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Of the Lady’s Chamber

and then with a snort turned short away and marched up to her ladyship. I was sufficiently put about as it was, and was in no temper to stand this; so making a stride after him, I took him by the collar and wheeled him round.

“Sir!” said I tartly, “you have been introduced to a gentleman, and for a gentleman to scowl upon a gentleman in any case is not after my notion of civility. So that’s for you,” I says.

“Odds!” he cried with his squeak, and lugging at his sword, while the red nose on him stood out more like a door-knob than ever.

“Leave that skewer alone,” says I sharply, “or must I learn you that ’tis not for a gentleman to draw in the presence of a lady?”

But as he still struggled with his hilt, and stammered and spluttered, as it might be in a fit, I took him by the nape of the neck and shoved him towards the door.

“Odds!” he says. “Bobs!” he says. “Oons!” says this Mawkin, “you shall repent this.” But I ran him to the door and filluped him out into the hall, and then, re-

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