Things grew to such a height that one Saturday the mayor, with half a dozen aldermen, walked out to the little cottage on the Wem Road, and besought Captain Galsworthy’s aid.  The captain and I chanced to be in the thick of an encounter with the foils, and neither of us heard the rap on the door which announced the visitors.  A gust of air when the door was opened apprised us that we had onlookers at our sport; but the captain’s eyes never left mine until with a dexterous turn of the wrist, which I had long envied and sought in vain to copy, he sent my foil flying to the end of the room.

“Capital, capital!” cried he, removing his mask and wiping his heated brow.

“Good morning, Mr. Mayor,” he added; “we have kept you waiting, I fear; but we were just approaching the critical moment:  the issue was doubtful, and there is little satisfaction in a drawn battle.

“Your looks are portentous, gentlemen:  is this a visit of state, may I ask?”

Whereupon the mayor, an honest little draper, made a speech which I am sure he had diligently conned over beforehand.  He passed from a recital of the woes under which Shrewsbury suffered to a most flattering eulogium of the captain’s prowess, to which my good friend listened with an air of approval that amused me mightily.  And then the mayor came to the point, and in the name of the corporation and all decent citizens of Shrewsbury besought the captain to suppress the disturbers of their peace.

“Hum! ha!” said the captain, rubbing his nose reflectively.  “I am an old man, Mr. Mayor:  methinks this is work for younger blood than mine.”

“No, no!” cried the company in chorus.

“We seed tha knock the steel from the hand of Master Bold there as ’twere a knitting needle,” says the mayor, whose speech was as broad as his figure.

“Well, well,” says the captain, “I’ll think of it, my friends.  You do me great honor, and I thank you for your visit.”

The captain and I talked over the matter between ourselves, and the upshot of our consultation was that we got together a little band of his former pupils, and for several nights in succession we perambulated the streets of Shrewsbury from the English to the Welsh Bridge and from the Castle to the Quarry, with naked swords and a martial air.  But we had our exercise for nothing.  The town was as quiet as a graveyard, and the only disturber of the peace that engaged our attention was poor Tom Jessopp, the drayman, who, one night, having drunk more old October than was good for him, encountered us as he was staggering home down Shoplatch, and invited us, first to wet our whistles, and, on our declining, to fight him for a pint.  We escorted him home and put him to bed, not without some difficulties and inconveniences, and that was the first and last of our adventures, the captain declaring that to deal with topers was no work for a man of honor.