It is a tradition that when one gentleman challenges another in this wise, the challengee shall have the privilege of choosing the weapons to be used. As you are no gentleman, you might not have been aware of this; and one must rate it as unlikely that you shall possess the mastery of the art of Defensing that would be required in order to contend with one such as me. It is my expectation, therefore, that you shall elect to try the matter with firearms, at such-and-such number of paces. If your estate as a recently freed prisoner, your blackness, or your poverty render it infeasible for you to lay hands on two suitable weapons, pray inform me and I shall see to it that they are provided.