At this everybody cried "Enough!" but Agostino insisted upon aiming at the other side as well, so as to prove to them that there was no chance about it; that it was purely a matter of skill.

Again the terrible navaja flew through the air, and went straight to the mark, and Chiquita, very much delighted at the applause that followed, looked about her proudly, glorying in Agostino's triumph.

She still wore Isabelle's pearl beads round her slender brown neck; in other respects was much better dressed than when we first saw her, and even had shoes on her tiny feet; they seemed to worry and annoy her very much, it is true, but she found them a necessary nuisance on the cold Paris pavements, and so had to submit to wearing them with as good a grace as she could muster.

When Agostino gave her leave to quit her position she quietly returned to her corner, rolled herself up anew in the large cloak, and fell sound asleep again, while he, after pocketing the five pistoles he had won, sat down to finish his measure of cheap wine; which he did very slowly, intending to remain where he was as long as possible; he had no lodging place yet in Paris, having arrived that very evening, and this warm room was far more comfortable than a refuge in some convent porch, or under the arch of a bridge perhaps, where he had feared that he and Chiquita might have to lie shivering all night long.
Quiet being restored, comparatively speaking, Lampourde and Malartic resumed their interrupted conversation, and after a few remarks upon the strange performance they had just witnessed--in which Lampourde especially praised Agostino's marvellous skill, and Malartic warmly commended Chiquita's wonderful courage and sang-froid--the former confided to his friend that he had a piece of work in prospect, in which he would need some assistance, and desired to have his opinion as to which of their comrades would be best suited for his purpose.

He told him that, in the first place, he was commissioned to despatch a certain Captain Fracasse, an actor, who had dared to interfere with the love affair of a very great lord.