to spin a jet into the air; now for a
moment glittering and towering in a column, and once more straining to
mount. My father appeared to me in that and other images. He would have
had me believe him shooting to his zenith, victorious at last. I likewise
was to reap a victory of the highest kind from the attack of the
mysterious ruffians; so much; he said, he thought he could assure me of.
He chattered of an intimidated Government, and Dettermain and Newson;
duchesses, dukes, most friendly; innumerable invitations to country
castles; and among other things one which really showed him to be capable
of conceiving ideas and working from an initiative. But this, too, though
it accomplished a temporary service, he rendered illusory to me by his
unhappy manner of regarding it as an instance of his now permanent social
authority. He had instituted what he called his JURY OF HONOUR COURT,
composed of the select gentlemen of the realm, ostensibly to weigh the
causes of disputes between members of their class, and decree the method
of settlement: but actually, my father admitted, to put a stop to the
affair between Edbury and me.

'That was the origin of the notion, Richie. I carried it on. I dined some
of the best men of our day. I seized the opportunity when our choicest
"emperor" was rolling on wheels to propound my system. I mention the
names of Bramham DeWitt, Colonel Hibbert Segrave, Lord Alonzo Carr,
Admiral Loftus, the Earl of Luton, the Marquis of Hatchford, Jack
Hippony, Monterez Williams,--I think you know him?--and little Dick
Phillimore, son of a big-wig, a fellow of a capital wit and discretion; I
mention them as present to convince you we are not triflers, dear boy. My
argument ran, it is absurd to fight; also it is intolerable to be
compelled to submit to insult. As the case stands, we are under a summary
edict of the citizens, to whom chivalry is unknown. Well, well, I
delivered a short speech. Fighting, I said, resembled butting,--a
performance proper to creatures that grow horns instead of brains . . not
to allude to a multitude of telling remarks; and the question "Is man a
fighting animal?" my answer being that he is not born with spurs on his
heels or horns to his head and that those who insisted on fighting should
be examined by competent anatomists, "ologists" of some sort, to decide
whether they have the excrescences, and proclaim them . . . touching on
these lighter parts of my theme with extreme delicacy