“My Lord Castlewood will be —— first,” says Colonel Westbury.
“Then we have nothing for it. Take notice, gentlemen, there have been outrageous words—reparation asked and refused.”
“And refused,” says my Lord Castlewood, putting on his hat. “Where shall the meeting be? and when?”
“Since my lord refuses me satisfaction, which I deeply regret, there is no time so good as now,” says my Lord Mohun. “Let us have chairs and go to Leicester Field.”
“Are your lordship and I to have the honour of exchanging a pass or two?” says Colonel Westbury, with a low bow to my Lord of Warwick and Holland.
“It is an honour for me,” says my lord, with a profound congée, “to be matched with a gentleman who has been at Mons and Namur.”
“Will your reverence permit me to give you a lesson?” says the captain.
“Nay, nay, gentlemen, two on a side are plenty,” says Harry's patron. “Spare the boy, Captain Macartney,” and he shook Harry's hand—for the last time, save one, in his life.
At the bar of the tavern all the gentlemen stopped, and my lord viscount said, laughing, to the barwoman, that those cards set people sadly a-quarrelling; but that the dispute was over now, and the parties were all going away to my Lord Mohun's house, in Bow Street, to drink a bottle more before going to bed.
A half-dozen of chairs were now called, and the six gentlemen stepping into them, the word was privately given to the chairmen to go to Leicester Field, where the gentlemen were set down opposite the “Standard” Tavern. It was midnight, and the town was abed by this time, and only a few lights in the windows of the houses; but the night was bright enough for the unhappy purpose which the disputants came about; and so all six entered into that fatal square, the chairmen standing without the railing and keeping the gate, lest any persons should disturb the meeting.