"Well, did he spit at you?"
"I should think he did!"
Thus the Cabin party made fun of our great patrician, and rude practical jokes were played on him.
In one of these it was arranged that all the members of the Cabin should pass by him in single file, at a certain distance from each other, which was such a strain on Don Rosendo's power or desire to spit that his throat became quite sore and unequal to the continual effort. But Gabino Maza, who took the whole matter quite seriously, said he would see if that ox (the word is strong, but it is textual) would dare spit when he passed. And, in fact, Don Rosendo had always abstained from doing it at him, as he thought that a certain amount of consideration was due to the head of the opposite party.
But one evening, when he was carrying his head rather high, being somewhat excited after reading the account of a certain duel between two Yankees, it suddenly occurred to him to spit, in a provocative way, as he came across Gabino Maza, close to the Café de la Marina. Whereupon Gabino became white with rage, and, seizing him by the wrist, he said, in a tone of fury:
"Listen to me, you great fool, you shan't spit at me like that; no, not if you were in the last stage of phthisis, do you hear?"
As a conventional man, well versed in affairs of honor, Don Rosendo said nothing at the moment, but on the following day he did not leave the house, as he waited for Maza's challenge, which, happily for him, did not come.
In spite of everything Don Rosendo's dueling energy excited emulation in the town. Thanks to our hero, there arose a great taste for the exercise of arms, and many of the most distinguished townsfolk went in enthusiastically for the art of fencing.
Not only the staff of "The Light" and the members of the Club practised the science of Monsieur Lemaire, but the members of the Cabin, recognizing the importance of the art, established a fencing academy in a warehouse near by, and put at its head a retired cavalry officer who had wielded the foil in Madrid. The immediate consequence of this step was that all the disputes that now arose between the Club and the Cabin were formally settled with all the ceremonious etiquette of the code of honor.
Hardly a week went by without the town being excited at the going and coming of seconds, meetings held in corners of cafés, while the proceedings were published in "The Light" and in the Lancian papers. But out of twenty disputes nineteen would end in an amicable agreement, drawn up and signed by the seconds.