'You are pleased to be complimentary, but I know not how my honour can be concerned with a Jacobite trafficker and his treasons.'

'I make you this promise, that, if you do thus utterly refuse to listen for five minutes, I will give you every satisfaction at the sword's point, or, by God! will compel you to take it, as you have been pleased to introduce battoons into a conversation between gentlemen. And if, when you have heard me, you remain dissatisfied, again I will give you a lesson with sharps. You see that we are not likely to be interrupted, and that I am perfectly cool. This is a matter to each of us of more than life or death.'

'I do see that you desire to pique my curiosity for the sake of some advantage which I am unable to perceive. Perhaps you expect your friends on the scene?'

'You may observe that I began by dismissing the only friend I have in this town. Do you, perhaps, suspect that Mr. Nicholas Wogan needs, or has gone to procure, assistance?'

'I confess that I know that gentleman too well for any such suspicions.'

'Then, sir, remember that the Roman says noscitur a sociis, and reflect that I am a friend of Mr. Wogan's, who must stand sponsor, as you do not know me, for my honesty. Moreover,' said George, working round by a risky way to his point, 'had I wished to escape I could, instead of socking you, have sneaked off t'other way. You observed that I remained some minutes with a lady to-night after you and the rest of her company had withdrawn?'

'It is very like your impudence to remind me of that among other provocations! I am not concerned in your merchant's business of brocades.'

'But, indeed, with your pardon, you are concerned in the highest degree, and that is just the point I would bring you to consider.'

'I tire of your mysteries, sir,' he said, shrugging his shoulders. 'Speak on, and be brief.'

'On these brocades turns the question whether the honour of a lady, which you are bound to cherish, shall be the laughing-stock of the town. Sir, in a word, you, and you only, can save that person; need I say more?'