"'Yes; I saw it yesterday.'
"'If you will take the trouble to turn into the field which borders the trench, take the foot-path to the left, when you arrive at an angle of the fortification; and keep straight on till you see me; I will precede you to a secluded place, where the affair can be conducted without fear of interruption.'
"'Fear of interruption!' thought Mr. Winkle."
Everybody remembers how the meeting took place on Fort Pitt. Mr. Winkle, attended by his friend Mr. Snodgrass, as second, is punctuality itself.
"'We are in excellent time,' said Mr. Snodgrass, as they climbed the fence of the first field; 'the sun is just going down.' Mr. Winkle looked up at the declining orb, and painfully thought of the probability of his 'going down' himself, before long."
Presently the officer appears, "the gentleman in the blue cloak," and "slightly beckoning with his hand to the two friends, they follow him for a little distance," and after climbing a paling and scaling a hedge, enter a secluded field.
Dr. Slammer is already there with his friend Dr. Payne,—Dr. Payne of the 43rd, "the man with the camp-stool."
The arrangements proceed, when suddenly a check is experienced.
"'What's all this?' said Dr. Slammer, as his friend and Mr. Snodgrass came running up.—'That's not the man.'