After examining this weapon with a care that was only half curious he gave his shoulders a shrug, after the foreign manner, and then presented it to the Englishman by the hilt, saying, “Put up your butter-cutter, Monsieur l’Epicier, and when you return into your peninsula give an additional alms to the Virgin that you find yourself with as whole a skin as that with which you went.” Being addressed in this fashion, an odd change fell upon the Englishman. As in the affair in the inn at Madrid, a kind of sinister softness overtook him. Immediately he abated his voice into a modest and humble accent which was quite unlike his previous immoderation. “I thank you, good Frenchman, for my poor tuck. It is an ancient arm, I might say an heirloom; yet once on a day it held the rank of a sword. At least, in that capacity was it given to an elderly forebear by Edward the Black Prince, who in his day did some pretty work among the French. And now, as you say, although it is an old thing, it still serves to cut butter.” Thereupon, in the presence of the whole room, which had suspended its affairs entirely, Sir Richard Pendragon quietly laid the flat part of the sword against one side of the Frenchman’s cheek and then against the other. CHAPTER XXV OF SIR RICHARD PENDRAGON’S DUELLO WITH THE GALLANT FRENCHMAN ANY excitement that was likely to arise was checked by the Frenchman’s action. With a dark and cold smile on his lips, he turned to his friends and held up a slender white hand that was covered with jewels, and besought them, almost in a tone of entreaty, to display calmness. Then with a most courteous apology to all who had suspended their play, and remarking that it was plaguy unfortunate that he must suspend his own when the cards had smiled upon him for the first time in a long season, he ordered the landlord to have all the room’s furniture drawn close to the wall. While this was being done, the Count of Nullepart went to the Englishman and addressed him privily. “This fellow,” said he, “is the first swordsman in France. He is the hero of a hundred duellos, and he is quite invincible.” “Is he so, my dear?” said the English giant in his modest voice, which seemed to feign alarm. “How pleasant it must be for the poor soul to be invincible.” Sir Richard Pendragon turned to me and said in a manner of courtesy I had seldom heard him use, “Prithee, good Don Miguel, oblige old honest Dickon by going into the stable yonder and procuring that little rapier of Ferrara steel, which you will find strapped to the saddle of the meritorious Melanto, who is now eating his supper of oats like a good Christian horse.”