Tear up the agreement; it's only the loss of two
stamps,--here are seventy centimes."
Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew
before night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil
to buy his practice. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges
against Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new
position he was forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also
by his respect for law, to fight a duel. But he warned Savinien to
treat him well in future; assuring him he was a capital boxer, and
would break his leg at the first offence.
The walls of Nemours were cleared of the inscription; but the quarrel
between Minoret and his wife went on; and Savinien maintained a
threatening silence. Ten days after these events the marriage of
Mademoiselle Massin, the elder, to the future notary was bruited about
the town. Mademoiselle Massin had a dowry of eighty thousand francs
and her own peculiar ugliness; Goupil had his deformities and his
practice; the union therefore seemed suitable and probable. One
evening, towards midnight, two unknown men seized Goupil in the street
as he was leaving Massin's house, gave him a sound beating, and
disappeared.
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