"Why 'twas scarce a hit, your honour."
"Most palpable, Zeb!"
"Gad love me!" murmured the Viscount, "and they don't sweat and they ain't panting!"
"Music!" snorted the Colonel, bestriding his chair again, "poetry, pictures—bah! Here you have 'em all together! A fine 'ooman's a graceful sight I'll allow, but sirs, for beauty and music, poetry and grace all in one, give me a couple o' well-matched small-sworders!"
"Parfectly, sir!" bowed the Viscount. "Though, nunky, if I may venture the remark and with all the deference in the world, your play is perhaps a trifle austere—lacking those small elegancies and delicate refinements——"
The Colonel rolled truculent eye and sprinkled himself with snuff again.
"Master Tom sir—Pancras my lud," said the Sergeant, "I were thinking p'r'aps you'd play this third venue with his honour?"
"Gad, nunky, 'twould be a joy," murmured the Viscount. So saying he took the Sergeant's foil. "You'll mind sir, how you disarmed me last time——"
"'Twas but a trick, Tom, and you were all unsuspecting."
"At least, sir, this time I shall play more cautious." And the Viscount saluted and fell to his guard, one white hand fanning the air daintily aloft. The foils crossed and, as the bout progressed, the Viscount's self-assurance grew, he even pressed the Major repeatedly and twice forced him to break ground; time and again his point missed by inches while the Sergeant watched between a smile and a frown and the Colonel wriggled on his chair again: