I leaned forward earnestly.  “There must be right and wrong in this dispute; Truth stands naked somewhere in the world.  It is for us to find her.  Why, mark me, Sir Lupus, men cannot sit and blink at villany, nor look with indifference on a struggle to the death.  One side is right, t’other wrong.  And we must learn how matters stand.”

“And what will it advance us to learn how matters stand?” he said, still staring, as though I were some persistent fool vexing him with unleavened babble.  “Suppose these rebels are right—­and, dammy, but I think they are—­and suppose our King’s troops are roundly trouncing them—­and I think they are, too—­do you mean to say you’d draw sword and go a-prowling, seeking for some obliging enemy to knock you in the head or hang you for a rebel to your neighbor’s apple-tree?”

“Something of that sort,” I said, good-humoredly.

“Oh, Don Quixote once more, eh?” he sneered, too mad to raise his voice to the more convenient bellow which seemed to soothe him as much as it distressed his listener.  “Well, you’ve got a fool’s mate in Sir George Covert, the insufferable dandy!  And all you two need is a pair o’ Panzas and a brace of windmills.  Bah!” He grew angrier.  “Bah, I say!” He broke out:  “Damnation, sir!  Go to the devil!”

I said, calmly:  “Sir Lupus, I hear your observation with patience; I naturally receive your admonition with respect, but your bearing towards me I resent.  Pray, sir, remember that I am under your roof now, but when I quit it I am free to call you to account.”

“What!  You’d fight me?”

“Scarcely, sir; but I should expect somebody to make your words good.”

“Bah!  Who?  Ruyven?  He’s a lad!  Dorothy is the only one to—­” He broke out into a hoarse laugh.  “Oh, you Ormonds!  I might have saved myself the pains.  And now you want to flesh your sword, it matters not in whom—­Tory, rebel, neutral folk, they’re all one to you, so that you fight!  George, don’t take offence; I naturally swear at those I differ with.  I may love ’em and yet curse ’em like a sailor!  Know me better, George!  Bear with me; let me swear at you, lad!  It’s all I can do.”

He spread out his fat hands imploringly, recrossing his enormous legs on the card-table.  “I can’t fight, George; I would gladly, but I’m too fat.  Don’t grudge me a few kindly oaths now and then.  It’s all I can do.”

I was seized with a fit of laughter, utterly uncontrollable.  Sir Lupus observed me peevishly, twiddling his broken pipe, and I saw he longed to launch it at my head, which made me laugh till his large, round, red face grew grayer and foggier through the mirth-mist in my eyes.

“Am I so droll?” he snapped.

“Oh yes, yes, Sir Lupus,” I cried, weakly.  “Don’t grudge me this laugh.  It is all I can do.”

A grim smile came over his broad face.

“Touched!” he said.  “I’ve a fine pair on my hands now—­you and Sir George Covert—­to plague me and prick me with your wit, like mosquitoes round a drowsy man.  A fine family conference we shall have, with Sir John Johnson and the Butlers shooting one way, you and Sir George Covert firing t’other, and me betwixt you, singing psalms and getting all your arrows in me, fore and aft.”