e abominable hollow ogre's eye
of the pistol-muzzle. We exchanged passes, the prince chiefly attacking.
Of all the things to strike my thoughts, can you credit me that the
vividest was the picture of the old woman Temple and I had seen in our
boyhood on the night of the fire dropping askew, like forks of brown
flame, from the burning house in London city; I must have smiled. The
prince cried out in French: 'Laugh, sir; you shall have it!' He had
nothing but his impetuosity for an assurance of his promise, and was
never able to force me back beyond a foot. I touched him on the arm and
the shoulder, and finally pierced his arm above the elbow. I could
have done nearly what I liked with him; his skill was that of a common
regimental sabreur.

'Ludere qui nescit campestribus abstinet armis!' Bandelmeyer sang out.

'You observed?' said Major Edelsheim, and received another disconcerting
discharge of a Latin line. The prince frowned and made use of some
military slang. Was his honour now satisfied? Not a whit. He certainly
could not have kept his sword-point straight, and yet he clamoured to
fight on, stamped, and summoned me to assault him, proposed to fight me
with his left hand after his right had failed; in short, he was beside
himself, an example of the predicament of a man who has given all the
provocation and finds himself disabled. My seconds could have stopped
it had they been equal to their duties; instead of which Bandelmeyer,
hearing what he deemed an insult to the order of student and scholar,
retorted furiously and offensively, and Eckart, out of good-fellowship,
joined him, whereat Major Edelsheim, in the act of bandaging the
prince's arm, warned them that he could not pass by an outrage on
his uniform. Count Loepel stept politely forward, and gave Eckart a
significant bow. The latter remarked mockingly, 'With pleasure and
condescension!' At a murmur of the name of doctor from Edelsheim, the
prince damned the doctor until he or I were food for him. Irritated by
the whole scene, and his extravagant vindictiveness, in which light I
regarded the cloak of fury he had flung over the shame of his defeat, I
called to Bandelmeyer to open his case of pistols and offer them for a
settlement. As the proposal came from me, it was found acceptable. The
major remonstrated with the prince, and expressed to me his regrets and
et caeteras of well-meant civility. He had a hard task to keep out of
the hands of Bandelmeyer, who h