acquainted."

This was an immense piece of good fortune to me; for, of all the persons
I knew, he was the most suited to aid me at this moment. In addition to
a thorough knowledge of the continent and its habits, he spoke French
fluently, and had been the most renomme authority in the duello to a
large military acquaintance; joining to a consummate tact and cleverness
in his diplomacy, a temper that never permitted itself to be ruffled, and
a most unexceptionable reputation for courage. In a word, to have had
Trevanion for your second, was not only to have secured odds in your
favour, but, still better, to have obtained the certainty that, let the
affair take what turn it might, you were sure of coming out of it with
credit. He was the only man I have ever met, who had much mixed himself
in transactions of this nature, and yet never, by any chance, had
degenerated into the fire-eater; more quiet, unassuming manners it was
impossible to meet with, and, in the various anecdotes I have heard of
him, I have always traced a degree of forbearance, that men of less known
bravery might not venture to practise. At the same time, when once
roused by any thing like premeditated insult--or pre-determined affront
--he became almost ungovernable, and it would be safer to beard the lion
in his den than cross his path. Among the many stories, and there were a
great many current in his regiment concerning him, there was one so
singularly characteristic of the man, that, as I have passingly mentioned
his name here, I may as well relate it; at the same time premising that,
as it is well known, I may only be repeating an often-heard tale to many
of my readers.

When the regiment to which Trevanion belonged became part of the army of
occupation in Paris, he was left at Versailles seriously ill from the
effects of a sabre-wound he received at Waterloo, and from which his