fident he thinks, now, I disarmed him
by a mere accident."

"I suppose you let him score on you occasionally?" I said.

Moore shook his head. "Never, unless it were the very limit of his
reach. I don't trust him--sometimes, buttons are lost from foils. I
try to be very diplomatic by touching him very infrequently. Though I
rather think it is pearls before swine; for he is too good a fencer not
to see I am sparing him, and too jealously vindictive to appreciate my
courtesy."

I picked up a foil and made it whistle through the air.

"Come, Colonel Bernheim," I said, "I am at your service. Shall we use
the masks?"

"For Your Highness's sake, yes," he answered. "I'm apt to be a trifle
wild at times."

There was nothing especially graceful about my senior Aide; and,
besides being past the prime of life, he was of a rather bulky
tallness, stolid and phlegmatic. I could readily imagine his style,
and a very few passes confirmed it. He was of the ordinary type and I
could have run him through without the least effort. As it was, I
touched him, presently, once on each arm--then disengaged and saluted.

"I thank Your Highness," he said; "it could just as well have been my
heart and throat a dozen times."

"I am younger and more active," I explained.

But he smiled it down. "I am not sensitive, sir. Besides, it gives me
joy."

I supposed he was thinking of Lotzen.

After a short rest, Moore and I faced each other.

"Let us cut the parades," I said--and Bernheim gave the word to engage.

Without conceit I can say that I am more than moderately skillful with
the sword. It is, possibly, the one hobby of my life. My father and
grandfather before me were strong fencers, and one of my earliest
recollections is being given a toy foil and put through the parades.
There is a saying that "a swordsman is born not made," and it is a true
one. But, unless there is hard study and training from childhood, the
birth gift is wasted and there is only a made-fencer in the end. My
good sire had appreciated this fact, and not only gave me the best
instructors obtainable in America, but, in my second year's vacation
from "The Point," he took me to Paris and kept me hard at work under
the best French _maitres_. From that time on, I had practiced
assiduously, and spending all my leaves in Europe and fencing in all
the best schools of the Continent.

Our blades had little more than crossed when I knew that it would take