"And why not kill him?" asked Joubert. "Mordieu, what is the use of fighting, else? Why take a sword in your hand if you only want to pay him compliments?"
"Never mind. I don't want to kill him."
"And who is the gentleman whom you desire to scratch?"
"I will tell you that the morning of the affair, the 5th of July. We meet in the Bois de Boulogne. I will let you drive me, and you will see the business."
"Good!" said Joubert. "If one cannot watch lions fighting, let us then watch cats. Attention!"
Joubert was a bit over seventy, but he had the dexterity and almost the quickness of a young man. The spot to be reached is just over the bone half way down the arm. A nerve—I think they call it the musculo spiral—winds round the bone here. If you can pierce it, you entirely demoralise your opponent. Just as a bullet-wound in the hand reduces a strong man into the condition of a hysterical woman, so does a touch here.
The button of Joubert's foil sent a tingle down my arm, proclaiming that the spot had been reached.
Then I returned the compliment.
We practised for half an hour, and again on the next day.