The Englishman began at once to strip off his clothes. I closed mine to the throat, for the air was chilly. At that moment, while we stood preparing, and most of the company seemed a little inclined to stand off from me, I felt a hand on my arm, and turning, saw the dwarfish tailor at whose house, in the Rue Savonnerie, I lodged at the time. The fellow’s presence was unwelcome, to say the least of it; and though for want of better company I had sometimes encouraged him to be free with me at home, I took that to be no reason why I should be plagued with him before gentlemen. I shook him off, therefore, hoping by a frown to silence him.
He was not to be so easily put down, however, and perforce I had to speak to him.
‘Afterwards, afterwards,’ I said hurriedly. ‘I am engaged now.
‘For God’s sake, don’t, sir!’ the poor fool cried, clinging to my sleeve. ‘Don’t do it! You will bring a curse on the house. He is but a lad, and—’
‘You, too!’ I exclaimed, losing patience. ‘Be silent, you scum! What do you know about gentlemen’s quarrels? Leave me; do you hear?’
‘But the Cardinal!’ he cried in a quavering voice. ‘The Cardinal, M. de Berault! The last man you killed is not forgotten yet. This time he will be sure to—’
‘Leave me, do you hear?’ I hissed. The fellow’s impudence passed all bounds. It was as bad as his croaking. ‘Begone!’ I added. ‘I suppose you are afraid that he will kill me, and you will lose your money.’
Frison fell back at that almost as if I had struck him, and I turned to my adversary, who had been awaiting my motions with impatience. God knows he did look young as he stood with his head bare and his fair hair drooping over his smooth woman’s forehead—a mere lad fresh from the college of Burgundy, if they have such a thing in England. I felt a sudden chill as I looked at him: a qualm, a tremor, a presentiment. What was it the little tailor had said? That I should—but there, he did not know. What did he know of such things? If I let this pass I must kill a man a day, or leave Paris and the eating-house, and starve.
‘A thousand pardons,’ I said gravely, as I drew and took my place. ‘A dun. I am sorry that the poor devil caught me so inopportunely. Now however, I am at your service.’
He saluted and we crossed swords and began. But from the first I had no doubt what the result would be. The slippery stones and fading light gave him, it is true, some chance, some advantage, more than he deserved; but I had no sooner felt his blade than I knew that he was no swordsman. Possibly he had taken half-a-dozen lessons in rapier art, and practised what he learned with an Englishman as heavy and awkward as himself. But that was all. He made a few wild clumsy rushes, parrying widely. When I had foiled these, the danger was over, and I held him at my mercy.