Little Mr Bouncer and His Friend Verdant Green/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
LITTLE MR. BOUNCER IS ASKED TO ACT AS SECOND IN A DUEL.
IS not pleasant when you are at a supper party, and anxious to enjoy yourself, to be struck forcibly on the nose by the whole of a cold duck that has been hurled into your face by an individual sitting immediately opposite to you at the table. When, too, the dish is also sent with the duck, and only by your own quickness of movement escapes your head, to be smashed to pieces against the wall behind your chair, the clatter made by its broken fragments is not agreeable to sensitive feelings. Mr. Bulpit, of "Skimmery," felt this; and felt, moreover, the hurt of the blow and the indignity to which he had been publicly exposed. Being helped to duck in so rough and ready a way was decidedly an unpleasant episode in Mr. Effingham's Little-go Wine party.
To resent the insult was Mr. Bulpit's immediate resolve; and, to do so in the quickest way, he jumped upon his chair, and from thence on to the table, and was about to dash across it, regardless of plates and glasses, with the view of punching Mr. Smirke's head, and otherwise inflicting summary vengeance upon him, when Effingham caught him by the tails of his coat, and arrested him in his wild career. "Stop this, old fellow!" he said, as he endeavoured to drag him down from the table; "we can't have any righting here. Bouncer, catch hold of Smirke!"
Little Mr. Bouncer promptly obeyed the summons, and at once seized Mr. Smirke by the arm, and tried to force him into his chair; for, when Mr. Bulpit had leapt upon the table, Mr. Smirke had also jumped up to defend himself from the threatened attack, and Mr. Bouncer, who had been sitting next to him, was on the alert to prevent the two quarrellers from coming to blows. "Let me go! let me get at him!" cried Mr. Bulpit; and "Let me go!" also cried Smirke.
"Not by any manner of means," said little Mr. Bouncer, as he tightened his grasp on the one side, and was assisted to hold the struggling Smirke by another of Effingham's guests. "You 've shown one way of ducking a man's head, and you seem to be rather too fond of cold ducking. No, my beauty; you won't get away. It 's only bears and lions that growl and fight, and your little hands were never made to tear out Bulpit's eyes; so you had better put your angry passions in your pocket. For the present, you must consider yourself my prisoner. I 'm Detective Bouncer, of the A 1 Brazenface Division."
All the room was in a hubbub. It had not been by any means a quiet Wine from the first—Little-go Wines are usually noisy affairs; but now the confusion and racket were greatly increased. Mr. Bulpit was still forcibly striving to cross the Rubicon of the supper-table, and was wildly gesticulating, and uttering wilder threats as to what he would do to Mr. Smirke's head and various other portions of his body when he could get at him. At last, Effingham succeeded in pulling him from the table, and forcing him into his chair. Both the would-be combatants were in a pot-valiant state, and hot words were freely interchanged. More punch was also consumed by the two quarrellers; under the influence of which Mr. Smirke's speech became somewhat indistinct and incoherent.
"Shtrikes me," he said, as though the facts were just beginning to dawn upon him, "Bulpit 'tended to 'suit me. What you say, Bousher?"
"Strike you!" retorted Mr. Bulpit across the table, as he caught the word that he now repeated; "why, you struck me with the duck!"
"You shied shlice o' tongue in my faish! hurt my feelings!" said Mr. Smirke, as he slapped the left side of his waistcoat. "My heart 's in ri' plaish; feel for another, and all that sort-o-thing. Not to be shulted
with 'punity, I can tell you! then why shend shlice o' tongue in my faish? Thash what I wan' to know."
"There, old fellow! it was merely a slip of the tongue," said little Mr. Bouncer, endeavouring to pacify him. "Say no more about it."
But Mr. Smirke preferred to say more about it, and so also did Mr. Bulpit; and they noisily stated their individual grievances to those nearest to them, as well as to those remote. The clang and clatter were greater than in any rookery. A song, with the old chorus, "For he 's a jolly good fellow," was vainly tried by little Mr. Bouncer; but, in every sense of the word, failed to produce harmony. Animal spirits were all very well up to a certain point; but, beyond it, degenerated to rude uproar. Throughout song and chorus, Mr. Bulpit and Mr. Smirke obtruded the wrongs they had individually sustained, and utterly refused to act as "jolly good fellows," and shake hands and end their quarrel.
"Now, do be quiet!" cried Effingham, addressing himself to Mr. Bulpit. "One would really imagine, to hear you two talk, that, after the manner of a melodramatic villain of a transpontine theatre, one of you will next say, 'This 'ere hinsult must be wiped out with bel-lood!'"
"Of course it must!" said little Mr. Bouncer, winking in a knowing manner at Effingham, and looking in a significant way to others at the table, in order that they might catch his meaning, and take the hint to carry out the joke; "of course it must! After what has occurred—after the gross personal altercation into which two invited guests of our esteemed host have permitted themselves to engage—I think, gentlemen all, that nothing less will satisfy the demands of the occasion than a duel."
Little Mr. Bouncer's hint was quickly taken, and a chorus of responsive voices was heard. "Of course! an affair of honour's the proper sort of thing!" "Pistols for two, and coffee to follow!" "A duel! a duel!" Mr. Bulpit's countenance fell.
"You 'd wish for satisfaction, would n't you, Smirke?" asked little Mr. Bouncer.
"Shute me famoushly!" replied Mr. Smirke; meaning to say, that it would suit him.
But Mr. Bulpit heard the word, and understood it as it was pronounced. "Who 'll shoot you?" he said. "Not I, if I know it. You 're not worth powder and shot."
"Come, Bulpit," said Effingham; "you must n't back out of it."
"I shed shute me!" exclaimed Mr. Smirke, vainly striving at great deliberation of expression. "You shay that I shay shoot me. Never shed such a wor'! pononner! quia mishtake. I shed, shute me."
Little Mr. Bouncer and Mr. Effingham had taken the opportunity to interchange a few quiet words in the midst of the din and confusion. "It is quite evident, gentlemen," said the latter, "that there must be a duel. Nothing less will evidently satisfy Bulpit for his wounded honour, to say nothing of his wounded nose. Look at his poor dear nose, gentlemen, whereon still linger the greasy traces of cold duck; and then say what other reparation than an affair of honour can suffice to wipe out that gravied stain? Of course, Bulpit, you 'll fight! There 's no other course left open to you."
"Oh, yes, of course," reluctantly responded Mr. Bulpit, who failed to perceive that the whole affair was a jest, and that he and Mr. Smirke were to be made the victims of a hoax, and thus punished for their ungentlemanly conduct at the Little-go Wine; "of course I 'll fight, if it 's thought necessary."
"Nesheshary? courshe it is!" said Mr. Smirke. "You shulted me, and hurt my feelings! courshe it 's nesheshary."
"Then, gentlemen," said Effingham, "the two principals being agreed that a meeting with pistols is unavoidable, all that we have to do is to arrange the place and time, and make all other needful preparations—such as the attendance of a surgeon," he considerately added; an observation which did not tend to soothe Mr. Bulpit's feelings.
"Who 'll be my shecond?" said Mr. Smirke. "Bousher, old bird, you 'll shtick to me like a jolgood fellow, won't you? Never deshert a fren' while you 've got a fren' and a bottle to give him, as the shong says. I should like you to be my shecond."
"All right, my tulip; I 'll be your second," replied little Mr. Bouncer.