single word of it, Arthur,"
replied my friend, placidly twirling the old grey moustache. "If you
were to say so-and-so, and say that I had brought false charges against
you, I should cry mea culpa and apologise with all my heart. But as I
have a perfect conviction that every word this fellow says is a lie,
what is the use of arguing any more about the matter? I would not
believe him if he brought twenty as witnesses, and if he lied till he
was black in the other liars' face. Give me the walnuts. I wonder who
Sir Barnes's military friend was."

Barnes's military friend was our gallant acquaintance General Sir George
Tufto, K.C.B., who a short while afterwards talked over the quarrel with
the Colonel, and manfully told him that (in Sir George's opinion) he
was wrong. "The little beggar behaved very well, I thought, in the first
business. You bullied him so, and in the front of his regiment, too,
that it was almost past bearing; and when he deplored, with tears in
his eyes, almost, the little humbug! that his relationship prevented him
calling you out, ecod, I believed him! It was in the second affair that
poor little Barnes showed he was a cocktail."

"What second affair?" asked Thomas Newcome.

"Don't you know? He! he! this is famous!" cries Sir George. "Why, sir,
two days after your business, he comes to me with another letter and a
face as long as my mare's, by Jove. And that letter, Newcome, was from
your young 'un. Stop, here it is!" and from his padded bosom General Sir
George Tufto drew a pocket-book, and from the pocket-book a copy of a
letter, inscribed, "Clive Newcome, Esq., to Sir B. N. Newcome." "There's
no mistake about your fellow, Colonel. No,----him!" and the man of war
fired a volley of oaths as a salute to Clive.

And the Colonel, on horseback, riding by the other cavalry officer's
side read as follows:--

"George Street, Hanover Square, February 16.

"SIR--Colonel Newcome this morning showed me a letter bearing your
signature, in which you state--1. That Colonel Newcome has uttered
calumnious and insolent charges against you. 2. That Colonel Newcome so
spoke, knowing that you could take no notice of his charges of falsehood
and treachery, on account of the relationship subsisting between you.

"Your statements would evidently imply that Colonel Newcome has been
guilty of ungentlemanlike conduct, and of cowardice towards you.

"As there can be no reason why we should not meet in any manner tha