"By no means."
"You cannot be serious."
"Never was more serious in my life. By the code of honour, the challenged party has the right to choose weapons, place of meeting, and time. Is it not so?"
"Certainly."
"Very well. Your principal has challenged mine. All these rights are of course his; and he is justified in choosing those weapons with which he is most familiar. The weapon he can use best is the pen, and he chooses that. If Lieut. Redmond had been the challenged party, he would, of course, have named pistols, with which he is familiar, and Mr. Blake would have been called a coward, poltroon, or something as bad, if, after sending a challenge, he had objected to the weapons. Will your principal find himself in a different position if he decline this meeting on like grounds? I think not. Pens are as good as pistols at any time, and will do as much."
"Fighting with pens! Preposterous!"
"Not quite so preposterous as you may think. Mr. B. has more than insinuated that Mr. Redmond is no gentleman. For this he is challenged to a single combat that is to prove him to be a gentleman or not one. Surely the most sensible weapon with which to do this is the pen. Pistols won't demonstrate the matter; only the pen can do it, so the pen is chosen. In the—Gazette of to-morrow morning my friend stands ready to prove that he is a gentleman; and your friend that he is one, and that a gentleman has a right to insult publicly and without provocation whomsoever he pleases. Depend upon it, you will find this quite as serious an affair as if pistols were used."
"I did not come here, sir, to be trifled with."
"No trifling in the matter at all; I am in sober earnest. Pens are the weapons; the—Gazette, the battle-ground; time, early as you please to-morrow morning. Are you prepared for the meeting?"
"No."