it to have
certain soothing and calming effects--hence my sauce."

Here Bentley sneezed and coughed both together and came nigh choking
outright (a highly dangerous thing in one of his weight), which
necessitated my loosening his steenkirk and thumping him betwixt the
shoulder-blades, while Jack strode up and down, swearing under his
breath, and Mr. Tawnish took another pinch of snuff.

"French sauce, by heaven!" cries Jack suddenly, "did any man ever hear
the like of it?--French sauce!" and herewith he snatched off his wig and
trampled upon it, and Bentley choked himself purple again. I will admit
that Jack's round bullet head, with its close-cropped, grizzled hair
standing on end, would have been a whimsical, not to say laughable sight
in any other (Bentley for instance)--but Jack in a rage is no laughable
matter.

"By the Lord, sir," cries he, turning upon Mr. Tawnish, who sat
cross-legged, regarding everything with the same mild wonderment--"by
the Lord! I'd call you out for that French sauce if I thought you were a
fighting man."

"Heaven forfend!" exclaimed Mr. Tawnish, with a gesture of horror,
"violence of all kinds is abhorrent to my nature, and I have always
regarded the duello as a particularly clumsy and illogical method of
settling a dispute."

Hereupon Jack looked about him in a helpless sort of fashion, as indeed
well he might, and catching sight of his wig lying in the middle of the
floor, promptly kicked it into a corner, which seemed to relieve him
somewhat, for he went to it and, picking it up again, knocked out the
dust upon his knee, and setting it on very much over one eye, sat
himself down again, flushed and panting, but calm.

"Mr. Tawnish," says he, "as regards my daughter, I must ask--nay
demand--that you cease your persecution of her once and for all."

"Sir John," says Mr. Tawnish, bowing across the table, "allow me to
suggest in the most humble and submissive manner, that the word
'persecution' is perhaps a trifle--I say just a trifle--unwarranted."

"Be that as it may, sir, I repeat it, nevertheless," says Jack, "and
furthermore I must insist that you communicate no more with the Lady
Penelope either by poetry or--or any other means."

"Alas!" sighs Mr. Tawnish, "cheat myself as I may, the possibility will
obtrude itself that you do not look upon my suit with quite the degree
of warmth I had hoped. Sir, I am not perfect, few of us are, but even
you will grant that I am not altog