headed
in the presence of gentlemen. Next, he tweaked my nose, and as I turned
round to avoid him, he applied his foot--yes, his foot--to the back of
my trunk-hose; and well was it that the hose were stoutly wadded and
quilted. Fire and fury! Sir Giles, I cannot brook the indignity. And
what was worse, the shameless gallants, who ought to have lent me aid,
were ready to split their sides with laughter, and declared I had only
gotten my due. When I could find utterance for very choler, I told the
villain you would requite him, and he answered he would serve you in the
same fashion, whenever you crossed his path."

"Ha! said he so?" cried Sir Giles, half drawing his sword, while his
eyes flashed fire. "We shall see whether he will make good his words.
Yet no! Revenge must not be accomplished in that way. I have already
told you I am willing to let him pursue his present career undisturbed
for a time, in order to make his fall the greater. I hold him in my
hand, and can crush him when I please."

"Then do not defer your purpose, Sir Giles," said Sir Francis; "or I
must take my own means of setting myself right with him. I cannot
consent to sit down calmly under the provocation I have endured."

"And what will be the momentary gratification afforded by his death--if
such you meditate," returned Sir Giles, "in comparison with hurling him
down from the point he has gained, stripping him of all his honours, and
of such wealth as he may have acquired, and plunging him into the Fleet
Prison, where he will die by inches, and where you yourself may feast
your eyes on his slow agonies? That is true revenge; and you are but a
novice in the art of vengeance if you think your plan equal to mine. It
is for this--and this only--that I have spared him so long. I have
suffered him to puff himself up with pride and insolence, till he is
ready to burst. But his day of reckoning is at hand, and then he shall
pay off the long arrears he owes us."

"Well, Sir Giles, I am willing to leave the matter with you," said Sir
Francis; "but it is hard to be publicly insulted, and have injurious
epithets applied to you, and not obtain immediate redress."

"I grant you it is so," rejoined Sir Giles; "but you well know you are
no match for him at the sword."

"If I am not, others are--Clement Lanyere, for instance," cried Sir
Francis. "He has more than once arranged a quarrel for me."

"And were it an ordinary case, I would advise that the arrangem