and bandages, and asked Angelo to feel and see how soft and comfortable
they were. Angelo’s head fell over against Luigi’s in a faint, and
precious time was lost in bringing him to; which provoked Luigi into
expressing his mind to the doctor with a good deal of vigor and
frankness. After Angelo came to he was still so weak that Luigi was
obliged to drink a stiff horn of brandy to brace him up.
The seconds now stepped at once to their posts, halfway between the
combatants, one of them on each side of the line of fire. Wilson was to
count, very deliberately, ” One-two-three-fire!–stop !” and the duelists
could bang away at any time they chose during that recitation, but not
after the last word. Angelo grew very nervous when he saw Wilson’s hand
rising slowly into the air as a sign to make ready, and he leaned his
head against Luigi’s and said:
“Oh, please take me away from here, I can’t stay, I know I can’t!”
“What in the world are you doing? Straighten up! What’s the matter with
you?–you’re in no danger–nobody’s going to shoot at you. Straighten
up, I tell you!”
Angelo obeyed, just in time to hear:
“One–!”
“Bang!” Just one report, and a little tuft of white hair floated slowly
to the judge’s feet in the moonlight. The judge did not swerve; he still
stood erect and motionless, like a statue, with his pistol-arm hanging
straight down at his side. He was reserving his fire.
“Two–!”
“Three–“!
“Fire–!”
Up came the pistol-arm instantly-Angelo dodged with the report. He said
“Ouch!” and fainted again.
The doctor examined and bandaged the wound.
It was of no consequence, he said–bullet through fleshy part of arm–no
bones broken the gentleman was still able to fight let the duel proceed.
Next time Angelo jumped just as Luigi fired, which disordered his aim and
caused him to cut a chip off of Howard’s ear. The judge took his time
again, and when he fired Angelo jumped and got a knuckle skinned. The
doctor inspected and dressed the wounds. Angelo now spoke out and said
he was content with the satisfaction he had got, and if the judge–but
Luigi shut him roughly up, and asked him not to make an ass of himself;
adding:
“And I want you to stop dodging. You take a great deal too prominent a
part in this thing for a person who has got nothing to do with it. You
should remember that you are here only by courtesy, and are without
official recognition; officially you are not here at all; officially you
do not even exist. To all intents and purposes you are absent from this
place, and you ought for your own modesty’s sake to reflect that it
cannot become a person who is not present here to be taking this sort of
public and indecent prominence in a matter in which he is not in the
slightest degree concerned. Now, don’t dodge again; the bullets are not
for you, they are for me; if I want them dodged I will attend to it
myself. I never saw a person act so.”
Angelo saw the reasonableness of what his brother had said, and he did
try to reform, but it was of no use; both pistols went off at the same
instant, and he jumped once more; he got a sharp scrape along his cheek
from the judge’s bullet, and so deflected Luigi’s aim that his ball went
wide and chipped flake of skin from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s chin. The doctor
attended to the wounded.
By the terms, the duel was over. But Luigi was entirely out of patience,
and begged for one exchange of shots, insisting that he had had no fair
chance, on account of his brother’s indelicate behavior. Howard was
opposed to granting so unusual a privilege, but the judge took Luigi’s
part, and added that indeed he himself might fairly be considered
entitled to another trial, because although the proxy on the other side
was in no way to blame for his (the judge’s) humiliatingly resultless
work, the gentleman with whom he was fighting this duel was to blame for