Sir Lucius. Then sure you know what is to be done?
Acres. What! fight him?
Sir Lucius. Ay, to be sure: what can I mean else?... I think he has given you the greatest provocation in the world.
Acres. Gad, that's true—I grow full of anger, Sir Lucius!—I fire apace! Odds hilts and blades! I find a man may have a deal of valour in him and not know it!... Your words are a grenadier's match to my heart! I believe courage must be catching! I certainly do feel a kind of valour rising as it were—a kind of courage as I may say.—Odds flints, pans and triggers! I'll challenge him directly!—The Rivals.
Fighting Bob's Afterthoughts.
Odds bombs and torpedoes! An oath, like a whistle,
Will keep up the courage—Dutch courage at least!
I feel like a hero of grandeur and gristle
Who goes to the fight as men go to a feast.
Sir Lucius has wrought me to't—fire-eater furious.
Odds bullets and blades, how he'll bristle and whisk!
Yes, courage is catching. And yet—it is curious,
He urges the task without weighing the risk.
That's just like O'Trigger, a swaggering swigger
Of fiery potheen which gets into his head!
At patience and caution he'll swear or he'll snigger,
His only resources steel, powder and lead.
He thinks he has managed the business most cleverly,
Bull-making bully of Blunderbuss Hall;
But zounds. That big burly and black-bearded—Beverley,
Is not a foe to pooh-pooh! Not at all!
Odds jigs and tabors! Such bellicose neighbours
Are horridly awkward; they will force one's hand,
A chap who unceasingly brags and belabours
Is valued, no doubt, in a Donnybrook band;
But swelling Drawcansir demeanour won't answer
On this side the Channel so well as on that.
O'Trigger's a mixture of Scorpio and Cancer,
And Bull is less sweet on that blend than is Pat.