
second meeting in the Temple of Meditation and a reconciliation
made easy by the mediation of ants--Conversation at table about the
hunt--The Seneschal's tale of Rejtan and the Prince de Nassau
interrupted--Preliminaries of peace between the two factions also
interrupted--Apparition with a key--The brawl--The Count and Gerwazy
hold a council of war.

The Seneschal, after honourably concluding his hunt, was returning from
the wood, but Telimena in the depths of the deserted mansion