and a brother, at Mr. Egerton's triumph, it was much damped when, on
leaving the dinner given in honour of the victory at the Lansmere Arms,
and about, with no steady step, to enter a carriage which was to convey
him to his Lordship's house, a letter was put into his hands by one of
the gentlemen who had accompanied the captain to the scene of action; and
the perusal of that letter, and a few whispered words from the bearer
thereof, sent the squire back to Mrs. Hazeldean a much soberer man than
she had ventured to hope for. The fact was, that on the day of
nomination, the captain having honoured Mr. Hazeldean with many poetical
and figurative appellations,--such as "Prize Ox," "Tony Lumpkin," "Blood-
sucking Vampire," and "Brotherly Warming-Pan,"--the squire had retorted
by a joke about "Saltwater Jack;" and the captain, who like all satirists
was extremely susceptible and thin-skinned, could not consent to be
called "Salt-water Jack" by a "Prize Ox" and a "Bloodsucking Vampire."

The letter, therefore, now conveyed to Mr. Hazeldean by a gentleman, who,
being from the Sister Country, was deemed the most fitting accomplice in
the honourable destruction of a brother mortal, contained nothing more
nor less than an invitation to single combat; and the bearer thereof,
with the suave politeness enjoined by etiquette on such well-bred
homicidal occasions, suggested the expediency of appointing the place of
meeting in the neighbourhood of London, in order to prevent interference
from the suspicious authorities of Lansmere.

The natives of some countries--the warlike French in particular--think
little of that formal operation which goes by the name of DUELLING.
Indeed, they seem rather to like it than otherwise. But there is nothing
your thorough-paced Englishman--a Hazeldean of Hazeldean--considers with
more repugnance and aversion than that same cold-blooded ceremonial. It
is not within the range of an Englishman's ordinary habits of thinking.