use, slamming the door behind him with a bang that
echoed down the street and made Miss Mapp dream about a thunderstorm. He
let himself into his own house, and bent down before his expired fire,
which he tried to blow into life again. This was unsuccessful, and he
breathed in a quantity of wood-ash.

He sat down by his table and began to think things out. He told himself
that he was not drunk at all, but that he had taken an unusual quantity
of whisky, which seemed to produce much the same effect as intoxication.
Allowing for that, he was conscious that he was extremely angry about
something, and had a firm idea that the Major was very angry too.

"But woz'it all been about?" he vainly asked himself. "Woz'it all been
about?"

He was roused from his puzzling over this unanswerable conundrum by the
clink of the flap in his letter-box. Either this was the first post in
the morning, in which case it was much later than he thought, and
wonderfully dark still, or it was the last post at night, in which case
it was much earlier than he thought. But, whichever it was, a letter had
been slipped into his box, and he brought it in. The gum on the envelope
was still wet, which saved trouble in opening it. Inside was a half
sheet containing but a few words. This curt epistle ran as follows:

"SIR,

"My seconds will wait on you in the course of to-morrow morning.

"Your faithful obedient servant,

"BENJAMIN FLINT.

Captain Puffin."

Puffin felt as calm as a tropic night, and as courageous as a captain.
Somewhere below his courage and his calm was an appalling sense of
misgiving. That he successfully stifled.

"Very proper," he said aloud. "Qui' proper. Insults. Blood. Seconds
won't have to wait a second. Better get a good sleep."

He went up to his room, fell on to his bed and instantly began to snore.

* * * * *

It was still dark when he awoke, but the square of his window was
visible against the blackness, and he concluded that though it was not
morning yet, it was getting on for morning, which seemed a pity. As he
turned over on to his side his hand came in contact with his coat,
instead of a sheet, and he became aware that he had all his clothes on.
Then, as with a crash of cymbals and the beating of a drum in his brain,
the events of the evening before leaped into reality and sign