‘And an Irish lady, the young Beauty of Erin!’ Mr. Sullivan Smith was flowing on.  He became frigid, he politely bowed:  ’Two, sir, if you haven’t the grace to withdraw the offensive term before it cools and can’t be obliterated.’

‘Fiddle! and go to the deuce!’ Mr. Redworth cried.

‘Would a soft slap o’ the cheek persuade you, sir?’

’Try it outside, and don’t bother me with nonsense of that sort at my supper.  If I’m struck, I strike back.  I keep my pistols for bandits and law-breakers.  Here,’ said Mr. Redworth, better inspired as to the way of treating an ultra of the isle; ’touch glasses:  you’re a gentleman, and won’t disturb good company.  By-and-by.’

The pleasing prospect of by-and-by renewed in Mr. Sullivan Smith his composure.  They touched the foaming glasses:  upon which, in a friendly manner, Mr. Sullivan Smith proposed that they should go outside as soon as Mr. Redworth had finished supper-quite finished supper:  for the reason that the term ‘donkey’ affixed to him was like a minster cap of schooldays, ringing bells on his topknot, and also that it stuck in his gizzard.

Mr. Redworth declared the term to be simply hypothetical.  ’If you fight, you’re a donkey for doing it.  But you won’t fight.’

‘But I will fight.’

‘He won’t fight.’

’Then for the honour of your country you must.  But I’d rather have him first, for I haven’t drunk with him, and it should be a case of necessity to put a bullet or a couple of inches of steel through the man you’ve drunk with.  And what’s in your favour, she danced with ye.  She seemed to take to ye, and the man she has the smallest sugar-melting for is sacred if he’s not sweet to me.  If he retracts!’

‘Hypothetically, No.’

‘But supposititiously?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Then we grasp hands on it.  It’s Malkin or nothing!’ said Mr. Sullivan Smith, swinging his heel moodily to wander in search of the foe.  How one sane man could name another a donkey for fighting to clear an innocent young lady’s reputation, passed his rational conception.

Sir Lukin hastened to Mr. Redworth to have a talk over old schooldays and fellows.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said the civilian, ’There are Irishmen and Irishmen.  I’ve met cool heads and long heads among them, and you and I knew Jack Derry, who was good at most things.  But the burlesque Irishman can’t be caricatured.  Nature strained herself in a ’fit of absurdity to produce him, and all that Art can do is to copy.’

This was his prelude to an account of Mr. Sullivan Smith, whom, as a specimen, he rejoiced to have met.

‘There’s a chance of mischief,’ said Sir Lukin.  ’I know nothing of the man he calls Malkin.  I’ll inquire presently.’

He talked of his prospects, and of the women.  Fair ones, in his opinion, besides Miss Merion were parading; he sketched two or three of his partners with a broad brush of epithets.