“Should he show you my blood,” returned Noah, coldly, “I will avouch him the best fencer of America.”
There would be a duel, so much I could tell. And yet the situation put me to deepest thought. I was sorry for Peg's name in it, too; that would mean no end of talk.
“There is no end of talk as it stands,” argued Noah. “It were best to make Mrs. Eaton's fame the issue. I could have forced a quarrel on his insults for that I was a Jew. But I hold it better as it is. Mrs. Eaton was the one question worth duelling with such a bully about; but for the duel to be of suppressive virtue, it is required to have the casus belli surely shown.”
Noah was profoundly right in these arguments; the next day's sequel of silence on the cautious parts of our anti-Eaton swashbucklers remarked as much.
“You speak of this Catron as a bully,” commented Hill. “I know nothing of your code, for it does not obtain in New Hampshire. But is a gentleman bound to take notice of the vaporings of a bully—a mere blackguard?”
“One may be a bully,” returned the steady Noah, “and none the less patrician for that. Indeed, your prince oft takes his purple blood for license. Who was Alcibiades but a bully-boy of Athens? Who have been the bullies of London town, with their Mohocks and Hell Fire Clubs, but the nobility and royal princes? No, believe me, sir;” and Noah's lip twitched sarcastically, “the bully's blood is sometimes blue.”
It was settled that I should second the interests of Noah. At a first blink, this arrangement might have the look of the General's fat in the fire, since we professed anxiety to keep his name clear of the muddle. But there are two ends to a lane; our purpose was attained when the General's want of personal knowledge found demonstration. That plain, it was next good to have it understood how the Jackson interest was at the Noah shoulder. These reasons, and because I owned experience of such arbitraments—for I had lived where pistols, barking at ten paces, were rife enough—taught Noah his preference for me over Kendall and Hill, who had seen fewer of these bickers, the latter none at all.
“They will be the challenging party,” I observed to Noah; “that gives us the choice of arms.”
“Should Kendall be right,” said Noah, “as to the Florentine studies of our friend, he will prefer swords. Suppose you concede swords on condition he fight at once.”
Even while we conferred, there came Pigeon-breast, my friend of the clanking saber and gold heels, to wait upon us. The sight of me as sponsor for Noah caused Pigeon-breast a dubious start; possibly he feared lest the General resent his presence as the avowed ally of the enemy. Indeed poor Pigeon-breast expressed his thought.