en, and the young officer, just then
returning, availed himself of a pretty girl's dilemma to say:

"May I assist you, miss? I presume you are not in very agreeable
company."

"Thank you, sir," answered Miss Rideau. "I would be obliged to have
some one find my aunt for me; she is here somewhere."

"Will you accept a stranger's arm?"

"In this misfortune, I will."

Dibdo took off the pretty girl, and one of his naval companions,
looking after him, exclaimed, "What a genius Dib. is with the ladies!"
But the companion, feeling a trembling, unsteady hand upon his arm,
turned about and met young Utie's desperate face. "I want to know the
name of that fellow!" said Utie.

"That is Charles Dibdo," said the naval companion, "lieutenant of the
United States frigate Fox, and I recommend you, my boy, to address
_him_ in a civil tone. For me, I never mind a drunken man."

Thoroughly demonized now, young Robert Utie turned blindly about for
some implement of revenge. He found it in Tiltock, a fellow-clerk, a
novitiate and a ninny, who was visible in the crowd.

"Tiltock, are you a man of honor?"

"I hope so, Bob."

"Can you carry a challenge?"

"Oh yes! I guess so, to 'blige a ole friend."

"Can you write it?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Then take it by word of mouth. That scoundrel there, Lieutenant
Dibdo, has insulted a lady, and me too. I must have his blood. Follow
him up, and meet me at Gadsby's with his answer."

Full of self-importance at this first and safe opportunity to stand
upon what is known as "the field of honor," Tiltock kept the
lieutenant in his eye, and took him finally aside and demanded a
meeting in the name of Utie. The naval officer answered that he had
simply relieved a lady from a drunken boy; but Tiltock, in the
dramatic way common to halcyon old times, refused to accept either
"drunken" or "boy" as terms appropriate to "the code," and pressed for
an answer. In five minutes the naval officer replied, through his
naval companion, that having ascertained Mr. Utie to be a gentleman's
son, and he as an United States officer not being able to decline a
challenge, the latter was accepted. The weapons were to be pistols,
the place the usual ground at Bladensburg, and the time the afternoon
of the next day.

There was a good deal of drinking and boasting at the hotels that
night, Utie and Tiltock telling everybody, as a particular secret,
that there was to be "an 'fah honah," otherwise a "juel," at