"Has he got firearms on him?" enquired Mr. Doutfire severely. For answer the duke whipped out his revolver. But swift as the action was, Mr. Doutfire's counter move was quicker. With practised skill he clutched the dangerous wrist and with a business-like jerk held it in the air with the revolver pointing to the ceiling. "That'll do, my lord duke," he said with playful insistence. "Better let me take care of that. It's a dangerous plaything." But the duke's characteristic under-estimation of the power of the British police system prompted him to resist and to struggle violently to release his hand. Mr. Doutfire gave a well-understood nod to his subordinate, and that functionary smartly acting upon it, came behind the duke and pinioned his arms. Next moment the revolver was detached by a knowing professional trick, and was in Mr. Doutfire's pocket. "You can let go, Tugby," he said with calm authority, and the raging noble was free to dance and gesticulate in a very tornado of rage. He was understood to intimate that the insult put upon him, a Duke of Salolja and a Grandee of Spain, by a mere paltry English policeman, in not allowing him free vent for his display of _force majeure_ and homicidal proclivities was one which would not only be the cause of private and personal bloodshed, but would in all human probability result in a devastating war between the two Powers, from which the least unpleasant outcome England could expect would be the loss of Gibraltar and the bulk of the British fleet. Mr. Doutfire received the intelligence with a tolerant stolidity. Custom had made him impervious to threats and sceptical of the practical value of vindictive utterances. His scornful and unmoved attitude had the effect of raising to a still higher pitch the rage of the Spanish fire-eater, who seemed now to have lost all that self-control which before had been so telling. He had, in fact, become inebriated with wrath and excitement. "Scoundrel, villain!" he cried, shaking both fists in the air before the imperturbable Doutfire. "You lay your ignoble hands on the Duke of Salolja! I will have your life." "Steady! Steady!" responded Mr. Doutfire in a tone of gentle warning. "I shall not steady," roared the duke, whose face had now assumed the look of the false nose, eyes and moustache of a carnival mask. "You shall not defy me. You shall go this moment, or I will run you through your wretched body." With a sudden dart he snatched up the sword from the floor and began a series of flourishes which threatened seriously to embarrass Mr. Doutfire. "Steady, now," commanded that gentleman, but instead of complying, the duke seemed to be ferociously bent on selecting a suitable point of impact in the detective's thick-set figure. "Lay hold, Tugby."