"I have the honor of addressing Captain John Ireton, sometime of his Majesty's Royal Scots Blues, and late of her Apostolic Majesty's Twenty-ninth Regiment of Hussars?"
It was but an euphuism of the time, this formal preamble, declaring that his errand had to do with the preliminaries of a private quarrel between gentlemen. Yet I could scarce restrain a smile. For these upcroppings of courtier etiquette have ever seemed to march but mincingly with the free stride of our western backwoods. None the less, you are to suppose that I made shift to match his bow in some fashion, and to say: "At your service, sir."
Whereupon he bowed again, clapped hat to head and tendered me a sealed packet.
"From Sir Francis Falconnet, Knight Bachelor of Beaumaris, volunteer captain in his Majesty's German Legion," he announced, with stern dignity.
Having no second to refer him to, I broke the seal of the cartel myself. Since my enemy had seen fit to come thus far on the way to his end in some gentlemanly manner, it was not for me to find difficulties among the formalities. In good truth, I was overjoyed to be thus assured that he would fight me fair; that he would not compel me to kill him as one kills a wild beast at bay. For certainly I should have killed him in any event: so much I had promised my poor Dick Coverdale on that dismal November morning when he had choked out his life in my arms, the victim first of this man's treachery, and, at the last, of his sword. So, as I say, I was nothing loath, and yet I would not seem too eager.
"I might say that I have no unsettled quarrel with Captain Falconnet," I demurred, when I had read the challenge. "He spoke slightingly of a lady, and I did but—"
"Your answer, Captain Ireton!" quoth my youngster, curtly. "I am not empowered to give or take in the matter of accommodations."
"Not so fast, if you please," I rejoined. "I have no wish to disappoint your principal, or his master, the devil. Let it be to-morrow morning at sunrise in the oak grove which was once my father's wood field, each man with his own blade. And I give you fair warning, Master Jennifer; I shall kill your bullyragging captain of light-horse as I would a vermin of any other breed."
At this Jennifer flung himself from his saddle with a great laugh.
"If you can," he qualified. "But enough of these 'by your leave, sirs.' I am near famished, and as dry as King David's bottle in the smoke. Will you give me bite and sup before I mount and ride again? 'Tis a long gallop back to town on an empty stomach, and with a gullet as dry as Mr. Gilbert Stair's wit."