He broke out into language which seemed to be only too ready to his lips, and again shouted, “I’ll teach you to call me a cheat, I will! I’ll teach you to call me a blackleg, so I will! I’ll teach you to call me—”
“A howling jackass,” put in the Field-Marshal, whose chief vocation it seemed to be to goad on his irate guest.
“Yes, I’ll teach you to call me a howling jackass!” cried Whipcord, turning short round on me, and catching me by the throat.
“Me! I never called you a howling jackass!” cried I, in astonishment and alarm.
“Yes, you did, you young liar; I heard you. Wasn’t it him?” he cried, appealing to the company in general.
“Sounded precious like his voice,” said one of the fellows, who, as I had scarcely opened my mouth the whole evening, must have had a rather vivid imagination.
“Yes, I know it was you. I knew it all along,” said Whipcord, shifting his straw from side to side of his mouth, and glaring at me, half-stupidly, half-ferociously.
“It wasn’t, indeed,” said I, feeling very uncomfortable. “I never said a word.”
Whipcord laughed as he let go my throat and began to take off his coat. I watched him in amazement. Surely he was not going to make me fight! I looked round beseechingly on the company, but could get no comfort out of their laughter and merriment.
Whipcord divested himself of his coat, then of his waistcoat, then he took off his necktie and collar, then he let down his braces and tied his handkerchief round his waist in the manner of a belt, and finally proceeded to roll up his shirt-sleeves above the elbows.