“Indeed, gentlemen! Mighty fine, indeed! You take notice of Sir George Warrington's words!” cries Mr. Will over his punch-bowl.
“You have been pleased to say,” I continued, growing angry as I spoke, and being a fool therefore for my pains, “that the very estates we hold in this country are not ours, but of right revert to your family!”
“So they are ours! By George, they're ours! I've heard my brother Castlewood say so a score of times!” swears Mr. Will.
“In that case, sir,” says I, hotly, “your brother, my Lord Castlewood, tells no more truth than yourself. We have the titles at hone in Virginia. They are registered in the courts there; and if ever I hear one word more of this impertinence, I shall call you to account where no constables will be at hand to interfere!”
“I wonder,” cries Will, in a choking voice, “that I don't cut him into twenty thousand pieces as he stands there before me with his confounded yellow face. It was my brother Castlewood won his money—no, it was his brother; d—— you, which are you, the rebel or the other? I hate the ugly faces of both of you, and, hic!—if you are for the King, show you are for the King, and drink his health!” and he sank down into his box with a hiccup and a wild laugh, which he repeated a dozen times, with a hundred more oaths and vociferous outcries that I should drink the King's health.
To reason with a creature in this condition, or ask explanations or apologies from him, was absurd. I left Mr. Will to reel to his lodgings under the care of his young friends—who were surprised to find an old toper so suddenly affected and so utterly prostrated by liquor—and limped home to my wife, whom I found happy in possession of a brief letter from Hal, which a countryman had brought in; and who said not a word about the affairs of the Continentals with whom he was engaged, but wrote a couple of pages of rapturous eulogiums upon his brother's behaviour in the field, which my dear Hal was pleased to admire, as he admired everything I said and did.
I rather looked for a messenger from my amiable kinsman in consequence of the speeches which had passed between us the night before, and did not know but that I might be called by Will to make my words good; and when accordingly Mr. Lacy (our companion of the previous evening) made his appearance at an early hour of the forenoon, I was beckoning my Lady Warrington to leave us, when, with a laugh and a cry of “Oh dear, no!” Mr. Lacy begged her ladyship not to disturb herself.
“I have seen,” says he, “a gentleman who begs to send you his apologies if he uttered a word last night which could offend you.”
“What apologies? what words?” asks the anxious wife.
I explained that roaring Will Esmond had met me in a coffee-house on the previous evening, and quarrelled with me, as he had done with hundreds before. “It appears the fellow is constantly abusive, and invariably pleads drunkenness, and apologises the next morning, unless he is caned over-night,” remarked Captain Lacy. And my lady, I dare say, makes a little sermon, and asks why we gentlemen will go to idle coffee-houses and run the risk of meeting roaring, roystering Will Esmonds?