lips, the whipping she had saved him from at the cost of her deceit, the lie she had never told him, the tears he had found her shedding upon her knees when first he had been drinking, the money he had never given her out of his salary but had spent with idlers, his ruined soul which to that mother’s thought was pure as a baby’s still, and watched by all the angels of God:  these were admonitions from the green meadows of childhood.  Before was the barren field of honor.

How short is the struggle betwixt youth and selfishness, that sum of all diseases and crimes; that selfishness out of which wars arise and hell is habitated!

A poor, overworked Christian negro, a slave in the tavern, hearing the sobbing of Robert Utie and aware that one of the duellists occupied that room, lifted the latch, and wakened the wretched boy from his remorse.

“Young moss,” he said, “doan you fight no juels!  Oh! doan do it, for de bressed Lord’s sake!  It’s nuffin but pride and sin.  Yo’s only a pore, spilt boy, but you got a soul, young moss!  Doan you go git kilt in dat ar bloody gully wha’ so many gits hurt amoss to deff!”

Utie arose from the dream of home, and kicked the poor slave out of the room.  He then drank, speculated upon his chances, practised with an imaginary pistol at the wall, and meditated running away, alternately, until Tiltock’s business-step rang in the hall.

“Bob,” he said, “we’ve picked you a beautiful piece of ground, and the other party’s waiting.  It’s the most popular juel of the season.”

They walked up the sandy village street, under the old hip-roofed houses, crossed the Branch bridge, and proceeded a quarter of a mile on the road to Washington.  There, where a rivulet crossed the road amongst some bushes, they descended by a path into a copse, and on to a green meadow-space cleared away by former rain freshets.  Farm boys, town boys, and intruders of all sorts were lurking near.  The field of honor resembled a gypsy camp.

Lieutenant Dibdo’s companion came up to Tiltock and said that his friend did not wish to fight, and would make any manly apology, even though unconscious of offence, if the challenge was withdrawn.  The crowd was ardent for the fight, and Tiltock, who was punctilious about honor, particularly where he could cut a safe figure, repelled the compromise, as “unwarranted by the code.”  He knew as much about the code as about honor, and more about both than about getting a living.

“Then,” said the lieutenant, “I am authorized to say that my principal will take Mr. Utie’s first fire.  Let him improve the generous chance as he will.  The second time we will make business of it.”

The interlopers fell back.  The word was given:  “Ready—­Aim—­Fire!” Robert Utie, sustained by braggadocio, that quality which makes murderers die on the scaffold heroically, fired full at the body of Lieutenant Dibdo.  That officer fired into the air and remained unmoved and unharmed.