"I thought I had been moderately expeditious," said I.
"Yes, yes—perhaps so." He consulted his watch. "But with an affair of this sort hanging over one, the minutes drag. And yet, Heaven knows, mine may be few enough."
"Pardon me," I said, "but to what sort of affair are you alluding?"
"An affair of honour," he answered tragically.
"Eh?" I said. "A duel! You have engaged yourself to fight a duel?" He nodded. "Then I will have nothing to do with it," I announced with decision.
"Aye," said he with marked irony, "it is at such a pinch that one discovers his true friends! But fortunately I had no sooner dispatched Gumbo in search of you than I foresaw some chance of this pusillanimity of which you give me proof."
"Pusillanimity?" I interjected. "It is nothing of the kind. But you seem to forget my position here as honorary physician to the Hotwells."
"We'll call it lukewarmness, then," he went on in yet more biting tones. "At the risk of seeming intrusive, I at once knocked up two Irish gentlemen on the landing above who had been audibly making a night of it while I sat here endeavouring to compose my thoughts to the calmness proper for framing a testamentary disposition. Although perfect strangers to me, they cheerfully granted what you have denied me; consented with alacrity—nay, with enthusiasm—to act as my seconds in this affair; and started to carry my cartel—which, having gone to bed in their boots, they were able to do with the smallest possible delay."
"You have not yet told me the nature of the quarrel," I suggested.
His face at once resumed its wonted colour—nay, took on an extra tinge inclining to purple. "And I don't intend to!" he snapped.