“What do you say now?” cried Brown, triumphantly. “Did n't I tell you this? Did n't I say that when old Con-yers heard my name, he 'd say, 'Oh, there 'll be no squaring this business'?”
“It's just as likely that he said, 'I 'll not confer with that man; he had to leave the service.'”
“More fool you, then, not to have had a more respectable friend. Had you there, Stapylton,—eh?”
“I acknowledge that. All I can say in extenuation is, that I hoped old Barrington, living so long out of the world, would have selected another old mummy like himself, who had never heard of Captain Duff Brown, nor his famous trial at Calcutta.”
“There's not a man in the kingdom has not heard of me. I 'm as well known as the first Duke in the land.”
“Don't boast of it, Duff; even notoriety is not always a cheap luxury.”
“Who knows but you may divide it with me to-morrow or next day?”
“What do you mean, sir?—what do you mean?” cried Stapylton, slapping the table with his clenched hand.
“Only what I said,—that Major Stapylton may furnish the town with a nine-days wonder, vice Captain Duff Brown, forgotten.”
Evidently ashamed of his wrath, Stapylton tried to laugh off the occasion of it, and said, “I suppose neither of us would take the matter much to heart.”