The hoax progresses.

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

“Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.”

“All's brave that youth mounts, and folly guides.”

“With mirth and laugher let old wrinkles come.”

“Men may construe things, after their fashion.
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.”

“I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.”

We have seen in the last chapter that Emma found Spiffard
on her return, reading. But he read to little purpose. The
events of the day had troubled and perplexed him.

Before we recount them, it is necessary to mention what
passed at the theatre after Numpo made the stage wait.

The sportive manager having gone through the arduous part
of Macbeth, and received ample testimonies of the approbation
of a full house; and after having tricked Hilson into a forfeit
for not being ready to `go on' at his cue; proceeded, with
all the happy buoyancy of youth, health, wealth, and popularity,
to take a seat in the boxes, and laugh at Numpo, while
Kent procured the tarrapins. His object was merely to beguile
the time until, the farce being ended, he might return to
meet Tam, and Ned, and other worthies, at a supper-table in

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

an apartment adjoining his dressing-room. He passed to the
boxes by a private communication, through a door of which
he carried the key, and repairing to the Shakspeare, found
Allen still there, who, as soon as the curtain fell, accosted him
with, “have you seen Spiffard lately?”

“Yes.”

“He had nearly got into a quarrel.”

“He has been telling us. Pray who were the fellows?”

“Mere blackguards. Spiff showed spunk I can tell you.”

“Allen, I have been thinking that sport might be made out
of this. Could not we make up a challenge?—Conjure up
offended honour?—Drag up `drowned honour by the locks'—
ha?”

“No. Certainly not. The fellows sneak'd off as if ashamed
of themselves.”

“Did Spiffard use such language as would justify a gentleman
in calling him to an account and demanding an apology?”

“Gentleman? I tell you these fellows were mere ruffians.”

“No matter. We'll make gentlemen of them. What did
Spiff say?”

“He told them, very plainly, that they were backguards.”

“That's enough. Come with me to my room. Tarrapins
and whiskey-punch. One of these gentlemen who have lately
been so grossly insulted is a man of nice honour.”

“They either of them looked like any thing else. It is a
hard matter to make a silk purse you know—”

“Imagination can make any thing.”

“Two such rough fellows, in coarse furzy great coats—”

“Disguised. Pooh! Dress is nothing! `Leather and prunella,
' you know. Two gentlemen on a frolic.”

“Ah, now I take. And, so, one of these gentlemen in disguise,
must demand satisfaction of Spiff.”

“An apology or the duello. He don't know yonr hand
writing, does he?”

“No. I see it! It will do! I'll be Lieutenant — who?”

“Let us see. A captain of a ship might suit the rough
furzy great-coat better, as well as better suit our purposes.—
You shall be—”

“Bravo! I'll be Captain Tomkins or Jenkins.”

“Smith. Smith is every body's name and nobody's name.
Johnson and Smith are hanged every day. You shall write
to Spiff and demand an apology. I will be his adviser. Who
shall be his second?—You are known to have had an affair—

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

yes—I will advise him to put his honour into your hands, and
then we have him in safe keeping.”

“Capital! That's what you call doubling. I'm to be
second and first. Captain Brown and—”

“Smith.”

“Ay, Smith. I'm to be the offended challenging captain,
and second to the adversary. Who shall be the Captain's
second?”

“Some one that Spiff does not know.”

“But will he bite?”

“Never fear. At all events we shall see how he takes the
demand. He has acknowledged that he bullied the men.
He knows he was right in reproving their insolence. He will
not apologize. Then follows the rest as may be.”

“But can be believe that they were gentlemen?”

“In disguise. You saw them, and if you are convinced of
it, surely he may be. You were cool. He is the best fellow
in the world, and the least suspicious. His marriage for that.
I would not harm Spiff for the world, but it will do him good
when the joke is known—it will cure him of a little of his too
much good faith in the men and women of this faithless world.
Come—the tarrapins wait. After supper we will arrange it
all—cast the parts.”

The company met. Men, particularly young men, are very
punctual on such occasions. The tarrapins were discussed,
as was the hoax, which appeared more pregnant with sport as
more wine and whiskey-punch coloured the anticipated incidents.

The next morning, after this grave consultation in the mamanager's
private room, Mr. Spiffard received the following
letter, which was left, by an unknown boy, with the servant
woman, before the intended victim was out of bed. The servant
was enjoined to give it to Mr. Spiffard as soon as he got
up. There is nothing, for effect, like receiving a letter with
some bad news, or a disagreeable call for money, or notification
of the failure of a debtor, or, “sir, your bank account is
overdrawn 10,000 dollars,” or such and such notes or drafts
are protested; such a letter before breakfast, (or such an one
as we are about to transcribe) places a man in a situation similar,
in some respects, to the aspiring cardinal, when his
master places in his hands the proofs of his guilt, with—“read
over this; and after, this; and then to breakfast with what appetite
you have.”

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

A man seldom over-eats himself at a regular meal, after
swallowing a luncheon of this kind.

The letter was as follows:

Albany Coffee-house, New-York.
To Mr. Spiffard, of the Park theatre,
Sir,

The ungentlemanly epithets you thought proper to
use in addressing me last evening at the theatre were passed
over, at the time, to avoid a disturbance in a public place, but
they require an ample apology. I take this method of informing
you who I am and where I am to be found, rather
than, in the first place, to trouble a friend. I shall be at
home to-morrrow at eleven o'clock, A. M.

“Apologize! No. Certainly not. Why, what did I do to
him? Apologize? Why, is it possible the fellow is a gentleman?
Apologize! Poh! I suppose I am to be challenged for
resenting an injury offered to my wife! But I am neither fool
enough to apologize for doing right, or, to expose my life at the
call of a ruffian!”

Appetite for breakfast, however, was spoiled. He eat little.
He was silent. His mind was in the Shakspeare-box, and
imagination recalled the scene; but he had told the story so
often that the images became confused. He strove to recall
the faces and figures of the two aggressors. He could find
nothing, in their recollected appearance, that indicated gentlemen.
He remembered their sturdy figures and rough great
coats, much more perfectly than their faces. He remembered
that they looked at each other and laughed, without replying
to his reproof. That laugh—it might imply a consciousness of
something that did not appear. How deceitful are all appearances!
He thought the matter over in every possible way, but
always came to the same conclusion, that he would neither
apologize nor fight.

“What's the matter, Mr. Spiffard?”

“Nothing, my dear.”

Now this was unlike himself. It was false. He was at the
moment thinking he would consult Cooper. Besides—how
could he tell the truth to a person so much concerned in the
affair? So he excused the falsehood as a thing of necessity.

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

“I'm sure something must be the matter. You dont eat or
speak.”

“Why, my dear, don't I tell you that there is nothing the
matter?”

Of all things, when a man is discontented with himself, and
sullenly silent, the most provoking is being asked, “what's the
matter?” especially by his wife; and more especially if he
knows he has uttered an untruth.

“There was a very fine house last night,” said Mrs. Spiffard,
and her eyes sparkled at the recollection of her triumph.
Her head was erect, and, as she adjusted a lock of her glossy
raven hair, she repeated, “a very fine house.”

“Yes,” said her husband, his head supported by his right
hand; his elbow on the table; his figure sunken, and his eye
lack-lustre—“very fine.”

“A truly genteel audience!”

“Genteel!” He threw himself back in his chair. “What
did you say of genteel?”

“A fine show of gentlemen and ladies. I never saw a better
display of dress in the boxes.”

“Very—genteel.” And the two fellows with rough great-coats
were full in the eye of his imagination. And the look
and laugh. He thought he recollected that one looked down
upon him, before that sly glance at his companion and the
suppressed laugh. The men began to appear less like blackguards.
One of them even began to assume something of the
gentleman, notwithstanding the great-coat and pea-nuts.

“I think,” said Mrs. Spiffard, “I never played better.”

“I never saw you play so well,” and he thought of Mr.
Smith's remark; and its injustice, as well as insolence.
“Your deportment was lofty and dignified. You looked taller
in person, as well as more towering in ambition, than Macbeth.
Your majestic stature seemed increased by the spirit of the
lofty-minded leader of the thane. The characteristic dress
gave force to the majesty of your deportment. Is it possible
that any one could object—” By this time Spiffard had affixed
the name of John Smith to the man who had returned a smile
in answer to his reproof; and in imagination he saw a person
very different from that who in reality had received the rebuke.
Little of the original remained but the rough great-coat. “To
be sure you are remarkably tall.”

“You did not use to think me too tall.”

“Too tall? What did I say?”

“You said, `to be sure you are remarkably tall,' as if an
objection might be made to my height,” and she elevated her

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

majestic neck and head, and shook the curls of jet that might
have adorned the brow of Juno, while her eyes shot rays from
a towering height on the low-comedian.

“ `Remarkable'—that which is remarkable is frequently admirable—
I certainly meant nothing disparaging by the word—
but” and he looked at his watch, “I beg pardon—I must see
Cooper.”

And he left the table abruptly, and the house. Mrs. Epsom,
her daughter, and her lovely protegee, thought he had an
appointment with the manager, and, though he did not say so,
his words and action conveyed the meaning.

“Mr. Spiffard behaves very odd this morning,” said the
mother, with somewhat of an offended air, at the same time administering
a pinch of snuff.

“Somewhat absent, I must confess, both in words and
looks,” said the wife.

“But cousin,” said Emma Portland, “Mr. Spiffard seemed
fully alive to your fine appearance and performance of last
evening.”

There was harmony in the look, the voice, the words, of the
beautiful speaker. There was harmony within, and its influence
was felt by all who heard or saw her. Are there not
beings whose presence acts upon the turbulent spirits of the
world as oil upon the troubled waters?

Spiffard had made up his mind (while sitting at the breakfast-table)
to see the young manager, and consult him in regard
to the conduct he ought to pursue in this unexpected affair of
the letter received from John Smith. He knew that the young
tragedian was well versed in the etiquette as well as the reality
of honour's laws. He wished to have the approbation
of those he associated with, though he felt no inclination to
yield either to John Smith or to the customs established by
duellists. Our associates should, in their habits, be such as
will confirm our own better resolutions.

The effect of Allen's letter had been anticipated by the contrivers
of it; and, with the view to sport, (of which they did
not foresee the consequences) it was contrived that Cooper
should not be seen by Spiffard until after dinner; when, as
usual, his board would be crowned by the sport-encouraging
bottle, and surrounded by such a knot as would seize every
occasion that might offer to carry on the joke of the quarrel,
between substance and shadow.

Spiffard passed the morning in suspense. At length he
found the manager at table over his wine, and attended by

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

his well prepared friends, all looking for Spiffard's arrival.
He was welcomed, as he always had been; for though he
partook not of the wine, he did of the wit, and always brought
his share. As had been agreed, the conversation was turned
upon duelling.

We have said the company were prepared, but there was
one exception. Cooke had unexpectedly dropt in to dinner,
and was ignorant of the plot.

Spiffard found the good fellows in full convivial gaiety;
each with his glass, and each with his cigar—Cooke being in
the last also an exception.

“Spiffard, what do you drink?”

“Water.”

“Why ask him?”

“I did not know but he might have wished small beer.”

“Or switchel,” said Cooke, “as my man Davenport calls
his molasses and water. Mr. Spiffard is the only wise man
among us, however. He will not put his `enemy in his
mouth to steal away his brains.' ”

“You, sir,” said Hilson, bowing gravely, and looking very
seriously respectful, “fear no enemy.”

“And you, sir,” said the veteran, laughing, “know you
have no brains.”

“I hold,” said Cooper, “that the man who rejects such
madeira as this, has no brains worth stealing. Fill! and pass
the decanter, Allen!”

“The man who rejects every liquid, save water, will be
found the wise man,” persisted Cooke, as he deliberately filled
a bumper of wine.

“Is wisdom to be found at the bottom of the well, in company
with truth?” demanded Allen.

“Wisdom and truth are the same,” said Spiffard.

“Truth is found at the bottom of the bottle,” said a little
hard favoured man about forty, dressed in a kind of half military
blue coat, the button-holes of which were trimmed with
tarnished gold lace.

This gentleman was an old bachelor and an oddity. He
had, when a boy, served during the war of the revolution,
whenever he could escape from his guardians; and, towards
the close of the war, being his own master, with some property,
he obtained a commission, and, as he said, would
“never sully the honour of a soldier” by stooping to any useful
occupation. He therefore lived to old age upon the credit
of what he had done in youth, merely to gratify boyish

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

curiosity, and in obedience to over-boiling spirits. This bank of
credit, upon which he drew most liberally, was a store unknown
to all but himself; for the name of Phillpot neither appeared
in the dispatches of the commanding generals or in the pages
of the historians of the revolution. He was remarkable in the
streets for military carriage, and the old fashioned half-regimental
coat above mentioned, (which, whenever renewed, was
of the same cut), but his old cocked hat, with a black and
white cockade, and his long Frederick-the-Great queue, was
even more conspicuous than his diminutive martial person and
coat. He was no less remarkable in the chamber than the
field, and with a dry quaintness told stories of his campaigns,
that were ever new, though the recital of the same events, for
the incidents were such as the imagination of the moment presented.
“Truth is found at the bottom of the bottle! When
the army lay at Valley-Forge—”

“Right, Colonel!” cried the master of the revel, “wine
brightens the wit; and wit is your true terrier for unborrowing
truth! You are a Diogenes seeking truth by the light of the
bottle.”

“Not altogether by that light,” said the Colonel; “I have
sought truth by the light of history.”

“History is a tissue of falsehood,” was the manager's exclamation.

Spiffard added, “historians have propagated immorality,
with few exceptions, from the earliest to the latest.”

“They are great liars,” said the Colonel,—“of that I have
no doubt; but they have fostered the noblest qualities of our
nature. Homer (for I rank him with the historians) made an
Alexander; and the history of the conquering Macedonian has
formed all the great men that have since lived.”

“Great men! According to you, Colonel,” said Spiffard,
“none are great but the butchers of mankind! The preachers
of peace, and teachers of divine love, the explorer of science
and martyrs to truth,—are of no account; they are not great
men! Till such opinions are corrected in the mass of mankind,
the reign of peace and benevolence cannot come.”

“It is the sword that prepares the path for the savans.
What had we known of Egypt if the `fire king' had not preceded
the scientific explorer? So Alexander opened the path
to the Grecian philosophy. Alexander is my hero!”

“He was a jolly toper,” said Allen.

“That he was!” And the Colonel, in most discordant notes,
sung,—

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

“Subdued the world! but not himself! Had he been temperate
he had not mourned over a slaughtered friend, and might
have been a friend to the human race.”

“He was a conqueror! Show me his equal!”

“I can name, even a military man, much his superior, (if
you must have a soldier). One who preserved a nation, and
established an empire, composed of freemen! Washington!
The conqueror of himself!”

“I suppose I must succumb! But he would have done
more if he had drank more! Cooper is right! I seek truth by
the light of the bottle and peace by the force of the sword.”

“Say discord, instead of truth,” said George Frederick.
“We drink away our senses and then talk politics, dispute
about words, say harsh and rude things, and finally abuse one
another. I believe nine quarrels out of ten originate over the
bottle.”

“It's only your quarrelsome fellows by nature that quarrel in
their cups. You never quarrel, Mr. Cooke, or say an uncivil
thing—not you—neither do I. If the disposition to quarrel, or
any ill-will towards a companion is in the bosom, wine brings
it out. Allen,” continued the speaker, (who was Hilson,)
“Allen, you know all these matters and things.—Allen is a
philosopher, Mr. Cooke, and his opinion is oracular.—Allen,
what has caused the greatest number of quarrels and duels
within your experience?”

“Politics,” was the reply, “party politics.”

“So I thought. Your politician is a fellow with the hearburn.
Your water-drinking politician. Your lily-livered,
cold-blooded, office-seeking, place-hunting, mischief-making,
tale-bearing, under-mining, politician. Colonel! did you
ever know a man with a ruby-coloured-nose and a carmine
cheek that ever fought a duel?”

It will be readily imagined that this question was intended by
the way to bring on the reply and discussion that followed.

“Yes, many a one, as scarlet and purple as yourself. Linstock
and Alcort were neither of them chalk-faced. There
was Johnson too, who was shot by Brown, had a face as full of
claret as your own, though it showed through a browner covering
of skin.”

“Colonel, you know the particulars of that affair,” said

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

Allen inquiringly, as he puffed a volume of smoke towards the
man-of-war.

“Yes. But they are not to be told. It was a bloody business.”

Our hero inquired if either fell, and looks of intelligence
passed from one to the other among the young men, who were
in the plot. Spiffard's eyes were fixed on the Colonel, who
answered with a tremendous oath, “Both ought to have been
killed ten times over, if either could have hit the broad side of
a church at ten paces. To be sure, it was rather late in the
evening; but there was snow on the ground, and that gave
light and made a mark surer. I remember in the year seventy-nine—.”

“Where was this?”

“It was when we were hutted near Morristown—”

“No, Colonel, not that story; but the duel of Brown and
Johnson.”

“That was just over the fence to the north of Love-lane.”

“Love-lane?”

“Called so,” said Cooke, “because no love is ever lost
there. Does Hoboken mean love, in Dutch?”

“I suppose,” said Allen, “that Brown never fired a pistol
before in his life, and let me tell you it is no easy matter to keep
a muzzle in line.”

“No, nor would he then,” said the gruff man of war, “if he
had not been told that his standing with the party and in society
depended upon his fighting.”

“So the yankees commit murder, for fear of losing their
reputation as good members of society.”

“Yes,” said Spiffard, “it is fear, that makes men brave
death in many cases. The fear of losing the good opinion of
those with whom one associates, makes many a man expose
himself to his adversary's ball, or risk the shedding his brother's
blood.”

“No man,” said Allen, taking the cigar from his mouth and
breaking off the ashes which had accumulated on the end like
the snuff of a burning candle, “No man,” and he deliberately
placed the brightened cigar on the table, the fire end a little
over the edge, “No man,” and he spoke with emphasis, assuming
a most oracular air, “can refuse to fight when challenged,
if he had provoked the challenge.”

Spiffard looked at the oracle with lack-lustre eye, the upper
lid hanging remarkably low—his chin elongated and his mouth
a little opened. He was taken in the snare. He had no

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

greater dread of death than is common to humanity, and he
thought himself principled against duelling; yet he began to
have a glimpse in imagination of a duel impending, and himself
one of the parties. John Smith's letter—the great-coat—
the sarcastic smile—were dancing in mournful measure, in
his mind, when the speaker continued: “If a gentleman
makes use of offensive language to another gentleman, and is
called upon for an apology, he must make it, or accept the
offended party's challenge if he thinks fit to call him out.”
Allen resumed his cigar.

Spiffard look'd ruminating. He was chewing the cud, without
that satisfaction which attends it in some of his fellow
water-drinkers.

The Colonel responded to the oracle's exposition of the
law of the duello with “certainly,” and an immense volume of
tobacco smoke.

“No doubt,” said another.

The conspirators watched the countenance of Spiffard, and
saw the success of their hoax.

“Johnson,” said Allen, “insulted Brown brutally, and deserved
to be shot.”

The Colonel, with his cigar in his mouth, and speaking after
puffing off a cloud of smoke, observed, “I believe it is always
the case that the offending party is shot.”

“ `The offending party,' ” repeated Spiffard, “but, Colonel,
do you mean the offence that called forth the demand for an
apology, or the offence first given?”

“Let me understand your question. State a case.”

“Why, as thus. If a man reproves another for improper
behaviour to a female, for example, and the person reproved
demands an apology?”

“It cannot be given,” said the Colonel.

“It cannot be given,” said Allen.

“Certainly not,” said Hilson.

“If,” continued our hero, “on refusal of apology a challenge
ensues?”

“He must fight,” said the Colonel.

“Yes,” said Hilson, “he must fight.”

“Certainly he must fight,” said Allen.

“As long as the challenger chooses to shoot at him,” said
Hilson.

“I knew a case in point,” said the Colonel, “but the parties
fought with swords. Two of the French officers who were
with us at Yorktown—”

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

“But, Colonel,” queried the Vermonter, “according to
your theory I should suppose that the person giving the offence,
would in this case, be the man whose behaviour had been improper
towards the female. He would be the offender, and not
the person who reproved him.”

“The reprover being right, cannot possibly apologize,” said
Allen. “It is pity that one cannot be sure where the ball
would strike; for notwithstanding the Colonel's theory, who
knows which may fall?”

“It's a difficult question for powder and lead to decide upon,”
said Hilson. “I think it likely both might fall.”

“Both might miss,” said Spiffard.

“Not likely,” said Hilson, looking seriously at Cooper.
“The science is brought to great perfection. The hair-trigger
was a great invention. Steam engines and spinning-jennies
are nothing to it. Formerly if a man's nerves happened to be
a little the worse for wear and tear, or constitutionally trepidationally
inclined, he was sure to turn the muzzle of his pistol out
of line by the exertion of the pulling trigger; but now, though
he shakes like an aspen leaf, or the hand of an old tippler when
lifting the first glass, if he is only quick upon the word, and
brings his muzzle within a foot of the horizontal—touch!
whiz!—the lead must tell—if both parties fire—both may fall.”

“Spiffard! give us a song,” said Cooper.

“Yes. But Colonel, you said that the two gentlemen you
mentioned, fired repeatedly.”

“They did. But the seconds were determined to bring the
affair to a happy conclusion, and finding that the light failed
fast, they brought their principals up to three paces.”

Spiffard looked upon the carpet, and seemed to measure the
distance, as he said, “Three paces!”

The Colonel proceeded, “It is all nonsense and stuff not to
settle these things when you have begun, you know; so at the
three paces, the word was given to fire.”

“Well?”

“Johnson missed his antagonist, and Brown's fire was reserved
by the circumstance of his second having neglected to
cock his pistol.”

“Well?”

“So, the second did his duty by cocking the pistol, and all
Brown had to do was coolly to put the ball through Johnson's
body.”

“Horrible!” ejaculated Spiffard, “and the seconds stood by—
and—”

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

“My good fellow what could they do? Johnson was asked
to apologize.”

“Well,—and he,—?”

“Said, fire away; and there was an end of it. Mr. Cooke,
pass that bottle.”

“What! pass it without filling!” demanded the host.

“I drink no more wine to-day,” and the veteran emphatically
turned his glass bottom upwards.

“Mr. Cooke, here is brandy,” said Hilson, very gravely
offering it. Cooke looked up from under the heavy folds of
his eye lids, and then laughing good naturedly said, “Tom,
you are a big blackguard.”

“What?” said Cooper, “has Hilson offered you the empty
brandy bottle! George, more brandy!”

“Ah, you was a pretty set of fellows!”

“But Linstock and Alcort the duellists you first mentioned
are both alive, I know,” remarked Spiffard.

“Linstock hit general Alcort three times without bringing
him down, and these rude thumps,—(although the general did
not mind a pistol ball more than the proboscis of a musquito,)
prevented his steady aim—he couldn't touch his mark. A man
must be iron, you know, to be perfectly unmoved when another
is breaking his shins with leaden bullets.”

Spiffard told Cooper that he wanted to speak with him in
private. They accordingly withdrew.

“There he goes now to show Cooper Captain Smith's letter—
I think it is Captain Smith, is it not Allen?”

“Yes, captain of a merchantman, sailing out of Philadelphia.”

“Did you mark how miserable Spiff looked while the Colonel
kindly described, and mercifully dwelt upon the particulars
of the bloody encounter in Love-lane? Colonel, did you
note how his jaw fell when you shot Johnson?”

“I hope,” said Simpson, who had taken little part in the
plot, and had been a silent observer, “You will not carry the
joke too far.”

“What? Are you afraid that Captain Smith will shoot Spiff!”

“He has more to fear from his good natured friends than
from Captain Smith. Torture is worse than death.”

“Torture and death! What say you, Allen? As you made
John Smith, I suppose you can prevent his committing murder
or inflicting torture?”

“He will obey his maker doubtless,” said Allen, “as all
men should.”

“Not if he is like most men,” said Cooke. “But what is all

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

this? What does it all mean? Who is captain John Smith?
Tom, who is he?”

“He is a man of straw, or buckram. A buckram-man,
sir John; don't you remember little Spiff bullying two men in
the boxes?” said Hilson.

“Yes. Two blackguards.”

“One of them proves to be captain John Smith, master of
the good ship—what's her name, Allen?”

“ `Anna Matilda,' trading between Philadelphia and Liverpool;
but the captain is a man of spirit and honour.—`Is'nt he,
Moses?' ”

“ `I'll shwear to it,' ” responded Hilson.

“And he requires our friend to make an apology. `Does'nt
he, Moses?' ”

“No doubt of it.”

“He has written to Spiff, who is now consulting Cooper on
the subject.”

“You seem to know all this by intuition. I am sure Mr.
Spiffard said nothing on the subject,” remarked Cooke.

“Now, Mr. Cooke,” said Hilson, “don't you peach. Allen
wrote the letter—he is to conduct the business. And if it
should come to a duel, he will be Spiff's second.”

“Ah, you are a precious set of boys!”

Just then Cooper returned, took his seat, and all were attention.
He said, “I have advised him to let Allen manage the
business; but I consented to accompany him to the Albany
Coffee-house, and witness his interview with John Smith.
After what has passed, I told him, and he thinks, he ought
rather to receive than make apology. So we are to go to-morrow
at eleven o'clock, to meet captain John Smith. He asked
me if I knew any one of that name? I told him I remembered
a dashing fellow in Philadelphia of the name of Smith,
a notorious duellist, and little Spiff has gone home pretty considerably
cogitative.”

“You did not hesitate telling him you knew such a man?”
said Cooke.

“Smith? I do know such a fellow. John Smith or Tom
Smith. Why I have known a hundred of them. I'll bet a
hundred I find a John Smith in every street in town that has a
hundred houses.”

“So,” said Cooke, “This is the way you treat your friends?
Deliver me from such friendship.”

“What! you are not going?”

“Home, to read.”

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

“Say nothing to Spiff.”

“I shall not see him until your hoax is over. You will go
to the Albany Coffee-house, and as you will find no John
Smith, there is an end.”

“I suppose so. Nous verrons.”

“I shall have an eye upon ye, boys,” said the veteran as he
left them.

The young men lost sight of the duel for the present, and indeed
only looked forward to carrying Spiffard on a fool's errand
to the Albany Coffee-bouse, and perhaps having a laugh at his
credulity and serious deportment. He went home, musing,
and was very bad company the remainder of the evening.

p089-279

Previous section

Next section