Wednesday, January 23, 2008

In Which I Encounter Four Knaves

One day as I lay drinking in my sleep, and singing as I drank, four bravos, four down-at-heel rogues, entered my inn, the Horse of Bronze, in Remiremont under the Vosges. They came to steal my wallet, which contained letters to Sieur de Coquille-les-Baraquins. With one bound I left my bed and, seizing my sword, slit the cheek of the first, gashed the forehead of the second, pierced the left shoulder of the third, and pricked the fourth over the heart. I then trussed them up like fowls and rolled them into the cellar. At Jarnac I fought until I had nothing left to fight with but a one-inch stump of sword. At Ivry I had eighteen horses killed under me. At Arques I broke in the great doors of the castle with a blow of my fist. Yet let me not boast.

The Chevalier de Menfiche! Coeur-de-Fer! At your service. My honour insulted by omission from a list. A list of little conseqence you say? Allow me, in turn, to DEMAND satisfaction!

En Garde!

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