The next day found us lighting our cigars as usual. Brilliant conversation, you know, cannot be maintained without something to smoke. Our talk this evening was to be about the methods of attack and defence, which offer the most likely chances of success in an actual duel.
I began at once:—“Yesterday,” I said, “I was speaking of the whole duty of seconds. I endeavoured to describe as clearly and fully as possible, what they ought to do and provide for, and I showed why it is essential that they should follow every stage and every incident of the fight with the utmost keenness, for the onus of responsibility is rightly held to rest on them.
“The preliminaries are now settled; the antagonists, armed with swords of equal length, stand face to face. One of the seconds is stationed between them. He addresses to each in turn the venerable formula:—‘Are you ready?—On guard.’ Upon their assenting he steps back and gives the fatal word:—‘Go.’
“The fighting is about to begin, and the two men stand expectant, neither stirring yet, each sheltering his life behind a few inches of cold steel.
II.
“There are only three contingencies that we need consider, which naturally divide the discussion under three heads. The first arises, when a man who has never touched a sword finds himself opposed to an old hand. The second, when both antagonists are alike unskilled. The third, when both are adepts.
“I may say at once with regard to this last case, that in a duel between two skilful opponents the advantage of superior science which one or the other of them may possess vanishes more often than not, and is compensated for by difference of temperament. For I cannot remind you too often, that in actual fighting it is not a question of hitting your opponent often, or of placing your point artistically, but of striking somehow and anyhow one blow and only one.
“Swords are not worn now, and swordsmanship as a necessary part of polite education has gone out of fashion. Our more punctilious ancestors prided themselves on never wounding their antagonist except with some thrust ingeniously conceived and brilliantly executed. Perhaps it was better so. It was certainly more picturesque, more chivalrous and magnificent. To mistake your sword for a spit, though you might succeed in running your antagonist through and through, would have been voted a blackguardly proceeding, unworthy of a gentleman. Molière’s principle is good enough for us:—‘Hit the other man, and don’t be hit yourself.’ Our object is to hit no matter where,—no matter how. The art of fence is now so much neglected that it seldom happens when two men go out to fight, that they have even a passable knowledge of their weapon.
III.
“When a man knows nothing about fencing, either because he has never touched a sword, or because he has only knocked about with his friends in a rough way and very occasionally, his first thought when he has to fight is to call on a professor, and endeavour to obtain some ideas which will enable him to defend himself on the field of battle. I will describe one of these lessons which the professor is expected to give, and I shall try to point out the only sort of advice that is of universal application in such cases.