" Andre-Louis was as
calm as ever, and therefore the more menacing. Alarm stirred the
company. He protruded from his pocket the butt of a pistol - newly
purchased. "I go armed, Binet. It is only fair to give you warning.
Provoke me as you have suggested, and I'll kill you with no more
compunction than I should kill a slug, which after all is the thing
you most resemble - a slug, Binet; a fat, slimy body; foulness
without soul and without intelligence. When I come to think of it
I can't suffer to sit at table with you. It turns my stomach."
He pushed away his platter and got up. "I'll go and eat at the
ordinary below stairs."
Thereupon up jumped Columbine.
"And I'll come with you, Scaramouche!" cried she.
It acted like a signal. Had the thing been concerted it couldn't
have fallen out more uniformly. Binet, in fact, was persuaded of
a conspiracy. For in the wake of Columbine went Leandre, in the
wake of Leandre, Polichinelle and then all the rest together, until
Binet found himself sitting alone at the head of an empty table in
an empty room - a badly shaken man whose rage could afford him no
support against the dread by which he was suddenly invaded.
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