"I do not fight like a water-carrier," he said, "with fists and feet; but if you are as ready with your swords as you are with your insolence, you shall not long await satisfaction."
And offering a card, which was at once accepted, he received two in return. The disputants then separated; and as soon as the Noells turned out of the square, they paused beneath a lamp to examine the card they had received. Inscribed upon it was the name of Dominique Lafon.
It was too late, when this quarrel occurred, for further steps to be taken that night; but early on the following morning Dominique's second, a young lawyer whom he had known during his studies at Paris, had an interview with the friends appointed by the Noells to act on their behalf. The latter anticipated a duel with swords, and were surprised to find that Dominique, entitled, as the insulted party, to fix the weapon, selected the more dangerous and less usual one of pistols. They could not object, however, and the meeting was fixed for the next day; the arrangement being that both brothers should come upon the ground, and that, if Dominique was unhurt in the first encounter, the second duel should immediately succeed it.
In a secluded field, to the right of the pleasant road from Toulouse to Albi, and at no great distance from the tumulus on whose summit a stone pillar commemorates Soult's gallant resistance to Wellington's conquering forces, the combatants met at the appointed hour, and saluted each other with cold courtesy. Dominique was pale, but his hand and eye were steady, and his pulse beat calmly. The two Noells were cheerful and indifferent, and bore themselves like men to whom encounters of this kind were no novelty. The elder brother took the first turn. The seconds asked once more if the affair could not be peaceably arranged; but, receiving no answer, they made the final arrangements. Two peeled willow rods were laid upon the ground, six yards apart. At ten yards from either of these the duellists were placed, making the entire distance between them six and twenty yards; and it was at their option, when the seconds gave the word, either to advance to the barrier before firing, or to fire at once, or from any intervening point.