"It iss zo badt!" he whined, gulping nervously. "It iss zo badt!"
"Right you are," said Heywood. With arms folded, he eyed them sternly.
"It's bad. We might have known. If only I'd reached him first! By Jove,
you must let me fight that beast. Duels? The idiot, nobody fights duels
any more. I've always--His cuffs are always dirty, too, on the inside!"
Rudolph leaned back, like a man refreshed and comforted, but his laugh
was unsteady, and too boisterous.
"It is well," he bragged. "Pistol-bullets--they fly on the wings of
chance! No?--All is well."
"Pistols? My dear young gentleman," scoffed his friend, "there's not a
pair of matched pistols in the settlement. And if there were, Chantel
has the choice. He'll take swords."
He paused, in a silence that grew somewhat menacing. From a slit in the
wall the wheel of the punkah-thong whined insistently,--rise and fall,
rise and fall of peevish complaint, distressing as a brain-fever bird.
"Swords, of course," continued Heywood. "If only out of vanity.
Fencing,--oh, I hate the man, and the art's by-gone, if you like, but
he's a beautiful swordsman! Wonderful!"
Rudolph still lay back, but now with a singular calm.
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