Two Years Ago Volume I Part 48

And Tom rolled on at his pills.

"I do."

"And when I have fought him, I fight you!" And the pills rolled steadily at the same pace.

"But--sir?--Why--sir?"

"Because," said Tom, looking him full in the face, "because you, calling yourself a gentleman, and being, more shame for you, one by birth, dare to come here, for a foolish vulgar superst.i.tion called honour, to ask me, a quiet medical man, to go and be shot at by a man whom you know to be a drunken, profligate, blackguard: simply because, as you know as well as I, I interfered to prevent his insulting a poor helpless girl: and in so doing, was forced to give him what you, if you are (as I believe) a gentleman, would have given him also, in my place."

"I don't understand you, sir!" said the lad, blus.h.i.+ng all the while, as one honestly conscience-stricken; for Tom had spoken the exact truth, and he knew it.

"Don't lie, sir, and tell me that you don't understand; you understand every word which I have spoken, and you know that it is true."

"Lie?"

"Yes, lie. Look you, sir; I have no wish to fight--"

"You will fight, though, whether you wish it or not," said the youth with a hysterical laugh, meant to be defiant.

"But--I can snuff a candle; I can split a bullet on a penknife at fifteen paces."

"Do you mean to frighten us by boasting? We shall see what you can do when you come on the ground."

"Across a handkerchief: but on no other condition; and, unless you will accept that condition, I will a.s.suredly, the next time I see you, be we where we may, treat you as I treated your friend Mr. Trebooze.

I'll do it now! Get out of my shop, sir! What do you want here, interfering with my honest business?"

And, to the astonishment of Mr. Trebooze's second, Tom vaulted clean over the counter, and rushed at him open-mouthed.

Sacred be the honour of the gallant West country: but, "both being friends," as Aristotle has it, "it is a sacred duty to speak the truth." Mr. Creed vanished through the open door.

"I rid myself of the fellow jollily," said Tom to Frank that day, after telling him the whole story.

"And no credit to me. I saw from the minute he came in there was no fight in him."

"But suppose he had accepted--or suppose Trebooze accepts still?"

"There was my game--to frighten him. He'll take care Trebooze shan't fight, for he knows that he must fight next. He'll go home and patch the matter up, trust him. Meanwhile, the oaf had not even _savoir faire_ enough to ask for my second. Lucky for me; for I don't know where to have found one, save the lieutenant; and though he would have gone out safe enough, it would have been a bore for the good old fellow."

"And," said Prank, utterly taken aback by Tom's business-like levity, "you would actually have stood to shoot, and be shot at, across a handkerchief?"

Tom stuck out his great chin, and looked at him with one of his quaint sidelong moues.

"You are my very good friend, sir: but not my father-confessor."

"I know that: but really--as a mere question of human curiosity--"

"Oh, if you ask me on the human ground, and not on the sacerdotal, I'll tell you. I've tried it twice, and I should be sorry to try it again; though it's a very easy dodge. Keep your right elbow up--up to your ear--and the moment you hear the word, fire. A high elbow and a cool heart--that's all; and that wins."

"Wins? Good heavens? As you are here alive you must have killed your man?"

"No. I only shot my men each through the body; and each of them deserved it: but it is an ugly chance; I should have been sorry to try it on that yokel. The boy may make a man yet. And what's more," said Tom, bursting into a great laugh, "he will make a man, and go down to his fathers in peace, _quant a moi_; and so will that wretched Trebooze. For I'll bet you my head to a China orange, I hear no more of this matter; and don't even lose Trebooze's custom."

"Upon my word, I envy your sanguine temperament!"

"Mr. Headley, I shall quietly make my call at Trebooze to-morrow, as if nothing had happened. What will you bet me that I am not received as usual?"

"I never bet," said Frank.

"Then you do well. It is a foolish and a dirty trick; playing with edge tools, and cutting one's own fingers. Nevertheless, I speak truth, as you will see."

"You are a most extraordinary man. All this is so contrary to your usual caution."

"When you are driven against the ropes, 'hit out' is the old rule of Fistiana and common sense. It is an extreme bore: all the more reason for showing such an ugly front, as to give people no chance of its happening again. Nothing so dangerous as half-measures, Headley.

'Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,' your creed says. Mine only translates it into practice."

"I have no liking for half-measures myself."

"Did you ever," said Tom, "hear the story of the two Sandhurst broom-squires?"

"Broomsquires?"

"So we call, in Berks.h.i.+re, squatters on the moor who live by tying heath into brooms. Two of them met in Reading market once, and fell out:--

"'How ever do you manage to sell your brooms for three halfpence? I steals the heth, and I steals the binds, and I steals the handles: and yet I can't afoord to sell 'em under twopence.'

"Ah, but you see,' says the other, 'I steals mine ready made.'

"Moral--If you're going to do a thing, do it outright."

That very evening, Tom came in again.

"Well; I've been to Trebooze."

"And fared, how?"

"Just as I warned you. Inquired into his symptoms; prescribed for his digestion--if he goes on as he is doing, he will soon have none left to prescribe for; and, finally, plastered, with a sublime generosity, the nose which my own knuckles had contused."

"Impossible! you are the most miraculously impudent of men!"

"Pis.h.!.+ simple common sense. I knew that Mrs. Trebooze would suspect that the world had heard of his mishap, and took care to let her know that I knew, by coming up to inquire for him."

"_Cui bono?_"

"Power. To have them, or any one, a little more in my power. Next, I knew that he dared not fly out at me, for fear I should tell Mrs.

Trebooze what he had been after--you see? Ah, it was delicious to have the great oaf sitting sulking under my fingers, longing to knock my head off, and I plastering away, with words of deepest astonishment and condolence. I verily believe that, before we parted, I had persuaded him that his black eye proceeded entirely from his having run up against a tree in the dark."

"Well," said Frank, half sadly, though enjoying the joke in spite of himself, "I cannot help thinking it would have been a fit moment for giving the poor wretch a more solemn lesson."

"My dear sir,--a good licking--and he had one, and something over--is the best lesson for that manner of biped. That's the way to school him: but as we are on lessons, I'll give you a hint."