put the affair into the hands of my energetic
friend. So erratic (I may again remark) is
human thought!

I waited some time for my friend, but was
obliged at last to begin breakfast without him.
As the meal was approaching its termination,
I saw him pass the window of the little parlour
in which I took my meals, and immediately
afterwards he entered the room.

"Well," he said, sitting down at the table
and commencing a vigorous attack on the
eatables, '" it is as I expected. We are driven
to extremities."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean," remarked Dewsnap, chipping away
at his egg, "that the other side declines to
apologise, and that consequently the other side
must be bowled down;—shot."

"Oh dear me," I said—relenting, Major,
relenting—" I shouldn't like to do that."

"You wouldn't like to do that? May I
ask, Mr. Shrubsole, what you mean by that
remark?"

"I mean that, that—is there no other way
out of it?"

"Now look here, Shrubsole," said my
companion, with a severe air, and suspending for
a moment his attack on the breakfast; "you
have put this affair in my hands, and you must
allow me to carry it through, according to the
laws of honour. It is extremely painful to me
to be engaged in such an affair" (I couldn't
help thinking that he seemed rather to enjoy it),
"but, being engaged in it, I shall go through
with it to the end. Come! We'll get these things
cleared away, and then you shall sit down and
write a formal challenge, which I will undertake
to deliver in the proper quarter."

Dewsnap was too much for me. He seemed
to have all the right phrases at his tongue's
end; he was so tremendously well-informed as
to what was the right thing to do, and the right
thing to say when conducting an affair of this
kind, that I could not help asking him whether
he had ever been engaged in one before?

"No," he said, " no; but I believe I have a
sort of aptitude for the kind of thing. Indeed,
I have always felt that I should be in my element
in arranging the details of an affair of honour."

"How you would enjoy being a principal,
instead of a second!" I said—rather maliciously ;
for Dewsnap's alacrity aggravated me.

"No, not a bit, my dear fellow. I take such
an interest in this affair that I identify myself
with you entirely, and quite feel as if I was a
principal."

(Then you feel a very curious sensation about
the pit of the stomach, my boy, I thought to
myself.  I did not however give the thought
expression. I merely mention it as an instance
of the erratic nature of thought.)

"By-the-by," remarked Dewsnap, as he
pocketed my challenge and prepared to depart,
"I forgot to mention that one or two fellows of
our acquaintance are coming down."

"One or two fellows?" I repeated, in a
highly displeased, nay, crushing tone.

"Yes, Cripps is coming, and Fowler, and
perhaps Kershaw, if he can get away. We
were talking your affair over, the evening before
I left, and they were all so much interested in
it—for I predicted from the first, that there must
be a meeting—that they're all coming down to
see you through it."

How I cursed my own folly in haying
entrusted the keeping of my honour to this dreadfully
zealous friend of mine! I thought, as he
marched off erect and fussy with that wretched
challenge in his pocket, that there was
something positively bloodthirsty about the man.
And then those other fellows coming down for
the express purpose of seeing somebody shot!
For that was their purpose, I felt. I fully
believed that, if by any fortunate chance there
should be no blood shed, those so-called friends
of mine would go away disgusted.

The train of reflection into which I had fallen
was interrupted at this juncture, by the appearance
outside the window, of three human
figures. These turned out, on inspection, to be
no other than the individuals whose taste for
excitement I had been condemning so strongly
in my own mind. There they were, Messrs.
Cripps, Fowler, and Kershaw, grinning and
gesticulating at me through the window, like
vulgar unfeeling idiots as they were. And one
of them (I think it was Cripps) had the brutality
to put himself into the attitude supposed to be
the correct one for a duellist, with his left hand
behind his back, and his right raised as if to
discharge an imaginary pistol.

They were in the room with me directly,
large, noisy, and vulgar, laughing and guffawing
—making comments on my appearance, asking
me if I had made my will, what I had left to
each of them, and otherwise conducting
themselves in a manner calculated to turn one's milk
of human kindness to bitterest gall. How they
enjoyed it! When they learned that Dewsnap
was actually at that time away on a war
mission, and that he might return at any moment
with the fatal answer—I say when they heard
that, they positively gloated over me. They
sat down and stared at me, and every now
and then one of them would say, with a low,
chuckling giggle, " I say, old fellow! How do
you feel about it now?" It was a hideous
relief to me when Dewsnap returned with the
baleful news that the challenge was accepted,
and that the meeting was appointed for the next
morning at eight o'clock.

Those ruffians enjoyed themselves that afternoon
to the utmost. They had such a pleasure
in store for next day, that it gave an added
zest to everything they did. It sharpened their
appetites, it stimulated their thirst, it
imparted to the skittles with which they amused
themselves during the afternoon, an additional
charm. The evening was devoted to conviviality.
Dewsnap, after spending some time in
oiling the triggers of the pistols, remarked that
now they were in such prime condition, that
they would " snap a fellow's head off, almost
without his knowing it." This inhuman remark