"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.
"I am pledged to it, William," was my only answer.
"But, Edward, I am opposed to duelling myself, and should not
promote or encourage, in another, a practice which I would not be
willing myself to adopt."
"A good and sufficient reason, William. You certainly should not.
I will go to Frank Kingsley."
"He will serve you, I know; but, Edward, this duelling is a bad
business. It does no sort of good. Kill Perkins, and it does not
prove to him, even if he were then able to hear, that Mrs. Clifford
spoke a falsehood; and if he kills you, you are even still farther
from convincing him.
"I have no such desire, William; and your argument, by the way,
is one of those beggings of the question which the opponents of
duelling continually fall into when discussing the subject. The
object of the man, who, in a case like mine, fights a duel, is
not to prove his truth, but to protect himself from persecution.
Perkins seeks to bully and drive me out of the community. Public
opinion here approves of this mode of protecting one's self;--may,
if I do not avail myself of its agency, the same public opinion
would assist my assailant in my expulsion. I fight on the same
ground that a nation fights when it goes to war. It is the most
obvious and easy mode to protect myself from injury and insult. So
long as I submit, Perkins will insult and bully, and the city will
encourage him, If I resist, I silence this fellow, and perhaps
protect other young beginners. I have not the most distant idea of
convincing him of my truth by fighting him--may, the idea of giving
him satisfaction is an idea that never entered my brain. I simply
take a popular mode of securing myself from outrage and persecution."