“We have been hearing about your adventure, Tom, with a handsome lie added for embellishment.  Now pulverize that lie to dust!  What measures have you taken?  How does the thing stand?”

Tom answered guilelessly:  “It don’t stand at all; it’s all over.  I had him up in court and beat him.  Pudd’nhead Wilson defended him—­first case he ever had, and lost it.  The judge fined the miserable hound five dollars for the assault.”

Howard and the judge sprang to their feet with the opening sentence —­why, neither knew; then they stood gazing vacantly at each other.  Howard stood a moment, then sat mournfully down without saying anything.  The judge’s wrath began to kindle, and he burst out: 

“You cur!  You scum!  You vermin!  Do you mean to tell me that blood of my race has suffered a blow and crawled to a court of law about it?  Answer me!”

Tom’s head drooped, and he answered with an eloquent silence.  His uncle stared at him with a mixed expression of amazement and shame and incredulity that was sorrowful to see.  At last he said: 

“Which of the twins was it?”

“Count Luigi.”

“You have challenged him?”

“N—­no,” hesitated Tom, turning pale.

“You will challenge him tonight.  Howard will carry it.”

Tom began to turn sick, and to show it.  He turned his hat round and round in his hand, his uncle glowering blacker and blacker upon him as the heavy seconds drifted by; then at last he began to stammer, and said piteously: 

“Oh, please, don’t ask me to do it, uncle!  He is a murderous devil—­I never could—­I—­I’m afraid of him!”

Old Driscoll’s mouth opened and closed three times before he could get it to perform its office; then he stormed out: 

“A coward in my family!  A Driscoll a coward!  Oh, what have I done to deserve this infamy!” He tottered to his secretary in the corner, repeated that lament again and again in heartbreaking tones, and got out of a drawer a paper, which he slowly tore to bits, scattering the bits absently in his track as he walked up and down the room, still grieving and lamenting.  At last he said: 

“There it is, shreds and fragments once more—­my will.  Once more you have forced me to disinherit you, you base son of a most noble father!  Leave my sight!  Go—­before I spit on you!”

The young man did not tarry.  Then the judge turned to Howard: 

“You will be my second, old friend?”

“Of course.”

“There is pen and paper.  Draft the cartel, and lose no time.”

“The Count shall have it in his hands in fifteen minutes,” said Howard.