There was silence for a moment until the honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe proclaimed----
"The affair should be settled at once."
And this was the only remark that the Honourable gentleman uttered in the whole of the evening.
"With all my heart," cried Charles. "Tony, you'll act for me?"
Mr. Vernon had delicately wiped his face with a handkerchief of Mechlin lace. A single drop of the wine lingered above his left cheekbone. There, it was not unbecoming.
"I shall be proud to walk with Mr. Lovely in a month's time," said our villain, "but for the present my honour is pledged to a lady."
"Sure, you borrow on mighty small security, sir," said Charles.
The lingering drop of wine that stained Mr. Vernon's cheek seemed to expand for a brief moment.
"I have named my day," was all he answered.
"Mr. Vernon is within his rights, Charles," said Mr. Golightly, "and moreover the weather will be finer next month and we can make up a jovial party."
"'Tis hardly fair to poor Daish to fight in his rooms," said Blewforth. "Ripple would put his shutters up at once."
"H---- take you all," cried Charles, in an access of fury, as he sprang to strike Vernon.
The latter stepped back and with a well-aimed blow sent Charles flying backwards over two chairs.
"'Slife, Charles," said Mr. Golightly very stiffly. "Your conduct is d----d irregular, Sir."
"Most improper," said Mr. Chalkley.
"Devilish unrestrained," said little Peter Wingfield.
"Charles was two bottles ahead of us, gentlemen," said Blewforth who held a broad mind in a broad body.
Our hero was still lying where Vernon had sent him among cards and broken glass.
"D---- n you all," cried Clare. "Charles is worth the rest of you puppies in red and blue coats put together, and by G----, Mr. Vernon, he shall kill you for that blow."
Everybody was so surprized to hear Mr. Anthony Clare, cool and placid Tony Clare, break out like this that a wave of embarrassment swept over the room. One by one they hurried from the scene of such an irregular quarrel.
It was very entertaining to see them march out so stiff and straight, with nutshells crackling underneath their feet.
_Chapter the Twenty-sixth_
AND THE DREGS OF THE SAME
Mr. Anthony Clare stayed behind to help our hero home to bed. His effort to achieve sobriety had completely exhausted such faculties as remained after so many quarts of Burgundy, and he babbled to his companion foolish threats and impotent defiance in such an incoherent voice that I doubt his enemy, had he been present, would scarcely have been able to discover common sense in any one of his remarks. Charles woke up in the morning full of bile, dressed himself in a splenetick fury and ate a breakfast, conspicuous for its peppery flavours, with petulance and aversion. Then he crammed his gold-laced Kevenhuller hat on his head and went out to interview Mr. Horace Ripple.
In crossing the courtyard of the inn he passed Mr. Chalkley, and for a moment debated seriously the wisdom of challenging him out of hand. This he was the more inclined to do because he fancied the gallant Ensign was regarding him with some disfavour. However, the latter gave him a 'good morning,' and excused his want of geniality on the score of a liver teased out of endurance by hard and violent exercise.
So Charles forgave him his supposed breach of good manners and decided to hear from Tony a full account of the evening's events.
Clare presently overtook him under the archway, and, on being informed of our hero's destination, tried to dissuade him from the projected visit to the Beau.
"Z----ds! I tell you that blackguard shall be turned out of the Wells with ignominy." So much Charles vowed.
"But 'tis no business of yours, Charles," argued his friend.
"No business of mine? Eh! is that so? Then, by heaven! I'll make it my business."
"Ripple does not believe in settling disputes of this nature by the personal encounter."
"Then, by heaven!" said Charles, "that being the case there is the greater necessity for expelling him from the company of gentlemen."
"That is all very well," expostulated Clare, "but you are neither the young woman's brother nor, as I believe, her lover. What right have you to interfere?"
"I tell you, Tony," said Charles, "that Ripple has already pondered the advisableness of interfering with Mr. Francis Amor-Vernon and, indeed, begged me to disclose his pseudonym, but I would not."
"You owed him money, in fact?" said Clare, gently tapping the kerb of the pavement with his cane.
"Yes, I owed the dog money."
"And now he is paid?"
"Thanks to your generosity he is paid."
"Charles," said Mr. Clare, laying his hand affectionately on that indignant gentleman's right shoulder, "oblige me, who was able and glad to oblige you, by not proceeding further in this affair."
"'Tis monstrous ill-bred in you to remind me of an obligation under which I laid myself with the most profound disinclination." Charles was growing angry.
"Nay, you know that is not my meaning, but, consider Charles, this confounded, pasquinading pamphlet book has placed you in such an ill light that the world will be very loth to believe any good of you."
"Ripple is wiser than the raree-show over which he presides."
"Ay! but depend on't, he has already been informed of last night's affair and will be prejudiced against you on account of your quarrelsome overtures."
"'Sdeath! Tony, pray desist from further argument; you do not convince me and will soon rouse my choler."
"As you will," said Tony, and, leaving the company of his friend, betook himself to the solitude of green fields. In the pleasures of country sights and sounds he found some consolation for the undeserved reproaches of a gentleman whom he had gratified at considerable expense to himself.
Charles continued in the direction of the Great House. Being arrived on the topmost doorstep he rang the bell with complete assurance and knocked thrice with the heavy brass knocker.
He was admitted to an audience and walked upstairs to the tall white drawing-room without trepidation or bashfulness. Mr. Ripple had favoured him with so many compliments lately, had begged his advice on so many trifles of publick importance, had in fact adopted him so completely into intimate conversation, that Charles may be pardoned for supposing that, notwithstanding his unceremonious conduct of the night before last, notwithstanding his notoriety as the author of a book of satirical poems, he would still be received with that inimitable and charming condescension which the Great little Man reserved for few indeed.
He found the Beau seated among the roses of his wide-winged armchair sipping what looked uncommonly like a cordial physick. He did not rise to Mr. Lovely's entrance, did not even turn his head, but merely said in a tone, indifferent, lifeless and chill,
"To what may I ascribe the honour of this visit, sir?"
Conceive the shocked feelings of Madam Semele when he, whom she had hitherto regarded with the familiarity born of many amorous meetings, assumed at her own request the attributes of divinity. She died, if you can recall the sad event.
Charles experienced a particle of that dismay when the Great little Man for whom he had hitherto felt an almost playful affection suddenly appeared to him with the attributes of majesty--remoteness, scorn, and inaccessibleness. The pattern upon the Aubusson rug swam before his eyes in changes of tint and form as frequent as a child's Kaleidoscope, and he found himself in humble obeisance. The Beau twirled the fluted stem of the green Venetian glass that contained his physick and waited for Mr. Lovely to explain his business.
"Well, sir," he said at last.
The abashed favourite stammered his reasons for the visit.
"Pooh, pooh," said the Beau. "Pooh, pooh! a likely story. Your brain, sir, addled by the ridiculous rhymes it has already born with obvious labour, refuses to hatch further monstrous fancies, and is content to send into the world an abortion. The night before last, Mr. Lovely, you waited upon me at an hour both indiscreet and inconvenient. I was ready to overlook this horrid breach of decorum and was indeed willing to receive your apologies on the following day. You found, however, a more engaging diversion in cracking bottles with a bagman. For this I do not blame you--and, indeed, think you will do well to cultivate a manner of company for which you seem to me singularly adapted. Pray understand, however, that, in finding your level, you have had to make a very considerable descent. The rider who has been thrown into a ditch is unable to cry 'View! Holloa!' to the master of the hunt. In other words, Mr. Lovely, you have put yourself in a position where your estimate of polite intrigue is incredible and impertinent. I am very well able to look after the morals of the Beau Monde without the assistance of the kitchen or the tap-room."
"Mr. Ripple," said our hero, "you insult me."
"Unfortunately, sir, I recognize no responsibleness in that direction. I have always claimed the right to speak my mind. If you find my strictures intolerable, the door affords you an easy remedy."