There were no legal proceedings about the duel, but it made my position a little difficult in the town, and it will explain, with other things, why I had no hesitation in accepting my unknown uncle’s invitation, in spite of the singular addition which I found upon the cover.  If he had indeed sufficient influence with the Emperor to remove the proscription which was attached to our name, then the only barrier which shut me off from my country would be demolished.

You must picture me all this time as sitting upon the side of the lugger and turning my prospects and my position over in my head.  My reverie was interrupted by the heavy hand of the English skipper dropping abruptly upon my arm.

‘Now then, master,’ said he, it’s time you were stepping into the dingey.’

I do not inherit the politics of the aristocrats, but I have never lost their sense of personal dignity.  I gently pushed away his polluting hand, and I remarked that we were still a long way from the shore.

‘Well, you can do as you please,’ said he roughly; ’I’m going no nearer, so you can take your choice of getting into the dingey or of swimming for it.’

It was in vain that I pleaded that he had been paid his price.  I did not add that that price meant that the watch which had belonged to three generations of de Lavals was now lying in the shop of a Dover goldsmith.

‘Little enough, too!’ he cried harshly.  ’Down sail, Jim, and bring her to!  Now, master, you can step over the side, or you can come back to Dover, but I don’t take the Vixen a cable’s length nearer to Ambleteuse Beef with this gale coming up from the sou’-west.’

‘In that case I shall go,’ said I.

‘You can lay your life on that!’ he answered, and laughed in so irritating a fashion that I half turned upon him with the intention of chastising him.  One is very helpless with these fellows, however, for a serious affair is of course out of the question, while if one uses a cane upon them they have a vile habit of striking with their hands, which gives them an advantage.  The Marquis de Chamfort told me that, when he first settled in Sutton at the time of the emigration, he lost a tooth when reproving an unruly peasant.  I made the best of a necessity, therefore, and, shrugging my shoulders, I passed over the side of the lugger into the little boat.  My bundle was dropped in after me—­conceive to yourself the heir of all the de Lavals travelling with a single bundle for his baggage!—­and two seamen pushed her off, pulling with long slow strokes towards the low-lying shore.