d a friend of mine, Percy, of Gray's Inn,
reading to me the other day."

"I do not know the people you speak of," continued Bob, "but such was
the advice which Waddy gave me.

"'Why,' said I, 'Wooden-leg, my friend, this is like playing battledore
and shuttlecock; what is knocked forward with one hand is knocked back
with the other. Come, tell me what I ought to do.'

"'Well,' said Wooden-leg, taking the meerschaum out of his mouth, '_in
dubiis suspice_, &c. Let us decide it by tossing a halfpenny. If it
comes down _head_, you fight--if _harp_, you do not. Nothing can be
fairer.'

"I assented.

"'Which,' said he, 'is it to be--two out of three, as at Newmarket, or
the first toss to decide?'

"'Sudden death,' said I, 'and there will soon be an end of it.'

"Up went the halfpenny, and we looked with anxious eyes for its descent,
when, unluckily, it stuck in a gooseberry-bush.

"'I don't like that,' said Wooden-leg Waddy; 'for it's a token of bad
luck. But here goes again.'

"Again the copper soared to the sky, and down it came--_head_.

"'I wish you joy, my friend,' said Waddy; 'you are to fight. That was my
opinion all along; though I did not like to commit myself. I can lend
you a pair of the most beautiful duelling-pistols ever put into a man's
hand--Wogden's, I swear. The last time they were out, they shot Joe
Brown of Mount Badger as dead as Harry the Eighth.'

"'Will you be my second?' said I.

"'Why, no,' replied Wooden-leg, 'I cannot; for I am bound over by a
rascally magistrate to keep the peace, because I barely broke the head
of a blackguard bailiff, who came here to serve a writ on a friend of
mine, with one of my spare legs. But I can get you a second at once. My
nephew, Major Mug, has just come to me on a few days' visit, and, as he
is quite idle, it will give him some amusement to be your second. Look
up at his bedroom--you see he is shaving himself.'

"In a short time the Major made his appearance, dressed with a most
military accuracy of costume. There was not a speck of dust on his
well-brushed blue surtout--not a vestige of hair, except the regulation
whiskers, on his closely-shaven countenance. His hat was brushed to the
most glossy perfection--his boots shone in the jetty glow of Day and
Martin. There was scarcely an ounce of flesh on his hard and
weather-beaten face, and, as he stood rigidly upright, you would have
sworn that every sinew and muscle of his body was as stiff as whipcord