'Tolerable, sire,' I answered.
'You were chosen by your regiment to fight the champion of the Hussars of Chambarant?' said he.
I was not sorry to find that he knew so much of my exploits.
'My comrades, sire, did me that honour,' said I.
'And for the sake of practice you insulted six fencing masters in the week before your duel?'
'I had the privilege of being out seven times in as many days, sire,' said I.
'And escaped without a scratch?'
'The fencing master of the 23rd Light Infantry touched me on the left elbow, sire.'
'Let us have no more child's play of the sort, monsieur,' he cried, turning suddenly to that cold rage of his which was so appalling. 'Do you imagine that I place veteran soldiers in these positions that you may practise quarte and tierce upon them? How am I to face Europe if my soldiers turn their points upon each other? Another word of your duelling, and I break you between these fingers.'
I saw his plump white hands flash before my eyes as he spoke, and his voice had turned to the most discordant hissing and growling. My word, my skin pringled all over as I listened to him, and I would gladly have changed my position for that of the first man in the steepest and narrowest breach that ever swallowed up a storming party. He turned to the table, drank off a cup of coffee, and then when he faced me again every trace of this storm had vanished, and he wore that singular smile which came from his lips but never from his eyes.