“This folly of a thing they call one's honour,” said the Duke, “has made a great deal of profitable trade for your profession?”
“I have no cause of complaint, your Grace,” said the doctor complacently, “except that nowadays honour nor nothing else rarely sends so nice a case of hemorrhage my way. An inch or two to the left and Mr. MacTaggart would have lifted his last rents.”
Argyll grimaced with distaste at the idea.
“Poor Sim!” said he. “And my tenants would have lost a tolerable agent, though I might easily find one to get more money out of them. Condemn that Frenchman! I wish the whole race of them were at the devil.”
“It could never have been a fair fight this,” said the doctor, spreading a plaster.
“There never was a fair fight,” said Argyll, “or but rarely, and then neither of the men was left to tell the tale. The man with most advantages must ever win.”
“The other had them all here,” said the doctor, “for the Chamberlain was fighting with an unhealed wound in his right arm.”
“A wounded arm!” cried Argyll. “I never heard of that.”
It was a wound so recent, the doctor pointed out, that it made the duel madness. He turned over the neck of his patient's shirt and showed the cicatrice, angry and ugly. “A stab, too!” said he.
“A stab?” said the Duke.