ered:

"The weapon, the weapon! Quick! what is the weapon?"

"This!" and I displayed that silver-mounted thing. He cast but one
glance at it, then swooned ponderously to the floor.

When he came to, he said mournfully:

"The unnatural calm to which I have subjected myself has told upon my
nerves. But away with weakness! I will confront my fate like a man and a
Frenchman."

He rose to his feet, and assumed an attitude which for sublimity has
never been approached by man, and has seldom been surpassed by statues.
Then he said, in his deep bass tones:

"Behold, I am calm, I am ready; reveal to me the distance."

"Thirty-five yards." ...

I could not lift him up, of course; but I rolled him over, and poured
water down his back. He presently came to, and said:

"Thirty-five yards--without a rest? But why ask? Since murder was that
man's intention, why should he palter with small details? But mark you
one thing: in my fall the world shall see how the chivalry of France
meets death."

After a long silence he asked:

"Was nothing said about that man's family standing up with him, as
an offset to my bulk? But no matter; I would not stoop to make such
a suggestion; if he is not noble enough to suggest it himself, he is
welcome to this advantage, which no honorable man would take."

He now sank into a sort of stupor of reflection, which lasted some
minutes; after which he broke silence with:

"The hour--what is the hour fixed for the collision?"

"Dawn, tomorrow."

He seemed greatly surprised, and immediately said:

"Insanity! I never heard of such a thing. Nobody is abroad at such an
hour."

"That is the reason I named it. Do you mean to say you want an
audience?"

"It is no time to bandy words. I am astonished that M. Fourtou should
ever have agreed to so strange an innovation. Go at once and require a
later hour."

I ran downstairs, threw open the front door, and almost plunged into the
arms of M. Fourtou's second. He said:

"I have the honor to say that my principal strenuously objects to the
hour chosen, and begs you will consent to change it to half past nine."

"Any courtesy, sir, which it is in our power to extend is at the service
of your excellent principal. We agree to the proposed change of time."

"I beg you to accept the thanks of my client." Then he turned to a
person behind him, and said, "You hear, M. Noir, the hour is altered to
half past nine." Whereupon M. Noir bowed, expres