“Or to leap a flea—run a snail—match a wherry, eh?”
“No—I will do none of these,” answered Nigel.
Here the old man, who had been watching with his little peery eyes, pulled the bulky Hector by the skirt, and whispered, “Do not vapour him the huff, it will not pass—let the trout play, he will rise to the hook presently.”
But the bully, confiding in his own strength, and probably mistaking for timidity the patient scorn with which Nigel received his proposals, incited also by the open casket, began to assume a louder and more threatening tone. He drew himself up, bent his brows, assumed a look of professional ferocity, and continued, “In Alsatia, look ye, a man must be neighbourly and companionable. Zouns! sir, we would slit any nose that was turned up at us honest fellows.—Ay, sir, we would slit it up to the gristle, though it had smelt nothing all its life but musk, ambergris, and court-scented water.—Rabbit me, I am a soldier, and care no more for a lord than a lamplighter!”
“Are you seeking a quarrel, sir?” said Nigel, calmly, having in truth no desire to engage himself in a discreditable broil in such a place, and with such a character.
“Quarrel, sir?” said the captain; “I am not seeking a quarrel, though I care not how soon I find one. Only I wish you to understand you must be neighbourly, that's all. What if we should go over the water to the garden, and see a bull hanked this fine morning—'sdeath, will you do nothing?”
“Something I am strangely tempted to do at this moment,” said Nigel.
“Videlicet,” said Colepepper, with a swaggering air, “let us hear the temptation.”
“I am tempted to throw you headlong from the window, unless you presently make the best of your way down stairs.”
“Throw me from the window?—hell and furies!” exclaimed the captain; “I have confronted twenty crooked sabres at Buda with my single rapier, and shall a chitty-faced, beggarly Scots lordling, speak of me and a window in the same breath?—Stand off, old Pillory, let me make Scotch collops of him—he dies the death!”