The waiter brought it back after a short search, and O'Hara carefully examined it.
'This, you are sure,' he asked of Blue Spectacles, 'was the original bone of contention?'
'Certainly,' was the ready answer.
'Then there is some mistake here. Surely, monsieur,' turning to Eugène Siraudin, 'you cannot have confounded an elephant with a human being? This knife is of ivory!'
O'Hoolohan jumped to his feet and snatched it. The Gascon reddened and stammered, 'I knew it all along; I said what I did about it through mere brag, to cap my friend's boast about the watch-guard of her hair, and I was ashamed to explain afterwards, lest it should look like cowardice.'
O'Hara sat down, ordered drinks all round, and then threw himself back in his chair, cocked his feet upon the table, and laughed a Homeric laugh. That laugh was contagious. Everybody laughed in a perfect gamut of laughter, from the shrill treble of Pale Face to the morose baritone of the surgeon, and the deep watch-dog basso-profondo of the O'Hoolohan. And then everybody, save the surgeon, embraced everybody else; and then everybody, the surgeon inclusive, drank their drinks.
'How lucky it was, gentlemen, you did not both kill each other!' exclaimed O'Hara, and he burst into a franker, more joyous guffaw than ever.
The sly rascal! They little knew that he had provided himself with pistols from a conjuring friend, and had withdrawn the bullets before their eyes by the aid of a ramrod ending in a screw. The duel had been fought, like that of Jeffreys and Tom Moore, with leadless weapons.
And thus ended the hostile meeting at Clamart, and thus was Marguerite, like a soldier, committed to oblivion with a discharge of harmless gunpowder.