"I 'll ask the landlord, and if he declines, I 'll try the little barber on the Platz."
"I must say, sir, it is the first time in my life I find myself in such company. Have you no countryman of your acquaintance within a reasonable distance?"
"If Lord George Tiverton were here—"
"If he were, sir, he could not act for you,—he is the near relative of my friend."
I thought of everybody I could remember; but what was the use of it? I couldn't reach any of them, and so I was obliged to own. He seemed to ponder over this for some time, and then said,—
"The matter requires some consideration, sir. When the unhappy result gets abroad in the world, it is necessary that nothing should attach to us as men of honor and gentlemen. Your friends will have the right to ask if you were properly seconded."
"By the unhappy result, your Lordship delicately insinuates my death?"
He gave a little sigh, adjusted his cravat, and smoothed down his moustaches at the glass over the chimney.
"If it should occur as your Lordship surmises," said I, "it little matters who officiates on the occasion; indeed," added I, stroking my beard, "the barber mightn't be an inappropriate friend. But I 've been 'out' on matters of this kind a few times, and somehow I never got grazed yet; and that's more than the man opposite me was able to say."
"You 'll stand before a man to-morrow, sir, that can hit a Napoleon at twenty paces."