his answer.

Dante answered in a kind of ironic simplicity, and he seemed to me as I
looked upon him like a man exalted out of all reason by some great joy.
"It is but a gardener's wrangle--how best to guard roses from slugs."

Simone began to frown upon the brawl that himself had caused, and he
looked toward Messer Guido, whom he knew, with a forced show of
friendliness, and spoke with a gruff assumption of good-humor. "Messer
Guido, will you tell this blockhead who I am?"

Now, Guido was as good a swordsman as the best man in Florence, and far
better than the most that handled steel, and he thought and spoke in the
wish to protect his new-made friend, whom he took to have no such skill
as his own.

"Gently, gently," he said to Simone, and his tone was by no means
gentle. "My friend's name is my name, and I take terms from no man. You
will answer me now." And as he spoke he placed his hand upon his hilt,
and made ready to draw.

Now at this Simone frowned again, for he had no personal quarrel with
Messer Guido Cavalcanti, yet from the very bullness of his nature he
would take a dare from no man. So he showed his teeth and eased his
blade to make ready.

But Dante moved swiftly forward and pulled Messer Guido from between him
and Messer Simone, doing this with a courtesy due to one of Messer
Guido's standing, yet with a very plain decision. "Messer Guido," he
said, "I entreat you to refrain. I guess your purpose, but I will not
have it so. This is my quarrel, and, believe me, I can handle it."

Guido plucked him a little apart, and whispered him hurriedly. "This is
Simone of the Bardi, a very notable soldier," he said.

I heard Dante answer him very calmly. "Were he a very notable devil, I
would stand to him enough."

By this time Messer Simone was in such a black rage at being thwarted
that he cared not what might come of it, and he called out to Dante, in
a bellowing voice, "Come, sir, come! Will you fight or yield?"

Messer Dante's carriage showed very plainly that he would not yield; of
a contrary, he moved composedly a little nearer to Simone, still smiling
and stretching out his hands as he went, as if to show that he held no
weapon. "Surely I will not yield," he said; and then questioned, "But
how shall I fight, being swordless?"

Simone grinned hideously at him. "You should have remembered that," he
said, "before you chose to play hufty-dufty." Then he scowled and
pointed to the armed men about the