Combeferre wants to help Joly, but he doesn't want to let his imprisoned pillow fly free.

Tucking the pillow firmly (and with some difficulty) under his arm, he seizes Joly's dropped walking stick and thrusts it into the cloud of pillows battering at Joly.

He brandishes it this way and that. The pillows react in confusion--not confusion, Combeferre thinks sternly to himself, they're pillows. Some keep at Joly, but others simply fly away from the stick. A few hardy souls--pillows--launch a counterattack upon Combeferre.

"Joly," Combeferre shouts, "shall we run?"