u/Fatbloke-66

I was walking around Costco, headphones in and listening to the Nutmeg of Consolation.
I got to the dinner party scene and the next section made me stop so I could listen properly.

Must have looked very odd standing there with a grin on my face.

>!Stephen walked into the narrow room where the officers put on their swords. There were few left, Tom's regulation lion-headed affair, three with basket-hilts belonging to the Highlanders, and his own. He buckled it on and walked down the steps into pleasant freshness; and standing there on the gravel he saw Captain Lowe, who said to him 'I don't give a bugger for Joe Banks; and I don't give a bugger for you either, you half-baked sod of a ship's surgeon.' He spoke very loud and hoarse and two or three officers turned.!<

>!Stephen looked at him attentively. The man was in a choking rage but he was perfectly steady on his feet; he was not drunk.!<

>!'Will you answer for that, sir?' he asked.!<

>!'There's my answer,' said the big man, with a blow that knocked Stephen's wig from his head.!<

>!Stephen leapt back, whipped out his sword and cried 'Draw, man, draw, or I shall stick you like a hog.'!<

>!Lowe unsheathed his sabre: little good did it do him. In two hissing passes his right thigh was ploughed up. At the third Stephen's sword was through his shoulder. And at the issue of a confused struggle at close quarters he was flat on his back, Stephen's foot on his chest, Stephen's sword-point at his throat and the cold voice saying above him 'Ask my pardon or you are a dead man. Ask my pardon, I say, or you are a dead man, a dead man.'!<

>!'I ask your pardon,' said Lowe, and his eyes filled with blood.!<

It's not often Stephen gets a scene like this, it's usually something that happens 'off screen' so to speak.