And my reply,—­what was that to be?  How I composed it in the state of mind I was in, I have no conception to this day.  The chimney was clogged with papers ere (in a spelling to vie with Dolly’s) I had set down my devotion, my undying devotion, to her interests.  I asked forgiveness for my cruelty on that memorable morning I had last seen her.  But even to allude to the bet with Chartersea was beyond my powers; and as for renouncing it, though for her sake,—­that was not to be thought of.  The high play I readily promised to avoid in the future, and I signed myself,—­well, it matters not after seventy years.

The same day, Tuesday, I received a letter from his Grace of Chartersea saying that he looked to reach London that night, but very late.  He begged that Mr. Fox and Lord Comyn and I would sup with him at the Star and Garter at eleven, to fix matters for the trial on the morrow.  Mr. Fox could not go, but Comyn and I went to the inn, having first attended “The Tempest” at Drury Lane with Lady Di and Mr. Beauclerk.

We found his Grace awaiting us in a private room, with Captain Lewis, of the 60th Foot, who had figured as a second in the duel with young Atwater.  The captain was a rake and a bully and a toadeater, of course, with a loud and profane tongue, and he had had a bottle too many in the duke’s travelling-coach.  There was likewise a Sir John Brooke, a country neighbour of his Grace in Nottinghamshire.  Sir John apparently had no business in such company.  He was a hearty, fox-hunting squire who had seen little of London; a three-bottle man who told a foul story and went asleep immediately afterwards.  Much to my disappointment, Mr. Manners had gone to Arlington Street direct.  I had longed for a chance to speak a little of my mind to him.

This meeting, which I shall not take the time to recount, was near to ending in an open breach of negotiations.  His Grace had lost money at York, and more to Lewis on the way to London.  He was in one of his vicious humours.  He insisted that Hyde Park should be the place of the contest.  In vain did Comyn and I plead for some less public spot on account of the disagreeable advertisement the matter had received.  His Grace would be damned before he would yield; and Lewis, adding a more forcible contingency, hinted that our side feared a public trial.  Comyn presently shut him up.

“Do you ride the horse after his Grace is thrown,” says he, “and I agree to get on after and he does not kill you.  ’Sdeath!  I am not of the army,” adds my Lord, cuttingly; “I am a seaman, and not supposed to know a stirrup from a snaffle.”

“’Od’s blood!” yelled the captain, “you question my horsemanship, my Lord?  Do I understand your Lordship to question my courage?”

“After I am thrown!” cries his Grace, very ugly, and fingering the jewels on his hilt.

Sir John was awakened by the noise, and turning heavily spilled the whole of a pint of port on the duke’s satin waist coat and breeches.  Whereat Chartersea in a rage flung the bottle at his head with a curse, which it seems was a habit with his Grace.  But the servants coming in, headed by my old friend the chamberlain, they quieted down.  And it was presently agreed that the horse was to be at noon in the King’s Old Road, or Rotten Row (as it was then beginning to be called), in Hyde Park.