Chapter 13

IN WHICH I FIGHT A DUEL WITH ONE OF THE OLDEST WEAPONS IN THE WORLD

NEXT morning a note came to Betsey from Mrs. Norris saying that she and Gwendolyn had decided to spend the whole day at home with their patient, and would, therefore, be unable to ride out as they had planned to do. She inclosed another letter of dog-like servility from the slim count and asked me to see what I could do to suppress him. In this letter he referred to me as a vulgar fellow who had disregarded his challenge. This she did not understand, and rightly thought that I would know what he meant.

So I was reminded that the pitchforks and the time to use them had arrived. I informed De Langueville of the fact. He invited me to call at his studio at noon, and added that he hoped it would be convenient to bring the forks with me. I sent Betsey out shopping and ‘phoned for Richard, and when he came to my room I met him with one of those weapons in my hands.

“I am ready for the stern arbitrament of the pitchfork,” I said. “Will you come with me?”

“Certainly,” said he.

“Come on,” I said, as I started with one of the forks in my hands. “I’m going to get through with my haying to-day if possible.”

“Hadn’t we better send the forks by messenger?” said Richard.

“No, I’d rather carry them myself,” I answered. “I don’t want them to be delayed or lost in transit.”

“They are not so elegant as swords or guns,” he said, as he took one of the forks.

“They are more reputable,” I assured him.

We made our way into the crowded street and soon entered a drug shop to buy some first-aid materials, and deposited our forks in a corner near a small boy who sat on a stool devouring primes. He soon discovered a better use for his prunes and amused himself by-impaling them on the fork tines. When we were ready to go we gathered the fruit and gave it back to the boy.

I never had so much fun with a pitchfork in all my life. In fact, I can think of no more promising field for the pitchfork than the city of Rome. It is an exciting tool, and as an inspirer of reminiscence the fork is even mightier than the sword or the pen. Mine rose above me like a lightning-rod, and currents of thought began to play around the burnished tines. I never dreamed that there were so many ex-farmers of our own land in Italy. A number of them stopped us to indulge in stories of the hay-field. We might have learned of many a busy and exciting day on “the old farm,” but time pressed and we sprang into a cab and soon entered the studio of the sculptor with the forks in our hands.

“Here we are,” I said, as De Langueville opened the door.

To my painful surprise, the young count was there. He was looking at a sword when we caught sight of him. He sheathed and laid it down on a table and joined the sculptor, who had begun to examine the forks. The end of each tine excited their interest. De Langueville felt them, and then there was a little dialogue in Italian between him and his friend which was not wholly lost upon me.

“They use it to fight Indians,” said the sculptor.

“They are poisoned,” said the count, as his eye detected some stains on the steel which had been made by the prime-juice.

“I think so,” the other answered, and then, addressing me in English, he asked:

“Will you kindly name the day and hour?”

“Here and now,” was my answer.

Another dialogue in Italian followed, and then De Langueville said to me:

“It is impossible. The count requests for more time.”

“I have no more time to waste on this little matter,” I said. “If he wishes to call it off—” But he didn’t—no such luck for me! I had talked too much. The count had taken exception to the words “call it off.” They must have sounded highly insulting, for he flew mad, as they say in Connecticut, and stepped forward with a fine flourish and seized one of the forks. “Call it off” was apparently the one thing which the count could not stand, and I had meant to be careful. His rich Italian blood mounted to his face. I began to like him better.

“I will fight you here and at present if my friend the baron will give to us the permission,” he declared.

“One moment,” said the baron, as he hurried away.

We sat in silence for five minutes or so when he returned with a surgeon.

I could not run now, and there were no trees to climb, although there was an heroic figure of the New Italy with a kind of staging that rose to her chin. There was also a long alley that was lined with busts and statues.

“It looks as if we are in for it,” Forbes whispered.

“I’m ready,” I assured him. “A man who talks as much as I do ought to be willing to fight, especially when there’s no chance to run. I enjoy life and safety as much as any one, but you can carry it too far.”

Forbes turned away and conferred with the sculptor, and placed us about fifteen feet apart.

“I will count three, and at the last number you will approach together and fight,” said De Langueville.

The young count had no lack of courage, for I have since learned that he regarded me as a kind of human cobra with poisoned fangs more than a foot long. He was rather pale when we stood face to face.

I am a man a little past fifty, and not so quick as when I was a boy, no doubt, but I have always kept myself in good shape—tramped and chopped wood and hoed beans enough to feed Boston for a month of Saturdays; so I think that I am as strong as ever. I had no sanguinary designs upon the count; I chiefly harbored preservative designs upon myself. I had got into this trouble in a good cause, and my white feathers were carefully dyed. Of course I couldn’t acknowledge that a count was better than a mister.

So I faced the blue-blooded warrior as if he were a cock in a field of good timothy, with rain-clouds in the sky. We stood with our forks raised, and the six tines rang upon one another as soon as the word was given. He was overwrought by his fear of poison, I suppose, and had not the power of arm and shoulder that I had. We shoved and twisted, and then he broke away and came on with little stabs at the air. Suddenly I caught his tines in mine and wrenched the fork from his hands. Forbes has said that I looked savage, and I believe him, for I was getting hot.

“First blood!” I shouted, as I rushed toward him, intending to pick up his fork and put it back in his hands. But he did not stop to learn my intentions. “First blood!” meant murder to him. I had taken but a step in his direction when he was in full flight. I didn’t blame him a bit. I would have fled; any one would have fled. That yell and the prune-juice did it.

“Hold on!” I shouted, with a fork in each hand, as I chased him a hundred feet or more down a long aisle lined with the busts of grocers, butchers, brokers, and lumber kings. The words “Hold on!” must have sounded nasty, for he put on more steam. I did not mean to hurt him; I only wished to take his hand and congratulate him on his speed. But I couldn’t go fast enough. Before I was half down the aisle he had got to the end of it and jumped over the high shelf between the marble presentments of the missing actress and the Michigan lumber dealer. I knew better than to laugh—it was ill-bred—but I could not help it. Now I could hear the feet of the count hurrying toward me. I ought to have kept still.

“We cannot fight with such weapons,” said the baron; “it is barbarous.”

“If you will fight me with the sword I shall prove to you my grand courage,” said the young count, as he emerged, panting, from behind a group of statues.

“I need no further proof of your courage,” I said, gently. “You act brave enough to suit me.”

“Try me with the sword,” he urged. “You are one coward; you are one coward. You have attacka me when the weapon was not in my hand.”

Richard came forward coolly and put his hand on the count’s arm.

“You are wrong, and you ought to apologize,” he said, firmly.

The count turned upon him with a polite bow, and said:

“Perhaps you will give me the satisfaction.”

“If you like, I’ll take it up for him,” said Forbes, with admirable coolness. “He is older than you, and not accustomed to the sword.”

“Look here—I won’t let you fight for me,” I said. “These fellows are used to the sword and pistol. They have nothing else to do and are looking for a sure thing. Fight him with your fists—if he’s bound to fight again.”

“Him! That would be too sure a thing, I’m afraid,” said Richard. “I’ve practised this game of fencing at college and the Fencers’ Club. I’m not afraid of the count.”

I had observed that a number of swords had been lying on a table near us. Before Richard’s remark was finished the count had picked up one of them and said to my friend:

“Come—you are not fearful—like a lady. Give me one chance.”

Before anything more could be done or said the young men were at it, and, to my great relief, I saw that Forbes was able to take care of himself. The count was a clever swordsman, but my friend was stronger and just as quick.

It is about the prettiest survival of feudal times, this bloody game of the sword.

I observed that the clock in the studio indicated the moment of 12.18 when the contest began. It lasted for an hour or more, as I thought, when it ended with blood-flowing from the sword-arm of the count at 12.21. The count was satisfied and breathing heavily. Forbes was fresh and strong.

“It is enough,” the slim count shouted, and the battle was over.

“You play with the sword so skilful,” the latter panted, as De Langueville and the surgeon began to dress his wound.

“All you need is a pair of lungs,” said Forbes. “The pair you have may do for sucking cigarettes, but not for fighting.”

“And I politely request that you do not use them again in making love to Miss Norris,” I said. “Hereafter I shall carry a fork with me, and any man who follows us again will get it run into him. But now that you know that they do not want to graft you on their family tree you will, of course, annoy them no more. I expect you’re a much better fellow than you seem to be.”

“And they will permission her to marry Raspagnetti?” he demanded.

“Why not?” was my query.

“Well, he has been married already and has amuse himself by dragging his wife around his palace by the hairs of her head.”

“It’s a bad fashion,” I said; “it wears out the carpets.”

He looked puzzled.

“But it’s an ancient diversion of the Romans,” I went on, remembering that panel in one of the galleries which portrayed the extraction of the whiskers of a captive who was tied hand and foot—one of the basest amusements I can think of.

As we talked the surgeon was at work on the arm of the young man.

“Let’s go and get a bite to eat,” Richard proposed, and we made our escape.

While we were eating he said:

“Don’t say anything of my part in this little scrap. I’m ashamed of it. To draw blood from him is like taking candy from a child.” At the hotel Richard found a cable that summoned him to New York. Late that afternoon Gwendolyn and her mother and Betsey went with him to the station where he took a train for the north. I bade the boy good-by and said as I did so:

“Leave the case in my hands again.”

“It’s hopeless!” said he.

“Not exactly!” I answered.

“She has turned me down.”

“Turned you down?”

“Yes, I had a talk with her last evening.”

“You’ll have to try it again some other evening,” I said.

“She doesn’t want to marry any one. That’s about the way she puts it—but more politely. I told her that if she didn’t want to be proposed to again she’d better avoid me. I expect to convince her that she’s wrong.”

He left me, and I went to see Norris, who had sent word that he wished to talk with me.