“We will spare your knowledge at present, captain, and save your modesty at the same time the trouble of telling us how that knowledge was acquired,” answered Lord Dalgarno, rather contemptuously.
“I need not speak of it, my lord,” said the man of war; “the world knows it—all perhaps, but the men of mohair—the poor sneaking citizens of London, who would see a man of valour eat his very hilts for hunger, ere they would draw a farthing from their long purses to relieve them. O, if a band of the honest fellows I have seen were once to come near that cuckoo's nest of theirs!”
“A cuckoo's nest!-and that said of the city of London!” said a gallant who sat on the opposite side of the table, and who, wearing a splendid and fashionable dress, seemed yet scarce at home in it—“I will not brook to hear that repeated.”
“What!” said the soldier, bending a most terrific frown from a pair of broad black eyebrows, handling the hilt of his weapon with one hand, and twirling with the other his huge mustaches; “will you quarrel for your city?”
“Ay, marry will I,” replied the other. “I am a citizen, I care not who knows it; and he who shall speak a word in dispraise of the city, is an ass and a peremptory gull, and I will break his pate, to teach him sense and manners.”
The company, who probably had their reasons for not valuing the captain's courage at the high rate which he himself put upon it, were much entertained at the manner in which the quarrel was taken up by the indignant citizen; and they exclaimed on all sides, “Well run, Bow-bell!”—“Well crowed, the cock of Saint Paul's!”—“Sound a charge there, or the soldier will mistake his signals, and retreat when he should advance.”
“You mistake me, gentlemen,” said the captain, looking round with an air of dignity. “I will but inquire whether this cavaliero citizen is of rank and degree fitted to measure swords with a man of action; (for, conceive me, gentlemen, it is not with every one that I can match myself without loss of reputation;) and in that case he shall soon hear from me honourably, by way of cartel.”
“You shall feel me most dishonourably in the way of cudgel,” said the citizen, starting up, and taking his sword, which he had laid in a corner. “Follow me.”
“It is my right to name the place of combat, by all the rules of the sword,” said the captain; “and I do nominate the Maze, in Tothill-Fields, for place—two gentlemen, who shall be indifferent judges, for witnesses;—and for time—let me say this day fortnight, at daybreak.”
“And I,” said the citizen, “do nominate the bowling-alley behind the house for place, the present good company for witnesses, and for time the present moment.”