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146 Get out of the door, draw your sword! Thomas, my sabre!"

Then friends rushed to the Chamberlain, and the Judge seized his hand.

"Hold, sir, this is our affair; I was challenged first. Protazy, my hanger! I will make him dance like a bear on a pole!"

But Thaddeus checked the Judge:—

"My dear uncle, and Your Honour the Chamberlain, is it fitting for you gentlemen to meddle with this fop? Are there not young men here? And you, my brave youth, who challenge old men to combat, we shall see whether you are so terrible a knight; we will settle accounts to-morrow, and chose our place and weapons. To-day depart, while you are still whole."

The advice was good; the Warden and the Count had fallen into no common straits. At the upper end of the table only a mighty shouting was raging, but at the lower end bottles were flying around the head of the Count. The frightened women began to beseech and weep; Telimena, with a cry of "Alas!" lifted her eyes, rose, and fell in a faint; and, inclining her neck over the Count's shoulder, laid upon his breast her swan's breast. The Count, infuriated though he was, checked himself in his mad career, and began to revive her and chafe her.

Meanwhile Gerwazy, exposed to the blows of stools and bottles, was already tottering; already the servants, doubling up their fists, were rushing on him from all sides in a crowd, when, fortunately, Zosia, seeing the assault, leapt up, and, filled with pity, sheltered the old man by extending her arms like a cross. They checked themselves; Gerwazy slowly retired and vanished from