ld reply, he stepped, to where they were
sitting and said quietly to the young officer who had just spoken:--

"Pardon my presumption in thus addressing a stranger, sir, but I feel
it my duty to remind you that the word _rusticus_ may receive several
interpretations. In one sense, it cannot be exchanged between
gentlemen without creating ill feelings. Its use by Terence--"

Ere the sentence could be completed, and while the bewildered officers
were gazing at this backwoods expounder of the classics much as they
might have regarded an apparition, a door was flung open, and Sir
William Johnson appeared with an anxious expression on his ruddy and
usually jolly face.

"Ah, general," exclaimed the officer who had just declared his
intention of bearding the general in his den, "we had begun to think--"

"Glad you had, sir! Glad you had! Pray keep it up for a few minutes
longer while I confer with this gentleman. His business is of such a
nature as to take precedence of all other. Hester, my dear fellow,
step this way."

"Rather a go! eh, Bullen?" remarked Ensign Christie, as the two men
stared blankly at the door just closed in their faces.

"Well! By Jove!" gasped the other. "If His Majesty's officers were
never snubbed before, two of them have been given a jolly big dose of
it this time. All on account of that leather-jerkined young savage,
too. I swear I'll have my man insult him and give him a thrashing at
the first opportunity."

"You seem to forget," suggested Christie, gravely, "that your 'young
savage' was discoursing most learnedly upon the idiosyncrasies of the
Latin tongue when Sir William interrupted and called him 'my dear
fellow.'"

"By Jove! you are right!" cried Bullen. "Possibly he is a gentleman in
disguise,--best disguise I ever saw,--and in that case I can call him
out. You'll act for me, old man, of course?"

"Certainly," laughed Christie; "but you lose sight of the fact that, as
the challenged party, he will have the choice of weapons. Suppose he
should select hunting-rifles at one hundred paces?"

"Horrible!" exclaimed Bullen. "I say, though, he couldn't do that and
be a gentleman at the same time. Oh dear, no! Unless he names swords
or pistols,--the only gentlemanly weapons,--I shall be compelled to
withdraw in favor of Tummas."

"There is another point to be considered," continued Christie, who,
tall, handsome, and easy-going, delighted in chaffing his pompous and
peppery