re--I forget what it was he said--but something about Ussher's
intimacy here--that it was a shameful thing of me to be wishing on
that account that this Macdermot should be hanged, as he deserves."

"Did he actually mention Brown Hall?" asked Fred.

"No; but he put it so that there could be no mistake about it; he
said he didn't envy my state of mind."

"Well, tell him you don't envy his. I don't think you could call him
out for that," said George.

"By heavens you're enough to provoke a saint!" continued the father.
"Can't you believe me, when I tell you, he made as direct a cut at
Brown Hall as he could, because I can't repeat all his words like a
newspaper? By G----d the pluck's gone out of the country entirely! if
as much had been said to my father, when I was your age, I'd have had
the fellow who said it out, if he'd been the best shot in Connaught."

"Don't say another word, father," said George, "if that's what you're
after. I thought, may be, you'd like the fun yourself, or I'd have
offered. I'd call him out with a heart and a half; there's nothing
I'd like better. May be I'd be able to make up a match between
Diamond and the Counsellor's brown mare, when it's done. He'd be a
little soft, would Webb, after such a job as that, and wouldn't stand
for a few pounds difference."

"That's nonsense, George," said the father, a little mollified by the
son's dutiful offer. "I don't want any one to take the thing off my
hands. I don't want to be shelved that way--but I wish you to see the
matter in the right light. I tell you the man was cursedly insolent,
Fred; in fact, he said what I don't mean to put up with; and the
question is, what had I better do?"

"He didn't say anything, did he," asked Fred, "with your name, or
Brown Hall in it?"

"No, he didn't name them exactly."

"Then I don't think you can call for an apology; write him a civil
note, and beg him to say that he intended no allusion to you or your
family in what he said."

"Fred's right for once," said George, "that's all you can do as the
matter stands now. If he won't say that, call him out and have done
with it."

"I've no wish to be fighting," said the father; "in fact, at my time
of life I'd rather not. I was ready enough once, but I'd sooner
settle it quietly."

"Why, there's no contenting you," answered Fred; "just now nothing
but pistols and coffee would do for you; and then you were in a
passion because one of us wouldn't take a challe