“Mawdoo! It is fine!” returned Fisk.
The domestically-pronounced French oaths which prefixed these asseverations, were, of course, borrowed by Messrs. Fisk and Palmer from the “Three Guardsmen,” and figured extensively on all possible occasions in their general conversation.
“Come, Harrington, you too,” cried Wentworth.
“No, no—ex-cuse me—pardon,” interrupted Monsieur Bagasse, smiling, grimacing and bowing all at once; “not Missr Harrin’ton. Zat will be too mush—vair many too mush.”
Harrington colored slightly, and laughed. Monsieur Bagasse put on a mask, threw himself on guard, and stood girt with antagonists, with his foil playing like a pale gleam, menacing them all. Suddenly it darted—there was a brisk clatter of parries—and Vukovich was touched. It was a compliment to the skill of the gallant captain that Bagasse had got rid of him thus early in the game, and he came off simpering, and stroking his moustache complacently.
“He keel me fery queek, Meeser Haynton,” he observed to the young man, who stood attentively watching the contest.
“Ah, Captain,” returned Harrington gaily, addressing him in French, “but your ghost can fence better than most of us still.”
The captain’s vanity was evidently flattered by the compliment, for he swelled a little with an air of increased complacency, though he made no reply. Witherlee, who was standing behind him, a silent observer of the sport, glanced at him with a bilious sneer. Meanwhile, amidst shouts and laughter, and noisy appels and glizades, the young men were assailing Bagasse, trying all sorts of feints and tricks to penetrate his guard. Harrington watched him admiringly—so statue-still in the tumultuous press, his awkwardness and shabbiness gone, the wire globe of the mask giving a weird look to his head, his bent arm holding his assailants at bay, and the pale gleam of the foil glancing nimbly all about the arc of the ring. Presently the guarding foil whisked and rattled with a confusion of brilliant coruscations, playing like elfin lightning all around the semi-circle—the bent arm of the invincible figure at which all were lunging, straightened and darted thrice, rapid as a flash—and amidst mock groans and cries and laughter, Wentworth, Fisk, and Palmer withdrew. They came away vociferously mirthful, and before they had well got the masks off their flushed faces, the others were all touched and followed them, leaving Monsieur Bagasse standing alone, erect and martial, his one eye glowing like a coal in the proud grotesque smile of his swarthy visage, his left arm akimbo, holding the mask on his hip, and the victorious foil held aloft in his right hand, and quivering above his head like a rod of wizard lustre.
There were loud bravos and clapping of hands. The next instant the statue of military triumph dropped into the clumsy, sloven figure of Bagasse, and hobbled off to the claret-can. He came hurrying back presently with the foil and mask in one hand, and stood, the centre of a great smell of garlic, grinning curiously at Fisk and Palmer, who, in an ecstasy of excitement from their recent engagement, were playing they were D’Artagnan and Porthos, and poking furiously at each other with all the “Guardsmen” oaths and epigrams in full ventilation.
“Well, Missr Wentwort’, what you zink now?” he asked, triumphantly.