“Why, then, build your fortunes on the basis of valour,” said Sir Toby in his loud, jovial voice. “Challenge the youth to fight; hurt him in eleven places; my niece shall take note of it; and be assured, nothing prevails more to win a man favour with women than a report of valour.”
“There is no way but this, Sir Andrew,” added Fabian.
“Will either of you bear a challenge to him from me?” asked Sir Andrew.
“Go, write it in a martial hand,” said Sir Toby. “Be sharp and brief. Make it as rude and insolent as you possibly can.”
Sir Andrew retired to write his challenge, leaving the other two men to laugh heartily over the prospect of a good joke.
“We shall have a rare letter from him,” said Fabian, “but you will not deliver it?”
“Faith, and I will!” exclaimed Sir Toby, “and by all means stir on the youth to an answer. I think oxen and cart-ropes will not drag them together.”
For he knew Sir Andrew had not a grain of courage in his whole body; and as for Orsino’s page, he looked far too soft and gentle to be in the least brave or daring.
Sir Andrew wrote his challenge, but when finished it was such an extraordinary production that Sir Toby decided not to deliver it.
“The behaviour of the young gentleman,” he said, “shows him to be of good capacity and breeding; therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant, will not terrify him in the least; he will know it comes from a clodpole. I will deliver his challenge by word of mouth, give a notable report of Aguecheek’s valour, and drive the gentleman, who is so young I know he will readily believe it, into a most hideous opinion of his rage, skill, fury, and impetuosity. This will so frighten them both that they will kill each other by the look, like cockatrices.”