“Sir,” said Dick with dignity, “these are family affairs, and I should be reluctant to obtrude them on the attention of Mr. Long at this time—though, of course, if you came to talk to him on this topic——”
“I ask your pardon, sir,” said Major O’Teague fiercely. “I come on business, not pleasure. Mr. Long, sir, I have been entrusted by my friend, Captain Mathews, with a communication which I have no doubt that, as a man of honour, you have been anticipating since that unfortunate little affair at Bath-Easton.”
With a low bow he handed Mr. Long a folded-up letter.
Mr. Long turned it over in his hands without opening it. A puzzled expression was on his face. “I expected no communication from Mr. Mathews, sir,” said he. “Pray, Major O’Teague, are you certain that the missive has not been wrongly directed to me?”
“What, sir,” cried Major O’Teague, “do you tell me that after what happened, after whaling another gentleman within an inch of his life, and in the middle of the best company in Bath, you don’t expect to hear from him?”
“Is it possible that Mr. Mathews considers himself insulted, sir?” asked Mr. Long.
The Irishman’s jaw fell. He was stupefied. His lips moved, but it was a long time before a word came.
“An insult—an ins—— Hivins above us, sir, where is it that y’have lived at all?” he managed to say at last. “An insult—an ins—— Oh, the humour of it! Flaying a man alive with a postillion’s whip; not even a coachman’s whip,—there’s some dignity in a coachman’s whip,—but a common postillion’s! sir, the degradation of the act passes language, so it does. ’Tis an insult that can only be washed out by blood—blood, sir—a river of blood! A river? A sea of blood, sir—an ocean of blood! Egad, sir, ’tis a doubtful question, that it is, if all great Neptune’s ocean—— Ye’ve seen Mrs. Yates as Lady Macbeth, I doubt not, Mr. Sheridan? A fine actress, sir, and an accomplished lady——”
“I have never had that privilege, sir,” said Dick. “You were making a remark about great Neptune’s ocean.”