"I hope," I said, interrupting myself, "that you find me tolerably
intelligible and that you follow the connection between the successive
steps of my argument?"
My audience with one voice assured me that I was perfectly intelligible,
and that they were following me with the greatest interest.
"I may be a trifle long-winded in dealing with these points, but please
remember that after pointing out a danger or giving a piece of advice,
I have to show how the danger may be met, by explaining the answering
move.
"To proceed,--whichever of you has made the first advance, you are now
within striking distance.
"If you are absolutely ignorant of sword-play, like the unfortunate
duellist whose case we were considering last night, I have already told
you what in my opinion you can do, or at least may attempt to do. I
have nothing more to say on that head.
"The opponents that we now have in view are supposed to have a
knowledge of the use of weapons. It follows that the questions to be
considered will naturally resemble those that we have already discussed
when talking of theoretical sword-play and more particularly of the
assault. The only difference is the difference between a sham fight and
a real fight, the difference between a muzzled foil and an unmuzzled
sword. Besides that, in an assault you are governed by conventional
restrictions clearly defined and well understood; you do not attempt to
hit your opponent except in accordance with the rules; you wear a mask
and a jacket.
"But the mistakes which you are most anxious to avoid in an assault
are the very things that you try to turn to account in a fight, in
order to perplex your opponent and spoil his game. For fencing, if the
professors will allow me to say so, is perhaps the one art in which
mistakes may upon occasion prove of the greatest possible advantage to
him who makes them. Otherwise it would be mere bookwork, to be learnt
more or less thoroughly, and the man who knew his book completely would
have nothing to fear; but to my mind it is nothing of the sort. No
knowledge of fencing can make a man invulnerable. If anyone imagines
that he is an exception to the rule he betrays a singularly misplaced
confidence in his own powers,--a very dangerous error.
"But ought we to condemn swordsmanship on that account? My own opinion
is that this uncertainty is the great beauty of the sword, the one
feature that distinguishes it as the only weapon for a fair fight;
for even the weakest player has his opportunity, his lucky moments,
his strokes of fortune, which must always prevent the duel from
degenerating into simple butchery.
"If fencing were an exact science, if you knew, that as sure as two
and two make four, you could certainly hit your man, and that he as
certainly could not hit you, how could you in common honesty cross
swords with him?