‘Indeed,’ said the Captain,’ I see now no other way out of the scrape than a meeting.  The fact is, there was a talk of it at Castle Brady, after your attack upon Quin this afternoon, and he vowed that he would cut you in pieces:  but the tears and supplications of Miss Honoria induced him, though very unwillingly, to relent.  Now, however, matters have gone too far.  No officer, bearing His Majesty’s commission, can receive a glass of wine on his nose—­this claret of yours is very good, by the way, and by your leave we’ll ring for another bottle—­without resenting the affront.  Fight you must; and Quin is a huge strong fellow.’

‘He’ll give the better mark,’ said I.  ‘I am not afraid of him.’

‘In faith,’ said the Captain,’ I believe you are not; for a lad, I never saw more game in my life.’

‘Look at that sword, sir,’ says I, pointing to an elegant silver-mounted one, in a white shagreen case, that hung on the mantelpiece, under the picture of my father, Harry Barry.  ’It was with that sword, sir, that my father pinked Mohawk O’Driscol, in Dublin, in the year 1740; with that sword, sir, he met Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone, the Hampshire baronet, and ran him through the neck.  They met on horseback, with sword and pistol, on Hounslow Heath, as I dare say you have heard tell of, and those are the pistols’ (they hung on each side of the picture) ’which the gallant Barry used.  He was quite in the wrong, having insulted Lady Fuddlestone, when in liquor, at the Brentford assembly.  But, like a gentleman, he scorned to apologise, and Sir Huddlestone received a ball through his hat, before they engaged with the sword.  I am Harry Barry’s son, sir, and will act as becomes my name and my quality.’

‘Give me a kiss, my dear boy,’ said Fagan, with tears in his eyes.  ’You’re after my own soul.  As long as Jack Fagan lives you shall never want a friend or a second.’

Poor fellow! he was shot six months afterwards, carrying orders to my Lord George Sackville, at Minden, and I lost thereby a kind friend.  But we don’t know what is in store for us, and that night was a merry one at least.  We had a second bottle, and a third too (I could hear the poor mother going downstairs for each, but she never came into the parlour with them, and sent them in by the butler, Mr. Tim):  and we parted at length, he engaging to arrange matters with Mr. Quin’s second that night, and to bring me news in the morning as to the place where the meeting should take place.  I have often thought since, how different my fate might have been, had I not fallen in love with Nora at that early age; and had I not flung the wine in Quin’s face, and so brought on the duel.  I might have settled down in Ireland but for that (for Miss Quinlan was an heiress, within twenty miles of us, and Peter Burke, of Kilwangan, left his daughter Judy L700 a year, and I might have had either of them, had I waited a few years).  But it was in my fate to be a wanderer, and that battle with Quin sent me on my travels at a very early age:  as you shall hear anon.