altogether serious eye to her very comfortable dower.

Now during that same summer there was at the Baths Mr. Plowden, the
banker from Rome. He was then a young man; he has recently died an
old one in the Eternal City. His name I mention in telling my story
because much blame was cast upon him at the time by people in Rome, in
Florence, and at the Baths, who did not know the facts as entirely and
accurately as I knew them; and I am able here to declare publicly what
I have often declared privately, that he behaved well and blamelessly
in the whole matter.

And probably, though I have no distinct recollection that it was so,
Plowden may have also been smitten by the lady. Now, whether the
Irishman imagined that the young banker was his most formidable rival,
or whether there may have been some previous cause of ill-will between
the two men, I cannot say, but so it was that the chamberlain sent
a challenge to the banker. The latter declined to accept it on the
ground that he _was_ a banker and not a fighting man, and that his
business position would have been materially injured by his fighting a
duel. The Irishman might have made the most of this triumph, such as
it was. But he was not content with doing so, and lost none of the
opportunities, which the social habits of such a place daily afforded
him, for insulting and outraging his enemy. And he was continually
boasting to his friends that before the end of the season he would
compel him to come out and be shot at.

And before the end of the season came, his persistent efforts were
crowned with success. Plowden finding his life altogether intolerable
under the harrow of the bully's insolence, at length one day
challenged _him_. Then arose the question of the locality where the