y right," answered MacIan, with his melancholy voice,
"in saying that all this has occurred to me. All duellists should behave
like gentlemen to each other. But we, by the queerness of our position,
are something much more than either duellists or gentlemen. We are, in
the oddest and most exact sense of the term, brothers--in arms."

"Mr. MacIan," replied Turnbull, calmly, "no more need be said." And he
closed the trap once more.

They had reached Finchley Road before he opened it again.

Then he said, "Mr. MacIan, may I offer you a cigar. It will be a touch
of realism."

"Thank you," answered Evan. "You are very kind." And he began to smoke
in the cab.

IV. A DISCUSSION AT DAWN

The duellists had from their own point of view escaped or conquered the
chief powers of the modern world. They had satisfied the magistrate,
they had tied the tradesman neck and heels, and they had left the
police behind. As far as their own feelings went they had melted into a
monstrous sea; they were but the fare and driver of one of the million
hansoms that fill London streets. But they had forgotten something; they
had forgotten journalism. They had forgotten that there exists in the
modern world, perhaps for the first time in history, a class of people
whose interest is not that things should happen well or happen badly,
should happen successfully or happen unsuccessfully, should happen to
the advantage of this party or the advantage of that part, but whose
interest simply is that things should happen.

It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern
existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We
announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding.
We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a
scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as
indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still
abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is
really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common.
But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the
permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their
posters, "Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe," or "Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not
Dead Yet." They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They
cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages
that are not judiciously