"I think not - not shoot."
And he waved the notion aside with a hand white and slender as a
woman's. "That is too English, or too Irish. The pistol, I mean
- appropriately a fool's weapon." And he explained himself,
explained at last his extraordinary forbearance under a blow. "If
you think I have practised the small-sword every day of my life for
ten years to suffer myself to be shot at like a rabbit in the end
- ho, really!" He laughed aloud. "You have challenged me, I
think, Sir Terence. Because I feared the predilection you have
discovered, I was careful to wait until the challenge came from you.
The choice of weapons lies, I think, with me. I shall instruct my
friends to ask for swords."
"Sorry a difference will it make to me," said Sir Terence. "Anything
from a horsewhip to a howitzer." And then recollection descending
like a cold hand upon him chilled his hot rage, struck the fine Irish
arrogance all out of him, and left him suddenly limp. "My God!" he
said, and it was almost a groan. He detained Samoval, who had
already turned to depart. "A moment, Count," he cried. "I - I had
forgotten. There is the general order - Lord Wellington's enactment."
"Awkward, of course," said Samoval, who had never for a moment been
oblivious of that enactment, and who had been carefully building
upon it.
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