He put both the weapons under his arm.
"You will not fight?" said the marquis, gasping like a dying dolphin.
"What kind of a galoot do you reckon me?" asked Plant, quite unintelligibly.
"Ha!" said the marquis, "I know not what a galoot is, but I will fight you here and leave your body on the grass."
Neither of them had observed the approach of a portly and pleasant gentleman behind them. He was now leaning upon the railing, watching them with a great deal of kindly curiosity.
"I think, gentlemen, that the dean will object," he said at length, and they both turned around suddenly.
"You must not interfere," said Rivaulx; "we do not know you."
RUFUS Q. PLANT. Born in Virginia
"To be sure, to be sure," replied the gentleman, who was dressed very curiously, as Rivaulx noticed. "I hate interfering, especially with anything belonging to a dean. Deans, gentlemen, are very touchy about matters connected with their cathedrals. Now Dean Briggs, gentlemen, takes the very greatest care of that grass on which you both are now illegally trampling, and I understand that he has made a rule never to have duels upon it. He is very firm on that point. Do I mistake you if I say that it looks to an unprejudiced observer as if you were going to fight a duel?"