With a prodigious effort Mr. Leo pulled himself together. "We've had enough of your lip," he declared in a loud voice. "I don't jaw, I fight. Look here." He caught up the fire-irons one after another and went through the rather too familiar business of twisting and snapping them. The duke watched the performance with folded arms and a sarcastic smile. Mr. Leo, lashing himself into as much of a fine fury as he could attain, and losing his head in the process, took a silver goblet from a niche in the overmantel and with a mighty play of muscle squeezed it out of shape, not altogether to the silent Lord Quorn's satisfaction. "That's the way I talk," he cried, with gathering confidence, as he tossed the shapeless cup on the floor. "Any man who argues with me knows what to expect. It's too late to apologize when I've snapped your legs and arms for you and dislocated your neck." The duke intimated politely to his fuming opponent his entire agreement with the remark. "I am sorry," he went on suavely, "if I have spoken in a language which has not appealed to your grace. Perhaps I may yet be so fortunate as to be able to make myself better understood." As he spoke he took a candle from the table, and, flicking off the shade, set it on the side-board. Then he pivoted round and stepped ten paces across the room, turned, whipped out his revolver, took instant aim and fired. The candle stood as before, but extinguished. The duke advanced and bowed with something, it must be confessed, of the air of a music-hall performer. "That," he said quietly, "is how I reply to your grace's remarks. I trust I have the good fortune to make myself understood. No?" Quite gratuitously imagining a negative on Mr. Leo's part, which that redoubtable fighter was far from expressing, the duke made a swift movement and tore down a rapier which hung as an ornament on the wall. After making a few passes, which seemed to have Mr. Leo's person for their ultimate destination, he spitted the shade of another candle, flung it aside, and drawing back, put himself in fencing attitude, and lunging furiously, after a grand flourish, just hit the wick and extinguished it likewise. Then he favoured his impressed audience with a deprecating gesture intimating that his exhibition of skill was a matter of small account, after which, without waiting for comments or applause, he turned with startling ferocity upon Mr. Leo and in an unpleasantly resonant tone commanded him to take down the fellow weapon and defend himself.