then only under an assumed name;
he abhorred publicity. But there was not a teacher in New York City
who did not know him for a master. They brought him their half worked
out visions of new combinations, new thrusts; he perfected them, and
simplified, or elaborated, and gave back the finished product.

They were the workmen, the craftsmen, the men of talent; he was the
originator, the genius.

And he was especially lucky in not having been tied down, in his
younger years, to one national tradition of the art. The limitations
of the French, the Spanish, the Italian, or the Austrian schools had
not enslaved him in youth and hampered the free development of his
individuality. He had studied them all; he chose from them all their
superiorities; their excellences he blended into a system of his own.

It might be called the Cleggett System.

The Frenchman is an intellectual swordsman; the basis of his art is a
thorough knowledge of its mathematics. Upon this foundation he
superimposes a structure of audacity. But he often falls into one
error or another, for all his mental brilliancy. He may become rigidly
formal in his practice, or, in a revolt from his own formalism, be
seduced into a display of showy, sensational tricks that are all very
well in the studio but dangerous to their practitioner on the actual
dueling ground.

The Italian, looser, freer, less formal, more individual in his style,
springing from a line of forbears who have preferred the thrust to the
cut, the point to the edge, for centuries, is a more instinctive and
less intellectual swordsman than the Frenchman. It is in his blood; he
uses his rapier with a wild and angry grace that is feline.

The Frenchman, even when he is thoroughly serious in his desire to
slay, loves a duel for its own sake; he is never free from the thought
of the picture he is making; the art, the science, the practical
cleverness, appeal to him independently of the bloodshed.

The Italian thinks of but one thing; to kill. He will take a severe
wound to give a fatal one. The French are the best fencers in the
world; the Italians the deadliest duelists.

Cleggett, as has been said, knew all the schools without being the
slave of any of them.

He brought his sword en tierce; Loge's blade met his with strength and
delicacy. The strength Cleggett was prepared for. The delicacy
surprised him. But he was too much the master, too confident of his
own powers, to trifle.