"This is a partisan. All you had to do when you got it inside a man was to turn it round a bit, and the wound gaped and tore. This tassel is for catching the blood and preventing it from greasing the handle. Here's a beauty," he went on, taking a sword from the row he had laid out for display, and holding it out for Katherine's inspection. "One of the pets of the collection. A French duelling sword of the middle of the eighteenth century." He gave a fencer's flourish. "Responsive to the hilts, eh? Ah! It must have been good to live in those days, when you could whip this from your side at a wrong done and have the life of the man that wronged you. The sweet morning air, the patch of green turf, shoes off--in shirt and breeches--with the eyes of the man you hate in front of you, and this glittering, beautiful, snaky thing thirsting for his heart's blood. And then--"--he stood in tierce, left hand curved, holding in tense fierceness the eyes of an imaginary opponent--"and then a little clitter-clatter of steel, and, suddenly--ha!--the blade disappears up to the hilt, and a great red stain comes on the shirt, and the man throws up his arms, and falls, and you've killed him. He's dead! dead! dead! Ha! what a time to live in!" Katherine uttered a little cry of fear, and grew pale. Viviette clapped her hands. "Bravo, Dick!" "Bravo, Dick!" cried Austin. "Most dramatically done." "I never knew you were such an actor," said Viviette. Dick stood panting, his hand on the hilt of the sword, the point on the floor. "I really do think I've had enough," said Katherine. "No, not yet," he said in a thick voice. "I've not shown you half yet. I've something much more interesting." "But, Dick--" Viviette interrupted her. "You must stay. It's only beginning to be exciting. If you only do the rest as beautifully as you did that, Dick, I'll stay here all day." Dick, with a curious outward calm, contrasting with the fury of his mock encounter, put down the sword and went to the end of the table, where the case of pistols lay. "At any rate, I must show you," said he, "the famous duelling pistols." "They were the very pistols in the duel between his great-grandfather and Lord Estcombe," said Viviette. "They've not been used from that day--he killed Lord Estcombe, by the by--till this. The case is just as it was left. I was going to tell you the story yesterday." "I remember," said Katherine, by way of civility. "But Mrs. Ware stopped you." She was a mild-natured woman, and the realistic conjuring up of gore-dripping tassels and bloody shirts upset her, and she desired to get away. She also saw that Dick was abnormally excited, and suspected that he had been drinking. Her delicate senses shrank from drunkenness. "You must tell the story," cried Viviette. "It's so romantic. You like romantic things, Katherine. The great-grandfather was a Dick Ware too--Wild Dick Ware they used to call him. Go on, Dick."