“There,” he cries, tossing the Landais challenge over to Lieutenant Dale--“there, Dick, read that! You will then see what I meant by telling you to wait until my diplomacy had had time to unfold.” “But you don’t mean to fight the creature?” and Lieutenant Dale glances up from his reading, horrified. “Fight him; and kill him, sir! Why not? Do you suppose for a moment that poor Caswell is to go unavenged?” “But think what you do! You can’t fight this fellow! The man is to be court-martialed.” “Ah, yes, Dick! But observe; I’ve as yet refrained from making formal charges against him. So far as the books go, he rates as well as you or I.” Commodore Paul Jones gets this off with inexpressible slyness, as one who discloses the very heart of his cunning. “But my dear Commodore,” returns Lieutenant Dale, desperately, “the thing is impossible! This Landais is not a gentleman! He is the commonest of blacklegs.” “Dick! Dick!” remonstrates Commodore Paul Jones; “you do him an injustice! Technically at least you wrong him. You should summon up more fairness. Now, here is how I look at it:” Commodore Paul Jones grows highly judgmatical. “I follow the law, which says that a man is supposed to be innocent until he’s shown to be guilty. Influenced by this, which to my mind breathes the very spirit of justice, I make it an unbreakable rule, in matters of the duello, to regard every man as a gentleman unless the contrary has been explicitly demonstrated. No, Dick”--this solemnly--“Landais, whatever you or I may privately think, has still his rights. I shall fight him, Dick.” Commodore Paul Jones sends Lieutenant May-rant ashore, as his representative, to accept the Landais challenge. “I should have sent you, Dick,” he explains to Lieutenant Dale, who inclines to the cloudy because he had been slighted; “but, to tell the truth, I couldn’t trust you. Yes; you’d have cut in between us, and fought him in my stead. And the fact is, if you must have it, I’ve set my heart on killing the rogue myself.” Lieutenant Mayrant finds Landais, vaporing and blustering. “Pistols; ten paces,” says Lieutenant May-rant. “Time and place you may settle for yourself.” “Pistols!” exclaims Landais, his face a muddy gray. Pistols and Paul Jones mean death. With a gesture, as though dismissing an unpleasant thought, he cries: “I shall not fight with pistols! They are not recognized in Prance as the weapons of a gentleman!” “They are in America,” retorts Lieutenant Mayrant. “Neither shall you palter or split hairs! Pistols it shall be; or I tell you frankly that the officers of the _Serapis_, ay! the very foc’sel hands, will beat you and drub you for a cowardly swab, wherever they come across you.”