ot at Boulogne, I think, Sir Percy," retorted Chauvelin drily, "and
I'll pledge you my word that the evening Angelus shall be rung that
night."

"At what hour is that, sir?"

"One hour after sundown."

"But why four days after this? Why not two or three?"

"I might have asked, why the southern ramparts, Sir Percy; why not the
western? I chose the fourth day--does it not suit you?" asked Chauvelin
ironically.

"Suit me! Why, sir, nothing could suit me better," rejoined Blakeney
with his pleasant laugh. "Zounds! but I call it marvellous... demmed
marvellous... I wonder now," he added blandly, "what made you think of
the Angelus?"

Everyone laughed at this, a little irrelevantly perhaps.

"Ah!" continued Blakeney gaily, "I remember now.... Faith! to think that
I was nigh forgetting that when last you and I met, sir, you had just
taken or were about to take Holy Orders.... Ah! how well the thought
of the Angelus fits in with your clerical garb.... I recollect that the
latter was mightily becoming to you, sir..."

"Shall we proceed to settle the conditions of the fight, Sir Percy?"
said Chauvelin, interrupting the flow of his antagonist's gibes, and
trying to disguise his irritation beneath a mask of impassive reserve.

"The choice of weapons you mean," here interposed His Royal Highness,
"but I thought that swords had already been decided on."

"Quite so, your Highness," assented Blakeney, "but there are various
little matters in connection with this momentous encounter which are of
vast importance.... Am I not right, Monsieur?... Gentlemen, I appeal to
you.... Faith! one never knows... my engaging opponent here might desire
that I should fight him in green socks, and I that he should wear a
scarlet flower in his coat."

"The Scarlet Pimpernel, Sir Percy?"

"Why not, Monsieur? It would look so well in your buttonhole, against
the black of the clerical coat, which I understand you sometime affect
in France... and when it is withered and quite dead you would find that
it would leave an overpowering odour in your nostrils, far stronger than
that of incense."

There was general laughter after this. The hatred which every member of
the French revolutionary government--including, of course, ex-Ambassador
Chauvelin--bore to the national hero was well known.

"The conditions then, Sir Percy," said Chauvelin, without seeming to
notice the taunt conveyed in Blakeney's last words. "Shall we throw
again?"

"After yo