unmasked at once in these disputes; no waiting
for damages, no explaining away in newspaper
correspondences. The sword settles all. The
bully has to be repressed, the choleric man's
honour vindicated. Men now  "draw" for
anything or nothing—to vindicate Miss Bellamy's
virtue, to settle a dispute about the colour of an
opera-dancer's eyes. If an important card be
missed from the green table, "draw." If a man
take the wall of you, "draw." If a rival beau
jostle your sedan-chair with his, "draw." If a
fellow hiss in the pit of a theatre when you
applaud, "draw." If a gentleman with too much
wine in his head reel against you in the piazzas,
"draw." It is the coward and the philosopher
who alone "with-draw," and get sneered at and
despised accordingly; for public opinion is with
the duellist, and every one is ready to fight.

To return to the table. Mr. Hewett proposes,
sensibly enough, that the wisest way
of preserving game would be to make it by
law the property of the owner of the soil, so
that the stealing of a pheasant would then rank
with the stealing of a fowl, both alike having cost
the landlord trouble and money in the rearing
and guarding, and by no means to be ranked as
mere wild, passing, fugitive creatures, free as
moles, rats, and owls, for all to shoot and trap.
Mr. Hewett's subject is unlucky, for the conversation
soon wanders from theoretical reforms
to actual facts, and to the question of severity or
non-severity against poachers and other
trespassers.

All had been jollity and good humour at
the chairman's end of the table as yet; but
now voices get louder, and more boisterous and
self-asserting. The discussion is whether game
increases more when neglected, or when
preserved with severity. Lord Byron, who is
capricious, self-willed, and violent in his opinions,
is heterodox on these matters. He asserts,
talking over and across his adversary's voice,
that the true and only way to have abundant
game is to take no care of it at all. Let
partridges avoid nets if they can, and pheasants
evade the sulphur-smoke of the Nottingham
weaver; let hares choose their own forms, and
seek their food where they find it best. He
had tried it at Newstead, and it answered; for he
had always more game than Mr. Chaworth or
any of his neighbours. Mr. Chaworth insists
that the only way to get plenty of game is to
repress poachers and all unqualified persons.

"As a proof of this," he now says, "Sir
Charles Sedley and myself have more game in
five of our acres than Lord Byron has in all his
manors."

Lord Byron reddens at this, and proposes an
instant bet of one hundred guineas that the
case is otherwise.

Mr. Chaworth, with an irritating laugh, calls
for pen, ink, and paper, quick, to reduce the
wager to writing, as he wishes to take it up.
Mr. Sherwin laughs, and declares such a bet
can never be decided. No bet is laid, and the
conversation is resumed.

Mr. Chaworth presses the case in a way
galling to a man of Lord Byron's vain and
passionate nature. He says:

"Were it not for my care and Sir Charles
Sedley's being severe, Lord Byron would not
have a hare on his estate."

Lord Byron, paler now, and with a cold dew
on his upper lip, asks sneeringly:

"Sedley's manors?—Where are these manors
of Sir Charles Sedley?"

Mr. Chaworth replies, "Bucknel, Nutthall,
and Bulwell."

"Bulwell?"

Mr. Chaworth says that Sir Charles Sedley
had a deputation for the lordship of Bulwell town.

Lord Byron replies, that deputations are
liable to be recalled at any time, and says,
angrily, "Bulwell Park is mine."

Mr. Chaworth rejoins hotly, "Sir Charles
Sedley has a manor in Nutthall—and one of his
ancestors bought it out of my family. If you
want any further information about Sir Charles
Sedley's manors, he lives at Mr. Cooper's, in
Dean-street, and, I doubt not, will be able to give
you satisfaction; and as to myself, your lordship
knows where to find me—in Berkeley-row."

Mr. Hewett, who is rather deaf, did not
hear the conversation until the bet roused him,
and has now relapsed into conversation with his
right-hand man. Mr. Sherwin wakes up at these
sharp and threatening words. What witch,
what imp of mischief, has on a sudden blown the
soft summer breeze into a winter hurricane?
The club is now as silent as if the lightning of
flashing swords had suddenly glanced across the
lattice. Those rash and hasty words of Mr.
Chaworth, provoked by the irritability and
arrogance of Lord Byron about such a silly trifle,
were little short of a challenge. Lord Byron
glances sullenly behind him at his sword as it
hangs from under his three-cornered hat, but no
more is said on the dangerous subject.

Nothing comes of it. Lord Byron and Mr.
Chaworth, it is true, do not talk together
again; but they chat to the people near them,
and all is again joviality and good humour. When
Mr. Chaworth paid the club reckoning, as is
his general practice, Mr. James Fynmore, the
master of the tavern, observes him to be a little
flurried; for, in writing, he made a small
mistake. The book has lines ruled in cheques,
and against each member present an O is
placed; but if absent, five shillings is set down.
He places five shillings against Lord Byron's
name; but Mr. Fynmore observing to him that
his lordship is present, he corrects his
mistake. A few minutes after eight, Chaworth,
having paid his own reckoning, went out, and
is followed by Mr. Douston, who enters into
discourse with him at the head of the stairs.
Mr. Chaworth asks him particularly if he
attended to the conversation between himself
and Lord Byron, and if thinks he (Chaworth)
had been short in what he said on the subject?
To which Mr. Douston answers: "No; you
went rather too far upon so trifling an
occasion; but I do not believe that Lord Byron
or the company will think any more about it."