“How are you, Whilt,” said Wentworth, carelessly nodding. “Captain, how are you? I thought you had gone on to New York with Kossuth.”
Wentworth had the Kossuth furor, prevalent about that time, and saluted Vukovich with a touch of enthusiasm.
“No,” responded the Hungarian, in a soft voice, conceitedly fingering his moustache, and swaying on his shapely legs as he spoke. “No, I stays. Se Gofernor go on, an’ I stays back. I sink to keep cigar shop in Bosson pretty soon. So I stays. Goot tay, Mossieu Bagasse. How you feel?”
He begun to talk in French to the fencing-master, and Wentworth, full of fiery sentiment for liberty and Hungary, moved away to the foils, humming the Marseillaise. Presently, Palmer and Fisk were ready, and Monsieur Bagasse, after much preliminary effort to get Palmer into strict position, began to give him his lesson.
Both Witherlee and Wentworth were very sensitive to all forms of artistic beauty, and they now saw, with strange pleasure, as they had often seen before, the wonderful transformation of the fencing-master’s awkward, sloven figure. Looking at him in his ordinary aspect, nobody would ever have imagined that he was cut out for a pillar of the school of arms. But now, as he threw himself into the noble attitude of the exercise, every deformity seemed suddenly to have dropped from his face and figure, and vanished. The head erect and proud—the lit face turned square in rugged, grand repose, with the visor of the old cap looking now like the raised visor of a helmet—the one eye firm and jewel-bright, fixed on his adversary’s—the left arm thrown up and out behind in easy balance—the body set in perfect poise on legs as strong as iron, as flexible as steel—and the lithe foil gently playing from the extended ease of his right arm over the stiff guard of his antagonist, like a line of living light—so, with every trait and outline of his figure blended into an indescribable ensemble, he stood, an image of martial grace, superb and invincible. For one instant, the two young men drank in with eager eyes the beauty of that military statue—the next, Palmer’s blade lunged in swift and stiff—was parried wide aside with a light, almost imperceptible, deft motion, and a flashing clash—and the figure of Bagasse had changed into another statue of martial grandeur, the left arm down aslope with the left leg, the body heaved forward on the bent right knee, the right arm up and out in strong extension, and the foil, a gleaming curve of steel, with its buttoned point on the breast of the adversary.
Only a second, and while murmurs of applause ran round, the first position was resumed.
“You see now, Miss’r Pammer,” politely said the fencing-master, breaking the spell, “I hit you zen, be-cause you longe off you guard. Now see—I show you how.”
He dropped his point, and explained to Palmer where he had done wrong, showing him with his own foil the way the pass should have been made. Palmer promised to remember, and the lesson went on.
Presently, while they were on guard, Palmer was wrong again—this time in his position. Bagasse, smiling politely, lowered his point; whereat, Palmer, with immense haste, lunged in, and triumphantly bent his foil on the breast of the fencing-master, who, of course, made no effort to ward. The young mercantiloes, delighted with this evidence of their friend’s proficiency, set up a cry of bravo. Witherlee sneered to himself, and Wentworth laughed and exchanged glances with the surprised Hungarian, and the imperturbable Whilt. As for Monsieur Bagasse, he stood, with upturned visage, smiling with grotesque placidity, then made a grimace, and limping off to the claret-can, gulped a mouthful, and came hurrying back. Palmer instantly threw himself on guard, thrilling with vanity, and confident that he was getting ahead of his fencing-master.