Page:Colas breugnon.djvu/309

Rh For a moment they still looked sulkily at each other, but I could see the clouds parting, and all at once Michael flung his arms round John Francis, with a loud laugh, "Embrace me, Brother-Big-Nose!" cried he, and the others followed his example.

"Come, Martine, let us drink to the Breugnon brothers ourselves!!"

A few moments before, when I broke the ewer in my anger, I had cut my wrist a little, and left a little blood on the table. Anthony held his glass under the scratch in his pompous manner, and caught a drop.

"Let this wine from our father's veins be the seal of our reconciliation."

"What a disgusting idea!" I cried; "to think of spoiling good wine with such a mixture! Throw it away, and if you want to drink my blood, you'll find it in a bottle of the best!" and thereupon we all drank and all agreed as to the vintage.

When they had gone and Martine was binding up my wrist, she said slyly, "You succeeded at last, you old scamp, didn't you?"

"Succeeded in what? In stopping the quarrel?"

"You know well enough what I mean," and she pointed to the broken fragments of the ewer on the table.