"Indeed!--only this morning you pretended I had taken a book you had
lost, and you did it because I kicked you yesterday, and you didn't dare
to kick me back again."

Antoine lifted his eyes to heaven, and folding his arms on his breast--

"Dear Buttel," he said, "you are mistaken; I have always been taught to
forgive injuries."

"Listen, listen! he might be saying his prayers!" cried the other boys;
and a volley of offensive epithets, enforced by cuffs, was hurled at the
culprit.

Pierre Buttel, whose influence was great, put a stop to this onslaught.

"Look here, Antoine, you are a bad lot, that we all know; you are a sneak
and a hypocrite. It's time we put a stop to it. Take off your coat and
fight it out. If you like, we will fight every morning and evening till
the end of the month."

The proposition was loudly applauded, and Pierre, turning up his sleeves
as far as his elbows, prepared to suit actions to words.

The challenger assuredly did not realise the full meaning, of his words;
had he done so, this chivalrous defiance would simply have been an act of
cowardice on his part, for there could be no doubt as to the victor in
such a conflict. The one was a boy of alert and gallant bearing, strong
upon his legs, supple and muscular, a vigorous man in embryo; while the
other, not quite so old, small, thin, of a sickly leaden complexion,