if you are wearing any wizard’s tokens.  On foot or on horseback, on the highroad if you wish it, in Piccadilly, or at Charing Cross; and they shall take up the pavement for our meeting, as they unpaved the court of the Louvre for the duel between Guise and Bassompierre.  All of you!  Do you hear?  I mean to fight you all.—­Dorme, Earl of Caernarvon, I will make you swallow my sword up to the hilt, as Marolles did to Lisle Mariveaux, and then we shall see, my lord, whether you will laugh or not.—­You, Burlington, who look like a girl of seventeen—­you shall choose between the lawn of your house in Middlesex, and your beautiful garden at Londesborough in Yorkshire, to be buried in.—­I beg to inform your lordships that it does not suit me to allow your insolence in my presence.  I will chastise you, my lords.  I take it ill that you should have ridiculed Lord Fermain Clancharlie.  He is worth more than you.  As Clancharlie, he has nobility, which you have; as Gwynplaine, he has intellect, which you have not.  I make his cause my cause, insult to him insult to me, and your ridicule my wrath.  We shall see who will come out of this affair alive, because I challenge you to the death.  Do you understand?  With any arm, in any fashion, and you shall choose the death that pleases you best; and since you are clowns as well as gentlemen, I proportion my defiance to your qualities, and I give you your choice of any way in which a man can be killed, from the sword of the prince to the fist of the blackguard.”

To this furious onslaught of words the whole group of young noblemen answered by a smile.  “Agreed,” they said.

“I choose pistols,” said Burlington.

“I,” said Escrick, “the ancient combat of the lists, with the mace and the dagger.”

“I,” said Holderness, “the duel with two knives, long and short, stripped to the waist, and breast to breast.”

“Lord David,” said the Earl of Thanet, “you are a Scot.  I choose the claymore.”

“I the sword,” said Rockingham.

“I,” said Duke Ralph, “prefer the fists; ’tis noblest.”

Gwynplaine came out from the shadow.  He directed his steps towards him whom he had hitherto called Tom-Jim-Jack, but in whom now, however, he began to perceive something more.  “I thank you,” said he, “but this is my business.”

Every head turned towards him.

Gwynplaine advanced.  He felt himself impelled towards the man whom he heard called Lord David—­his defender, and perhaps something nearer.  Lord David drew back.

“Oh!” said he.  “It is you, is it?  This is well-timed.  I have a word for you as well.  Just now you spoke of a woman who, after having loved Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, loved Charles II.”

“It is true.”

“Sir, you insulted my mother.”

“Your mother!” cried Gwynplaine.  “In that case, as I guessed, we are—­”

“Brothers,” answered Lord David, and he struck Gwynplaine.  “We are brothers,” said he; “so we can fight.  One can only fight one’s equal; who is one’s equal if not one’s brother?  I will send you my seconds; to-morrow we will cut each other’s throats.”