“Fromage Gratin!” echoed the Marquis.
The swords crossed with an angry clang.
It was a supreme moment. The two men glared at each other, each fearing to hazard a movement. Finally, tired of inaction, the Count took the offensive. His rapier flashed like lightning. With an adroit mouton, he well nigh succeeded in breaking his enemy’s guard, indeed he would have done it but for the skill with which a marrons glacê was interposed.
Both pause a moment for breath. Breath is necessary to a duelist. The Marquis was the first assailant. He delivered a fierce cotellette de veau, which had stretched many a tall fellow on the sod, followed by a mayonnaise, of which few are the master, but gnashed his teeth to find himself stopped by a poulet a la Paris. They paused again.
“I see you have advantaged by practice with Vol au Vent,” said the Marquis. (Vol au Vent was the most celebrated swordsman of Paris.) “He taught you the lunge—I invented the parry. We will resume.”
They eyed each other closely.
“This time I will finish him,” said the Count to himself.
Using the pomme de terre as a feint, he threw himself with all his force into a patè, and would have ended the contest then and there, but that the Marquis avoided the thrust by a poisson.