Blanche at that recollection stole to my father's chair, and, hanging over his shoulder kissed his forehead. Mr. Caxton (sublimely unmoved by these flatteries).--"I don't deny that I faced the bull, but I assert that I was horribly frightened." Roland.--"The sense of honor which conquers fear is the true courage of chivalry: you could not run away when others were looking on--no gentleman could." Mr. Caxton.--"Fiddledee! It was not on my gentility that I stood, Captain. I should have run fast enough, if it had done any good. I stood upon my understanding. As the bull could run faster than I could, the only chance of escape was to make the brute as frightened as myself." Blanche.--"Ah, you did not think of that; your only thought was to save me and the children." Mr. Caxton.--"Possibly, my dear--very possibly I might have been afraid for you too--but I was very much afraid for myself. However, luckily I had the umbrella, and I sprang it up and spread it forth in the animal's stupid eyes, hurling at him simultaneously the biggest lines I could think of in the First Chorus of the 'Seven against Thebes.' I began with ELEDEMNAS PEDIOPLOKTUPOS; and when I came to the grand howl of Iô, iô, iô, iô--the beast stood appalled as at the roar of a lion. I shall never forget his amazed snort at the Greek. Then he kicked up his hind legs, and went bolt through the gap in the hedge. Thus, armed with Æschylus and the umbrella, I remained master of the field; but (continued Mr. Caxton, ingenuously), I should not like to go through that half minute again." "No man would," said the Captain, kindly. "I should be very sorry to face a bull myself, even with a bigger umbrella than yours, and even though I had Æschylus, and Homer to boot, at my fingers' ends." Mr. Caxton.--"You would not have minded if it had been a Frenchman with a sword in his hand?" Captain.--"Of course not. Rather liked it than otherwise," he added, grimly. Mr. Caxton.--"Yet many a Spanish matador, who doesn't care a button for a bull, would take to his heels at the first lunge _en carte_ from a Frenchman. Therefore, in fact, if courage be a matter of constitution, it is also a matter of custom. We face calmly the dangers we are habituated to, and recoil from those of which we have no familiar experience. I doubt if Marshal Turenne himself would have been quite at his ease on the tight rope; and a rope-dancer, who seems disposed to scale the heavens with Titanic temerity, might possibly object to charge on a cannon."