"
"Very peaceful, doubtless!" laughed Lord Fairholm. "Tell me, Master
Rupert, honestly now, didst ever use in earnest that sword that you
have just shown that you know so well how to wield?"
Rupert flushed up crimson.
"Yes," he said, with a shame-faced look, "I have twice used my
sword in self defence."
"Ha, ha! Our peaceful friend!" laughed Lord Fairholm. "And tell me,
didst put an end to both unfortunates?"
Rupert coloured still more deeply.
"I had the misfortune to slay one, my lord; but there are good
hopes that the other will recover."
A general shout of laughter greeted the announcement, which
together with Rupert's evident shame-faced look, was altogether too
much for their gravity.
Just at this moment a diversion was caused by a young man dressed
in the extreme of fashion who entered the school. He had a
dissipated and jaded air.
"Fulke, where hast been?" one of the group standing round Rupert
asked. "We have missed you these two weeks. Someone said you had
been roughly mauled, and had even lost some teeth. Is it so?"
"It is," the newcomer said, with an angry scowl. "Any beauty I once
may have had is gone forever. I have lost three of my upper teeth,
and two of my lower, and I am learning now to speak with my lips
shut, so as to hide the gap."
"But how came it about?"
"I was walking down a side street off the Strand, when four men
sprang out and held my hands to my side, another snatched my watch
and purse, and as I gave a cry for the watch, he smote me with the
pommel of his rapier in my mouth, then throwing me on the ground
the villains took to their heels together.
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