this was over a lass. I have
heard the whole matter; how Captain Collinson, who is a disgrace to the
service, brought shame upon his Majesty's supporters, and how Richard
felled the young lord instead. I'll be sworn, and I had been there, I
myself would have run the brute through."

My uncle did not ask for further particulars, but took a chair, and a
dish of tea from Scipio. His smug look told me plainer than words that
he thought my grandfather still ignorant of my Whig sentiments.

"I often wish that this deplorable practice of duelling might be
legislated against," he remarked. "Was there no one at the Coffee House
with character enough to stop the lads?"

Here was my chance.

"Mr. Allen was there," I said.

"A devil's plague upon him!" shouted my grandfather, beating the floor
with his stick. "And the lying hypocrite ever crosses my path, by gad's
life! I'll tear his gown from his back!"

I watched Grafton narrowly. Such as he never turn pale, but he set down
his tea so hastily as to spill the most of it on the dresser.

"Why, you astound me, my dear father!" he faltered; "Mr. Allen a lying
hypocrite? What can he have done?"

"Done!" cried my grandfather, sputtering and red as a cherry with
indignation. "He is as rotten within as a pricked pear, I tell you, sir!
For the sake of retaining the lad in his tuition he came to me and lied,
sir, just after I had escaped death, and said that by his influence
Richard had become loyal, and set dependence upon Richard's fear of
the shock 'twould give me if he confessed--Richard, who never told me
a falsehood in his life! And instead of teaching him, he has gamed with
the lad at the rectory. I dare make oath he has treated your son to a
like instruction. 'Slife, sir, and he had his deserts, he would hang
from a gibbet at the Town Gate."

I raised up in bed to see the effect of this on my uncle. But however
the wind veered, Grafton could steer a course. He got up and began
pacing the room, and his agitation my grandfather took for indignation
such as his own.

"The dog!" he cried fiercely. "The villain! Philip shall leave him
to-morrow. And to think that it was I who moved you to put Richard to
him!"

His distress seemed so real that Mr. Carvel replied:

"No, Grafton, 'twas not your fault. You were deceived as much as I. You
have put your own son to him. But if I live another twelve hours I shall
write his Lordship to remove him. What! You shake your head, sir!"