“Simple fact.  Are you not about twenty-three years old?”

“What is that to you, sir?”

“No business of mine, of course.  You may be growing into your second childhood for aught I care:  but if, as I guess, you are about twenty-three, I, as I know, am thirty-six:  then I fought my first duel when you were five years old, and my tenth, I should say, when you were fifteen; at which time, I suppose, you were not ashamed either of the jacket or the blackberries.”

“You will find me a man now, sir, at all events,” said Creed, justly wroth at what was, after all, a sophism; for if a man is not a man at twenty, he never will be one.

“Tant mieux.  You know, I suppose, that as the challenged, I have the choice of weapons?”

“Of course, sir,” said Creed, in an off-hand generous tone, because he did not very clearly know.

“Then, sir, I always fight across a handkerchief.  You will tell Mr. Trebooze so; he is, I really believe, a brave man, and will accept the terms.  You will tell yourself the same, whether you be a brave man or not.”

The youth lost the last words in those which went before them.  He was no coward:  would have stood up to be shot at, at fifteen paces, like any one else; but the deliberate butchery of fighting across a handkerchief—­

“Do I understand you, sir?”

“That depends on whether you are clever enough, or not, to comprehend your native tongue.  Across a handkerchief, I say, do you hear that?” And Tom rolled on at his pills.

“I do.”

“And when I have fought him, I fight you!” And the pills rolled steadily at the same pace.

“But—­sir?—­Why—­sir?”

“Because,” said Tom, looking him full in the face, “because you, calling yourself a gentleman, and being, more shame for you, one by birth, dare to come here, for a foolish vulgar superstition called honour, to ask me, a quiet medical man, to go and be shot at by a man whom you know to be a drunken, profligate, blackguard:  simply because, as you know as well as I, I interfered to prevent his insulting a poor helpless girl:  and in so doing, was forced to give him what you, if you are (as I believe) a gentleman, would have given him also, in my place.”

“I don’t understand you, sir!” said the lad, blushing all the while, as one honestly conscience-stricken; for Tom had spoken the exact truth, and he knew it.

“Don’t lie, sir, and tell me that you don’t understand; you understand every word which I have spoken, and you know that it is true.”

“Lie?”

“Yes, lie.  Look you, sir; I have no wish to fight—­”

“You will fight, though, whether you wish it or not,” said the youth with a hysterical laugh, meant to be defiant.

“But—­I can snuff a candle; I can split a bullet on a penknife at fifteen paces.”

“Do you mean to frighten us by boasting?  We shall see what you can do when you come on the ground.”