'What, base minion!' said he very fierce, with a whole fusilada of oaths, 'think you to pass so lightly from a gentleman's wrath?'
'I pray you, sir, be content,' I replied as quietly as I could, for it seemed very silly to quarrel with such a mountebank. 'If I wronged your gentility it was unwittingly, and I crave your pardon.'
'Stay, rude rustic,' said he, stepping before me as I turned away, and clapping his hand to a rapier of extravagant length. 'This shall not serve you. Craving of pardons shall not serve you, nor your pardonnez-mois neither. A gentleman must have satisfaction by rule and circumstance, after the teaching of the inestimable Signor Rocco.'
I found myself by this time hemmed in by a throng of his fellows, as ruffianly and hectoring as himself, none of whom I dare have sworn could ever have afforded so much as their noses inside Signor Rocco's 'College,' so I thought best to make an end.
'Come then, sir,' said I, 'to a fitting place, and I will presently give you your desire.'
'Nay, but first name your friends,' my opponent replied. 'For know, base scullion, that town-bred gentlemen fight by rule and circumstance, and not like two rams in field, without supporters.'
'Yes, pretty shepherd,' cried the throng jeeringly, 'name first your friend, if you want a gentleman to walk with you.'
I now saw my evil case and what a trick was put on me, and knew not what to do. To draw my rapier, Harry's rapier, on this vermin was farthest from my thoughts. Yet the throng hustled me closer, and my bully swaggered and threatened loudly.
'I have no friend here,' said I, 'unless any gentleman among you will stand by me.'
'Hark to the scurvy rustic,' they cried, in answer to my look around to them. 'A pox on your familiarity. You will get no friend here.'