“No, I don’t like it!” declared the Viscount, rolling a fiery eye at the offending structure. “Pink roses, egad, above that complexion! Damme, it offends me, so it does!”
Mr Drelincourt’s bosom swelled. “Sirs, I take you all to witness that his lordship is in his cups!”
“Hanging back, are you?” said the Viscount, thrusting Mr Fox aside. “Well, you won’t wear that hat again!” With which he plucked the straw confection from Mr Drelincourt’s head and casting it on the floor ground his heel in it.
Mr Drelincourt, who had borne with tolerable composure the insult of a glass of wine thrown in his face, gave a shriek of rage, and clapped his hands to his head. “My wig! My hat! My God, it passes all bounds! You’ll meet me for this, my lord! I say you shall meet me for this!”
“Be sure I will!” promised the Viscount, rocking on the balls of his feet, his hands in his pockets. “When you like, where you like, swords or pistols!”
Mr Drelincourt, pale and shaking with fury, besought his lordship to name his friends. The Viscount cocked an eyebrow at Sir Roland Pommeroy. “Pom? Cheston?”
The two gentlemen indicated expressed their willingness to serve him.
Mr Drelincourt informed them that his seconds would wait upon them in the morning, and with a somewhat jerky bow withdrew from the room. The Viscount, his rage at the insult to Horatia slightly assuaged by the satisfactory outcome of the disturbance, returned to his table and continued there in the highest fettle until eight in the morning.
Somewhere about noon, when he was still in bed and asleep, Sir Roland Pommeroy visited his lodging in Pall Mall and, disregarding the valet’s expostulations, pushed his way into my lord’s room and rudely awakened him. The Viscount sat up, yawning, rolled a blear-eye upon his friend, and demanded to know what the devil was amiss.
“Nothing’s amiss,” replied Sir Roland, seating himself on the edge of the bed. “We have it all fixed, snug as you please.”