A chilly wind was driving brittle leaves down the street as Justice Halpern left the Carleton Club. He bundled his topcoat around his body and peered down toward the taxi stand on the corner. No cabs, of course: during the rush hour they were all busy.

Standing at the top of the club’s entryway steps, wishing he hadn’t given his chauffeur the afternoon off, Halpern thought he might as well go back inside and have the doorman phone for a taxi. It would take at least a half hour, he knew. I’ll wait in the Men’s Bar, he thought.

But as he stepped through the glass front door and into the club’s foyer a tiny slip of a woman accosted him.

“Justice Halpern,” she said, as if she was pronouncing sentence over him.

Suppressing a frown, Halpern said frostily, “You have the advantage over me, miss.”

“Roxanne Harte, Esquire,” she said. “Ms. Roxanne Harte.” She pronounced the Ms. like a colony of bees swarming.

“How do you do?” Halpern noticed that Ms. Harte couldn’t have been out of law school for very long. She was a petite redhead, rather pretty, although her china-blue eyes seemed to be blazing with some inner fury.

“You are a member here?” he asked, feeling nettled.

“As much a member as you are, sir. And I’m very unhappy with you, your honor.”

“With me?”

“With you, sir.”

Halpern looked around the foyer. The uniformed doorman was standing by the cloakroom, chatting quietly with the attendant there. No one else in sight. Or earshot.

“I don’t understand,” he said to Ms. Harte. “Why should you be unhappy with me? What have I done—”

“You’re trying to convince the board to reject our petition.”

Halpern’s eyes went wide. “You’re one of—of those?”

“One of the women who want to end the chauvinistic monopoly you maintain over the Men’s Bar, yes, that’s me.”

Feeling almost embarrassed at this little snip of a woman’s arrogance, Halpern said, “This isn’t the place to discuss club matters, young lady.”

“I agree,” she snapped. “I know a much better way to settle this issue, once and for all.”

“How do you propose—”

She never let him finish his question. “I challenge you to a duel, sir.”

“A duel?”

“Choose your weapons!”

“This is nonsense,” Halpern said. He began to turn away from her.

But Roxanne Harte grabbed him by the sleeve and with her other hand delivered a resounding slap to Halpern’s face.

“Choose your weapons,” she repeated.

Halpern stood there, his cheek burning. The doorman and cloakroom attendant were staring at him. John Nottingham came through the door from the club’s interior and stopped, sensing instinctively that something was wrong.

“Well?” Ms. Harte demanded.

“I can’t fight a duel with you,” Halpern said. “You’re only a woman.”

“That’s the attitude that makes this duel necessary, isn’t it?” she said, practically snarling.

Drawing himself up to his full height, Halpern said, “I have every advantage over you. I am taller, heavier, stronger. You couldn’t stand up to me in a duel.”

“What about pistols?” Ms. Harte replied immediately. “Back in the Old West they called the Colt six-gun the Equalizer. How about a duel with pistols?”

Halpern was about to point out to her that he was the club’s champion pistol shot for the past three years running. But he stopped himself. Why should I tell her? She wants to fight a duel against me. She’s the one who suggested pistols.

Nodding, Justice Halpern said through clenched teeth, “Very well, then. Pistols it will be.” And he added silently, You little fool.

News of the duel spread through the club almost instantly, of course. By the following afternoon, as Justice Halpern stepped into the Men’s Bar for his customary libation, every man there got to his feet and applauded.

Halpern tried to hide the pleasure he felt as he made his way across the room to the table where Franklin, Gorton, and Nottingham were sitting.

“The defender of our rights and privileges,” Franklin said, beaming, as the judge sat down.

“By golly,” said Gorton, “I’ve got to hand it to you, your honor. It’s high time somebody stood up for what’s right.”

Nottingham was a bit more subdued. “From what I understand, you have agreed that the outcome of this duel will decide whether or not the women’s petition will be accepted.”

“That’s right,” Halpern said, as the Hispanic waiter placed his brandy and soda in front of him. “If she wins, the Men’s Bar will be opened to women.”

“But she won’t win,” Gorton said. Then he added, “Will she?”

“How could she,” Franklin said, “against the club’s best shot?”

“You’ve agreed on the setting?” Nottingham asked.

“A frontier saloon in the Old West,” said Halpern as he reached for his drink. With a smile that was almost a smirk he added, “She’ll have to come in through the ladies’ entrance, I expect.”

The following morning Halpern had his chauffeur drive him back to the shopping mall where the VR Duels, Inc. facility was. Franklin, Gorton, and Nottingham were already there, even though he arrived scrupulously on time. Ms. Harte was nowhere to be found.

Typical woman, Halpern said to himself. Late for the appointment. Then he thought, Maybe she won’t show up at all. The idea pleased him immensely.

Franklin and the others looked very serious as they stood in the anteroom waiting for his opponent.

“Relax,” Halpern told them. “The purity of the Men’s Bar will not be defiled.”

At that moment Ms. Harte burst into the room, looking rather like a worried high school student who’d been sent down to the principal’s office for discipline.