"You would not do that.

That would be terrible; it would ruin everything." "Ruin what ?" he asked.
His mother answered diplomatically.

"It would ruin all your fine opportunities in this family." Dickory smiled with a certain sarcastic hardness.

"I don't mean," said he, "that I am going to hack at him with a sword, because neither he nor I properly know how to use swords, and after the wonderful practice that I have seen, I would not want to prove myself a bungler even if the other man were a worse one.

No, mother, I mean to fight with him by all fair means to gain the hand of my dear Kate.