Duello

"Mr. Perkins is, permit me to say, a very impertinent fellow; and,
if you please, our conference will cease from this moment."

He was a little astounded--rose, and then recovering himself,
proceeded to reply with the air of a veteran martinet.

"I am glad, sir, that you give me an opportunity of proceeding
with this business without delay. My friend, Mr. Perkins, prepared
me for some such answer. Oblige me, sir, by reading this paper."
He handed me the challenge for which his preliminaries had prepared
me.

"Accepted, sir; I will send my friend to you in the course of the
morning."

As I uttered this reply, I bowed and waved him to the door. He
did not answer, other than by a bow, and took his departure. The
promptness which I had shown impressed him with respect. Baffled,
in his first spring, the bully, like the tiger, is very apt to slink
back to his jungle. His departure gave me a brief opportunity for
reflection, in which I slightly turned over in my mind the arguments
for and against duelling. But these were now too late--even were
they to decide me against the practice--to affect the present
transaction; and I sallied out to seek a friend--a friend!

Here was the first difficulty. I had precious little choice among
friends. My temper was not one calculated to make or keep friends.
My earnestness of character, and intensity of mood, made me dictatorial;
and where self-esteem is a large and active development, as it must
be in an old aristocratic community, such qualities are continually
provoking popular hostility. My friends, too, were not of the kind
to whom such scrapes as the present were congenial. I was unwilling
to go to young Edgerton, as I did not wish to annoy his parents
by my novel anxieties. But where else could I turn? To him I went.
When he heard my story, he began by endeavoring to dissuade me from
the meeting.