'Italian school?' Lord Ormont inquired, with a screw of the eyelids.
'French, my lord.'
'The only school for teaching.'
'The simplest—has the most rational method. Italians are apt to be tricky. But they were masters once, and now and then they send out a fencer the French can't touch.'
'How would you account for it?'
'If I had to account for it, I should say, hotter blood, cool nerve, quick brain.'
'Hum. Where are we, then?'
'We don't shine with the small sword.'
'We had men neatly pinked for their slashings in the Peninsula.'
'We've had clever Irishmen.'