are aware that
we are a couple of men of honour, Colonel Altamont, and not come here to
trifle or to listen to abuse from you. You will either pay us or we
will expose you as a cheat, and chastise you as a cheat, too,' says
Bloundell.

"'Oui, parbleu,' says the Marky,--but I didn't mind him, for I could
have thrown the little fellow out of the window; but it was different
with Bloundell,--he was a large man, that weighs three stone more than
me, and stands six inches higher, and I think he could have done for me.

"'Monsieur will pay, or Monsieur will give me the reason why. I believe
you're little better than a polisson, Colonel Altamont,'--that was the
phrase he used--Altamont said with a grin--and I got plenty more of
this language from the two fellows, and was in the thick of the row with
them, when another of our party came in. This was a friend of mine--a
gent I had met at Boulogne, and had taken to the Countess's myself.
And as he hadn't played at all on the previous night, and had actually
warned me against Bloundell and the others, I told the story to him, and
so did the other two.

"'I am very sorry,' says he. 'You would go on playing: the Countess
entreated you to discontinue. These gentlemen offered repeatedly to
stop. It was you that insisted on the large stakes, not they.' In fact
he charged dead against me: and when the two others went away, he told
me how the Marky would shoot me as sure as my name was--was what it is.
'I left the Countess crying, too,' said he. 'She hates these two men;
she has warned you repeatedly against them'( which she actually had
done, and often told me never to play with them), 'and now, Colonel,
I have left her in hysterics almost, lest there should be any quarrel
between you, and that confounded Marky should put a bullet through your
head. Its my belief,' says my friend, 'that that woman is distractedly
in love with you.'

"'Do you think so?' says I; upon which my friend told me how she had
actually gone down on her knees to him and 'Save Colonel Altamont!'

"As soon as I was dressed, I went and called upon that lovely woman.
She gave a shriek and pretty near fainted when she saw me. She called me
Ferdinand,--I'm blest if she didn't."

"I thought your name was Jack," said Strong, with a laugh; at which the
Colonel blushed very much behind his dyed whiskers.

"A man may have more names than one, mayn't he, Strong?" Altamont asked.
"When I'm with a lady, I like to take