On a freezing winter’s day in Leipzig, composer Charles Villiers Stanford accidentally brushed a little snow onto the hat of a skater beneath the bridge where he was standing. A moment later, the skater was up on the bridge demanding Stanford’s card, and clearly ready to challenge him to a duel.

Stanford extracted himself from the duel by pretending complete ignorance of German. Another Englishman, he tells us, tried to evade a fencing duel by proposing a fist fight instead. His opponent, preferring swords, accused him of cowardice; but when the Englishman angrily replied by demanding pistols at point blank range, his challenger proved the coward, and did not turn up.

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