"
"I should like to have a bout with you, Master Holliday," Monsieur
Dalboy said; "will you take a foil? I am curious to see what the
united teaching of my countryman and that noted swordsman Colonel
Holliday may have done. To me, as a master, it is interesting to
discover what is possible with good teachers, when the science is
begun young. What may your age be, Master Holliday?"
"I am four months short of sixteen," Rupert said, "and I shall be
very proud of the honour of crossing swords with so famed a master
as yourself, if you think me worthy of so great a privilege."
There was quite a sensation in the fencing school, round which were
gathered some forty or fifty of the young men of the day, when
Maitre Dalboy called for his plastron and foil, for it was seldom
indeed, and then only with swordsmen of altogether exceptional
strength, that Monsieur Dalboy condescended to fence, contenting
himself ordinarily with walking about the school and giving a hint
now and then to those fencing with his assistants, not, perhaps,
more than once a week taking a foil in his hand to illustrate some
thrust or guard which he was inculcating. At this call, therefore,
there was a general silence; and everyone turned to see who was the
fencer whom the great master thus signally deigned to honour.
Great was the astonishment when, as Monsieur Dalboy divested
himself of his coat and vest, the lad who had entered with Lord
Fairholm and Sir John Loveday was seen similarly to prepare for the
contest.
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