WHICH CONTAINS A DUEL--AND A DEATH.
Scarcely had Mr. Schnackenberger withdrawn to his apartment, when a pair of
'field-pieces' were heard clattering up-stairs--such and so mighty as, among
all people that on earth do dwell, no mortal wore, himself only except, and
the student, Mr. Fabian Sebastian. Little had he thought under his evening
canopy of smoke, that Nemesis was treading so closely upon his heels.
'Sir, my brother,' began Mr. Student Fabian, 'the time is up: and here am I,
to claim my rights. Where is the dog? The money is ready: deliver the
article: and payment shall be made.'
Mr. Schnackenberger shrugged his shoulders.
'Nay, my brother, no jesting (if you please) on such serious occasions: I
demand my article.'
'What, if the article have vanished?'
'Vanished!' said Mr. Fabian; 'why then we must fight, until it comes back
again.--Sir, my brother, you have acted nefariously enough in absconding
with goods that you had sold: would you proceed to yet greater depths in
nefariousness, by now withholding from me my own article?'
So saying, Mr. Fabian paid down the purchase money in hard gold upon the
table. 'Come, now, be easy,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, 'and hear me.'
'Be easy, do you say? _That_ will I not: but hear I will, and with all my
heart, provided it be nothing unhearable--nor anything in question of my
right to the article: else, you know, come knocks.' 'Knocks!' said Jeremiah:
'and since when, I should be glad to know, has the Schnackenberger been in
the habit of taking knocks without knocking again, and paying a pretty large
per centage?'
'Ah! very likely. That's your concern. As to me, I speak only for myself and
for my article.' Hereupon Mr. Schnackenberger made him acquainted with the
circumstances, which were so unpalatable to the purchaser of 'the article,'
that he challenged Mr. Schnackenberger to single combat there and then.
'Come,' said Mr. Fabian; 'but first put up the purchase money: for I, at
least, will practise nothing that is nefarious.'
Mr. Schnackenberger did so; redeemed his sword from Mrs. Sweetbread by
settling her bill; buckled it on; and attended Mr. Fabian to the
neighbouring forest.
Being arrived at a spot suitable to their purpose, and their swords drawn,
Mr. Schnackenberger said--'Upon my word it's a shocking thing that we must
fight upon this argument: not but it's just what I have long expected.
Junonian quarrels I have had, in my time, 747; and a Junonian duel is
nothing more than I have foreseen for this last week. Yet, after all,
brother, I give you my honour that the brute is not worth a duel: for, fools
as we have been in our rivalship about her, between ourselves she is a mere
agent of the fiend, and minister of perdition, to him who is so unhappy as
to call her his.'
'Like enough, my brother; haven't a doubt you're in the right, for you know
her best: still it would be nefarious in a high degree if our blades were to
part without crossing each other. We must tilt a bit: Sir, my brother, we
must tilt. So lunge away at me; and never fear but I'll lunge as fast as
you.'
So said--so done: but scarce had Mr. Sebastian pushed his first 'carte over
the arm,' which was well parried by his antagonist, when, with a loud
outcry, in rushed Juno; and, without troubling herself about the drawn
swords, she drove right at the pit of Mr. Sebastian's stomach, knocked the
breath out of his body, the sword out of his hand, and himself upon his
back.
'Ah! my goddess, my Juno!' cried Mr. Schnackenberger; 'Nec vox hominem
sonat, oh Dea certe!'
'Nec vox hominem sonat?' said Mr. Fabian, rising: 'Faith, you're right
there; for I never heard a voice more like a brute's in my life.'
'Down then, down, Juno,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, as Juno was preparing for
a second campaign against Mr. Fabian's stomach: Mr. Fabian, on his part,
held out his hand to his brother student--saying, 'all quarrels are now
ended.' Mr. Jeremiah accepted his hand cordially. Mr. Fabian offered to
resign 'the article,' however agitating to his feelings. Mr. Jeremiah,
though no less agitated, protested he should not. 'I will, by all that's
magnanimous,' said Mr. Fabian. 'By the memory of Curtius, or whatever else
is most sacred in self-sacrifice, you shall not,' said Mr. Jeremiah. 'Hear
me, thou light of day,' said Mr. Fabian kneeling. 'Hear _me_,' interrupted
Mr. Jeremiah, kneeling also: yes, the Schnackenberger knelt, but carefully
and by circumstantial degree; for he was big and heavy as a rhinoceros, and
afraid of capsizing, and perspired freely. Mr. Fabian kneeled like a
dactyle: Mr. Jeremiah kneeled like a spondee, or rather like a molossus.
Juno, meantime, whose feelings were less affected, did not kneel at all;
but, like a tribrach, amused herself with chasing a hare which just then
crossed one of the forest ridings. A moment after was heard the report of a
fowling-piece. Bitter presentiment of the truth caused the kneeling duelists
to turn their heads at the same instant. Alas! the subject of their
high-wrought contest was no more: English Juno lay stretched in her blood!
Up started the 'dactyle;' up started the 'spondee;' out flew their swords;
curses, dactylic and spondaic, began to roll; and the gemini of the
university of X, side by side, strode after the Junonicide, who proved to be
a forester. The forester wisely retreated, before the storm, into his
cottage; from an upper window of which he read to the two coroners, in this
inquest after blood, a section of the forest-laws, which so fully justified
what he had done--that, like the reading of the English riot act, it
dispersed the gemini, both dactylic and spondaic, who now held it advisable
to pursue the matter no further.
'Sir, my brother,' said Mr. Fabian, embracing his friend over the corpse of
Juno, 'see what comes of our imitating Kotzebue's plays! Nothing but our
nefarious magnanimity was the cause of Juno's untimely end. For had we,
instead of kneeling (which by the way seemed to "punish" you a good deal),
had we, I say, vested the property in one or other of us, she, instead of
diverting her ennui by hunting, would have been trotting home by the side of
her master--and the article would have been still living.'