"I thank you," said Sir Jasper, "that is sufficient. When you send your friend to call upon me, I shall receive him with pleasure." He handed back the Colonel's wig with a bow.
The Colonel stood trembling, his knotted hand instinctively fumbled for his sword. But remembering perhaps that this was eminently a case for pistols, he bethought himself, seized his wig, clapped it on defiantly, settled it with minute care, glared, wheeled round and left the room, muttering as he went remarks of so sulphurous a nature as to defy recording.
Sir Jasper did not seem to give him another thought. He fell into his chair again and spread out upon his knee the sorely crumpled letter.
"Confusion!" said he. Who can it be? "Tom, you scamp, I know your hair is brown. Thou art not the man, Tom. Oh, Tom, oh, Tom, if I do not kill him I shall go mad!"
Stafford was weak with laughter, and tears rolled from his eyes as he gasped:
"Let us see, who can the Judas be? (Gad, this is the best joke I have known for years. Oh, Lord, the bald head of him! Oh, Jasper, 'tis cruel funny! Stab me, sir, if I have known a better laugh these ten years!) Nay, nay, I will help thee. Come, there's his Lordship the Bishop of Bath and Wells, he is red, I know, for I have seen him in the water. Gad, he was like a boiled lobster, hair and all. Could it be he, think you? They have a way, these divines, and Lady Standish has a delicate conscience. She would like the approval of the Church upon her deeds. Nay, never glare like that, for I will not fight you! Have you not got your rosary of red polls to tell first. Ha! there is O'Hara, he is Irish enough and rake enough and red enough. Oh, he is red enough!"
"O'Hara," cried Sir Jasper, struck.
There came a fine rat-tat-tat at the door, a parley in the hall, and the servant announced Mr. Denis O'Hara.
"Talk of the devil," said Stafford.
Sir Jasper rose from his armchair with the air of one whose enemy is delivered into his hands.