While the gossipmongers converge to trade tales about the marital troubles between Sir Peter and Lady Teazle in Act 5, Scene 2, Sir Benjamin Backbite invents a fictitious story about a duel in order to demonstrate his prowess in gathering information and to place himself above his peers. Not one to be outdone, however, Mr. Crabtree interjects with manufactured, hyperbolic detail about the fight that never took place:
Sir Peter forced Charles to take one, and they fired, it seems, pretty nearly together. Charles’s shot took effect, as I tell you, and Sir Peter’s missed; but what is very extraordinary, the ball struck against a little bronze Shakspeare that stood over the fireplace, grazed out of the window at a right angle, and wounded the postman, who was just coming to the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire.
If Mr. Crabtree’s story were true, the extreme, minute detail that he provides in the quote above would lend credence to his tale. However, the audience and Sir Backbite both know that Sir Peter and Charles Surface never engaged in any duel. Thus, Mr. Crabtree’s ridiculous assertion that he knows the exact order of the shots taken and wounds incurred in this false duel only exposes him as a liar and a fraud to both parties. Further adding to the comedy of this scene is Sir Peter’s arrival only a few lines later, in a conclusive demonstration of the fact that rumors can only go so far before the truth comes out.
