“Across a handkerchief: but on no other condition; and, unless you will accept that condition, I will assuredly, the next time I see you, be we where we may, treat you as I treated your friend Mr. Trebooze. I’ll do it now! Get out of my shop, sir! What do you want here, interfering with my honest business?”
And, to the astonishment of Mr. Trebooze’s second, Tom vaulted clean over the counter, and rushed at him open-mouthed.
Sacred be the honour of the gallant West country: but, “both being friends,” as Aristotle has it, “it is a sacred duty to speak the truth.” Mr. Creed vanished through the open door.
“I rid myself of the fellow jollily,” said Tom to Frank that day, after telling him the whole story.
“And no credit to me. I saw from the minute he came in there was no fight in him.”
“But suppose he had accepted—or suppose Trebooze accepts still?”
“There was my game—to frighten him. He’ll take care Trebooze shan’t fight, for he knows that he must fight next. He’ll go home and patch the matter up, trust him. Meanwhile, the oaf had not even savoir faire enough to ask for my second. Lucky for me; for I don’t know where to have found one, save the lieutenant; and though he would have gone out safe enough, it would have been a bore for the good old fellow.”
“And,” said Prank, utterly taken aback by Tom’s business-like levity, “you would actually have stood to shoot, and be shot at, across a handkerchief?”
Tom stuck out his great chin, and looked at him with one of his quaint sidelong moues.
“You are my very good friend, sir: but not my father-confessor.”
“I know that: but really—as a mere question of human curiosity—”
“Oh, if you ask me on the human ground, and not on the sacerdotal, I’ll tell you. I’ve tried it twice, and I should be sorry to try it again; though it’s a very easy dodge. Keep your right elbow up—up to your ear—and the moment you hear the word, fire. A high elbow and a cool heart—that’s all; and that wins.”
“Wins? Good heavens? As you are here alive you must have killed your man?”
“No. I only shot my men each through the body; and each of them deserved it: but it is an ugly chance; I should have been sorry to try it on that yokel. The boy may make a man yet. And what’s more,” said Tom, bursting into a great laugh, “he will make a man, and go down to his fathers in peace, quant a moi; and so will that wretched Trebooze. For I’ll bet you my head to a China orange, I hear no more of this matter; and don’t even lose Trebooze’s custom.”
“Upon my word, I envy your sanguine temperament!”
“Mr. Headley, I shall quietly make my call at Trebooze to-morrow, as if nothing had happened. What will you bet me that I am not received as usual?”
“I never bet,” said Frank.
“Then you do well. It is a foolish and a dirty trick; playing with edge tools, and cutting one’s own fingers. Nevertheless, I speak truth, as you will see.”