as but ill-chosen. Scipio's patrician blood was wont to
rise in the presence of those whom he deemed outside the pale of good
society, and I fear he ushered Mr. Fairbrother to the street with
little of that superior manner he used to the first families. As for Mr.
Daaken, I feel sure he was not ill-pleased at the discomfiture of his
rival, though it cost him five of his scholars.

Our schoolboy battle, though lightly undertaken, was fraught with
no inconsiderable consequences for me. I was duly chided and soundly
whipped by my grandfather for the part I had played; but he was inclined
to pass the matter after that, and set it down to the desire for
fighting common to most boyish natures. And he would have gone no
farther than this had it not been that Mr. Green, of the Maryland
Gazette, could not refrain from printing the story in his paper. That
gentleman, being a stout Whig, took great delight in pointing out that
a grandson of Mr. Carvel was a ringleader in the affair. The story was
indeed laughable enough, and many a barrister's wig nodded over it at
the Coffee House that day. When I came home from school I found Scipio
beside my grandfather's empty seat in the dining-room, and I learned
that Mr. Carvel was in the garden with my Uncle Grafton and the Reverend
Bennett Allen, rector of St. Anne's. I well knew that something out of
the common was in the wind to disturb my grandfather's dinner. Into
the garden I went, and under the black walnut tree I beheld Mr. Carvel
pacing up and down in great unrest, his Gazette in his hand, while on
the bench sat my uncle and the rector of St. Anne's. So occupied was
each in his own thought that my coming was unperceived; and I paused in
my steps, seized suddenly by an instinctive dread, I know not of what.
The fear of Mr. Carvel's displeasure passed from my mind so that I cared
not how soundly he thrashed me, and my heart filled with a yearning,
born of the instant, for that simple and brave old gentleman. For the
lad is nearer to nature than the man, and the animal oft scents a danger
the master cannot see. I read plainly in Mr. Allen's handsome face,
flushed red with wine as it ever was, and in my Uncle Grafton's looks
a snare to which I knew my grandfather was blind. I never rightly
understood how it was that Mr. Carvel was deceived in Mr. Allen;
perchance the secret lay in his bold manner and in the appearance of
dignity and piety he wore as a cloak when on his guard. I caught