“You have been witness to a ruffianly act,” clearing his throat, “on the part of a scoundrel who has just left. It amounts to an assault in the eyes of the law. I do not intend to let the matter drop here. I’m an Englishman, and I’d take it out of that sneak in double-quick. You saw a gentleman assaulted—”
“I saw him assault no gentleman,” said Percival.
“You saw him assault me, sir,” retorted the other loftily.
“I did; but I saw him assault no gentleman,” coolly surveying the bully from head to foot. “You, sir, are what we call a cad. Come, Pommery.”
The autocrat muttered something with reference to “swells,” eyes, blood, and other full-flavored language as the two young men sauntered forth in the direction of “the Garden.”
“There’s nothing to be done at the office to-day; suppose we go to the Park—the Ladies’ Mile. Alice Lindsay has been presented by her uncle, Sir Winifred, with a superb mount; let’s see how she takes to it.”
It is right genial pleasure to lean upon the rails in Hyde Park and watch equestrians and equestriennes flash past on satin-coated, arch-necked, dainty-limbed horses; to meet one’s friends beneath the shade of the elms, and to enjoy a good round gossip, than which there is nothing pleasanter under the sun.
Percival and Pommery knew everybody worth knowing. Nods, becks, and wreathed smiles greeted them right, left, and centre. Fair dames showered graciousness upon them, handsome cavaliers nodded familiarly.
“Well, you Pylades and Orestes, Castor and Pollux, Siamese twins, how am you?” exclaimed a dapper little gentleman mounted upon a rattling cob, reining in and addressing our two friends.
“Ah! Lindsay, you here? I thought you were in Constantinople,” greeted Percival.