"Oh, if you ask me on the human ground, and not on the sacerdotal, I'll tell you. I've tried it twice, and I should be sorry to try it again; though it's a very easy dodge. Keep your right elbow up--up to your ear--and the moment you hear the word, fire. A high elbow and a cool heart--that's all; and that wins." "Wins? Good heavens? As you are here alive you must have killed your man?" "No. I only shot my men each through the body; and each of them deserved it: but it is an ugly chance; I should have been sorry to try it on that yokel. The boy may make a man yet. And what's more," said Tom, bursting into a great laugh, "he will make a man, and go down to his fathers in peace, _quant à moi_; and so will that wretched Trebooze. For I'll bet you my head to a China orange, I hear no more of this matter; and don't even lose Trebooze's custom." "Upon my word, I envy your sanguine temperament!" "Mr. Headley, I shall quietly make my call at Trebooze to-morrow, as if nothing had happened. What will you bet me that I am not received as usual?" "I never bet," said Frank. "Then you do well. It is a foolish and a dirty trick; playing with edge tools, and cutting one's own fingers. Nevertheless, I speak truth, as you will see." "You are a most extraordinary man. All this is so contrary to your usual caution." "When you are driven against the ropes, 'hit out' is the old rule of Fistiana and common sense. It is an extreme bore: all the more reason for showing such an ugly front, as to give people no chance of its happening again. Nothing so dangerous as half-measures, Headley. 'Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,' your creed says. Mine only translates it into practice." "I have no liking for half-measures myself." "Did you ever," said Tom, "hear the story of the two Sandhurst broom-squires?" "Broomsquires?" "So we call, in Berkshire, squatters on the moor who live by tying heath into brooms. Two of them met in Reading market once, and fell out:-- "'How ever do you manage to sell your brooms for three halfpence? I steals the heth, and I steals the binds, and I steals the handles: and yet I can't afoord to sell 'em under twopence.' "Ah, but you see,' says the other, 'I steals mine ready made.' "Moral--If you're going to do a thing, do it outright." That very evening, Tom came in again. "Well; I've been to Trebooze." "And fared, how?" "Just as I warned you. Inquired into his symptoms; prescribed for his digestion--if he goes on as he is doing, he will soon have none left to prescribe for; and, finally, plastered, with a sublime generosity, the nose which my own knuckles had contused." "Impossible! you are the most miraculously impudent of men!" "Pish! simple common sense. I knew that Mrs. Trebooze would suspect that the world had heard of his mishap, and took care to let her know that I knew, by coming up to inquire for him." "_Cui bono?_"