“The other man’s seconds,” went on Mr. Newman’s friend genially, “wanted swords, but we told them that you couldn’t fence; besides which, with amateurs nothing ever happens with swords. And then,” he continued, musing, “if the other man is really good you’re done for, whereas with pistols there is always a chance.” To Mr. Bilbury, equally waiting for the luncheon hour in some gloominess of soul, the same tale was told, _mutatis mutandis_, as they say in what is left of the classical school of the University. His adversary had chosen pistols. “And you know,” said one of his seconds to Bilbury sympathetically, “he had the right of choice; technically he was the insulted party. Besides which, pistols are always better if people don’t know each other.” The other second agreed, and was firmly of the opinion that swords were only for intimate friends or politicians. They also mentioned the field at Meudon, but with this difference that it became in their mouths the ancient feudal property of one of their set, and they were careful to point out that the neighbours were all Royalists, devotedly attached to the family, and the safest and most silent witnesses in the world. For the remaining days Mr. Bilbury and Mr. Newman were conducted by their separate groups of friends, the first to a shooting gallery near Vincennes, the second to a shooting gallery near St. Denis. Their experiments were thus conducted many miles apart: and it was just as well. It was remarkable what an affluence of students came as the days proceeded to see the exercise in martial sport of Mr. Newman. At first from fifty to sixty of the students with one or two of the pure mathematicians and three or four chemists comprised the audience, but before the week was over one might say that nearly all the Applied Physics and Positive Sciences of the University were crowding round Vincennes and urging Mr. Newman to accurate and yet more accurate efforts at the target. At St. Denis the number of artists increased in a similar proportion, and to these, before the week was ended, were added great crowds of poets, rhetoricians, and even mere symbolists, who wore purple ties and wigs. These also urged Mr. Bilbury to add to his proficiency; and sometimes that principal himself would shudder to see a long-haired and apparently inept person with a greenish face pick up a pistol with dreadful carelessness and put out the flame of a candle at a prodigious distance with unerring aim.