Higgins, the hansom driver, was as good as his word, and after leaving the place, went direct to the Suburbopolis Police Office, and got the whole matter reported. Not very long after the police surrounded the house in Greenfield Avenue, and Provost Goodfellow (who, it may be remarked, was the only magistrate at home when the affair took place, and had to be aroused for the purpose), came in all haste to take the "dying deposition." Meanwhile Dr. Barrister, one of the best of the local surgeons, was in attendance.
The doctor, however, suspecting something soon after feeling the supposed wounded man's pulse, and judge of the surprise, to say nothing of indignation, when the doctor, and then the Provost, began to indulge in a hearty fit of unrestrained laughter. The "seconds" knew their business well, for they had loaded the weapons with blank cartridges and a few drops of bullock's blood, and some of the contents of Bob's pistol had hit Charlie on the brow.
Poor Charlie, he was so terribly shaken and nervous after being hit that he was long in getting the better of the fright. Like the French prisoner whom the cruel authorities of the "Inquisition" determined should be experimented upon as a victim of imagination in the way of supposed bleeding to death, Charlie, although he had not received a scratch, thought he was dying fast, till the doctor informed him of the imaginary wound.
A few days afterwards the affair was "hushed up," and nobody was better pleased when he heard the true state of matters than Bob Lambert himself. His friend Jim Campbell had sent a letter to Douglas Post Office, to be called for, under a fictitious name, and Bob soon returned to Glasgow.
When little Jenny Black was told the same morning of the duel, that Charlie Walker had been shot by Bob Lambert, she fainted clean away, and afterwards refused to be comforted. "To think that she, a poor weak girl, should have been the cause of such a terrible tragedy," she was heard to say to her sister, "I'm afraid I'll never get over it." When the true state of matters, however, was revealed, and the whole affair brought up in its real light, it afforded immense merriment all over Suburbopolis, and when football players met to spend a social hour, the duel between Bob Lambert and Charlie Walker is, of course, alluded to as a standard joke.
A few months afterwards there was a nice wedding at Colonel Black's villa, and strange as it may seem, both Lambert and Walker were there, together with quite a crowd of football players and their sweethearts.
The reader will, of course, easily make out who wore the bridal dress, and looked lovely in it, too. Surprise, however, not, it is to be hoped, altogether unmixed with satisfaction, will be expressed, when the bride-groom appears in the person of Charlie Walker, Jenny's own love. Harry Carts, the handsome Englishman, she certainly admired, but did not actually love sufficiently to make a husband of. He, in fact, seemed to have been too fond of company, and in correspondence a coldness had sprung up between them, and ended in two parting letters.
Jenny loved Charlie Walker best, and accordingly gave him her heart and hand. "What he had suffered for her sake," the young lady was heard to express to a confidant, "no one but himself knew." They are, however, now a happy pair, and when Cup Ties and big matches are being played near Suburbopolis, you will be sure to see Charlie and his handsome wife on the field.
As for Bob Lambert, who was forgiven, he became more of a man in subduing his temper and general disposition, and one evening told his old rival that he would never forget till his dying day—"The Duel near the Football Field."