Conceive to yourself the keeping watch over a fountain choked in its spouting, incessantly labouring to spin a jet into the air; now for a moment glittering and towering in a column, and once more straining to mount.  My father appeared to me in that and other images.  He would have had me believe him shooting to his zenith, victorious at last.  I likewise was to reap a victory of the highest kind from the attack of the mysterious ruffians; so much; he said, he thought he could assure me of.  He chattered of an intimidated Government, and Dettermain and Newson; duchesses, dukes, most friendly; innumerable invitations to country castles; and among other things one which really showed him to be capable of conceiving ideas and working from an initiative.  But this, too, though it accomplished a temporary service, he rendered illusory to me by his unhappy manner of regarding it as an instance of his now permanent social authority.  He had instituted what he called his jury of honour court, composed of the select gentlemen of the realm, ostensibly to weigh the causes of disputes between members of their class, and decree the method of settlement:  but actually, my father admitted, to put a stop to the affair between Edbury and me.

’That was the origin of the notion, Richie.  I carried it on.  I dined some of the best men of our day.  I seized the opportunity when our choicest “emperor” was rolling on wheels to propound my system.  I mention the names of Bramham DeWitt, Colonel Hibbert Segrave, Lord Alonzo Carr, Admiral Loftus, the Earl of Luton, the Marquis of Hatchford, Jack Hippony, Monterez Williams,—­I think you know him?—­and little Dick Phillimore, son of a big-wig, a fellow of a capital wit and discretion; I mention them as present to convince you we are not triflers, dear boy.  My argument ran, it is absurd to fight; also it is intolerable to be compelled to submit to insult.  As the case stands, we are under a summary edict of the citizens, to whom chivalry is unknown.  Well, well, I delivered a short speech.  Fighting, I said, resembled butting,—­a performance proper to creatures that grow horns instead of brains . . not to allude to a multitude of telling remarks; and the question “Is man a fighting animal?” my answer being that he is not born with spurs on his heels or horns to his head and that those who insisted on fighting should be examined by competent anatomists, “ologists” of some sort, to decide whether they have the excrescences, and proclaim them . . . touching on these lighter parts of my theme with extreme delicacy.  But—­and here I dwelt on my point:  Man, if not a fighting animal in his glorious—­I forgot what—­is a sensitive one, and has the idea of honour.  “Hear,” from Colonel Segrave, and Sir Weeton Slaterhe was one of the party.  In fine, Richie, I found myself wafted into a breathing oration.  I cannot, I confess it humbly, hear your “hear, hear,” without going up and off, inflated like a balloon.