Page:Colas breugnon.djvu/129

 her?" he persisted, "and promise to get out if she takes me?"

"Agreed!" said I, and held out my hand.

It is one thing to tell a girl to choose, but it is quite another to make her do it; there is much more fun for her in keeping two suitors on the string; so she merely laughed in our faces, and went off, when we told her of our bargain. We were really fond of one another, but now, there was nothing else for it, we had to fight. Back we went to the shop, and pulled our coats off.

"Hold on a second," said Pinon, and gave me a great kiss on both cheeks. Then we went at it in earnest, for when it comes to real fighting, friendship has to go to the wall, and in five minutes Pinon had nearly knocked my head off, while I battered at his stomach, till the blood literally poured off both of us. How it would have ended, no one knows, for by this time we were as savage as a couple of bulldogs; but my Master Lagneau and some of the neighbors heard the row and rushed in. A hard time they had to pull us apart, and at last Lagneau had even to take his horsewhip to us, but they finally made us let go, and a sight we were to behold when it was over! At this crisis the third party made his appearance; he was a miller named Jean