The morning of the second day the situation remained still unchanged;
Fitz had been unable to find Klutchem either at his office or at his
lodgings, the colonel was still without any reply from his antagonist,
and no young man answering to my fears had put in any appearance
whatever.
The only new features were a telegram from Tom Yancey to the effect
that he and Judge Kerfoot would arrive about noon, and another from
the judge himself begging a postponement until they could reach the
field.
Fitz read both dispatches in a corner by himself, with a face expressive
of the effect these combined troubles were making upon his otherwise
happy countenance. He then crumpled them up in his hand and slid them
into his pocket.
Up to this time not a soul in the office except the colonel, Fitz, and
I had the faintest hint of the impending tragedy, it being one of the
colonel's maxims that all affairs of honor demanded absolute silence.
"If yo' enemy falls," he would say, "it is mo' co'teous to say nothin'
but good of the dead; and when you cannot say that, better keep still.
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