“A FIGURE IN THIS UNIQUE ARMOUR.”
A strong impulse to laugh came over me as I examined myself in the mirror. “The devil, in such attire, and about to enter the lists on behalf of the odour in the anatomy-room!”
My companions took my hilarity as an expression of courage and valour. Thinking, therefore, the right moment had now come, they conducted me into a large hall where the position of the enemy had been marked on the floor with chalk. A freshman considered it a high honour to be permitted to carry my rapier, as sword and sceptre were carried before the ancient emperors. It was a well-made weapon of finest steel, with a large hilt offering at the same time a protection for the hand.
At last we stood facing each other. The student of theology put on a fierce expression and looked upon me with an air of disdain, which strengthened me in my purpose of setting a right handsome mark upon him.
We put ourselves into the traditional posture, the blades were crossed, the seconds yelled “Ready!” and our rapiers whizzed through the air, and fell clinking upon the hilts. I confined myself to parrying the really masterly and artistic cuts of my opponent. I knew that my glory would be the greater if I merely defended myself at first and then gave him his deserts in the fourth or fifth round.
Applause followed each pass. Never had there been such bold and decisive attacks, never such dignified and cold-blooded self-defence. My skill in fencing was lifted up into the seventh heaven by old hands, and there was much curiosity and conjecture as to my tactics of retaliation. No one dared urge me to the onset.
Four rounds had passed without one thrust that had drawn blood. Before stepping forth for the fifth, I pointed out to my comrades the spot on my theologian’s right cheek where I intended to hit him. He seemed to get wind of my purpose, put himself under cover as much as possible, and carefully abstained from venturing an attack on his part. I began with a superb feint, which was received with an admiring “Ah!”, made a couple of regular thrusts, and with a clap my rapier was in his cheek.
The honest theologian was very much taken aback. My second and witness rushed up to him with a tape-measure, examined the wound, and said in a solemn voice, “It is more than an inch, and it gaps horribly, so ‘Abfuhr!’” Which is as much as to say, the poor boy having a hole in his face an inch long, his honour has been vindicated.
Now my friends crowded about me; the elder grasped my hands, the younger gazed with veneration upon the weapon with which the deed, surpassing anything in history, had been done. For who could boast of first having designated the spot he intended to hit, and then hitting it with such marvellous precision?
With a serious mien my opponent’s second stepped up to me, and in the name of the former offered me amity. I approached the invalid, whose wound was just being attended to with needle and thread, and made friends.