“How so?”
“My wife had been flirting with the man to whom I wished to sell the land. The fellow drew back from his bargain, and so I challenged him.”
“Very good, and you fought?”
“It seems not.”
“You know nothing about it, I suppose?”
“No, my wife and her relations interfered in the matter. I was kept a quarter of an hour with my sword in my hand; but I was not wounded.”
“And your adversary?”
“Oh! he wasn’t wounded either, for he never came on the field.”
“Capital!” cried his friends from all sides, “you must have been terribly angry.”
“Exceedingly so; I caught cold; I returned home and then my wife began to quarrel with me.”