She hath, moreover, a taste for dalliance, and my brave looks and martial trappings did for her what her bold eyes had done for me.

We were becoming the sweetest friends, when, like an incarnate fiend, that loutish clown, her lover, sweeps down upon us, and, with more jealousy than wit, struck me--struck me, Harry Hogan! Soul of my body, think of it, Cris!" And he grew red with anger at the recollection.

"I took him by the collar of his mean smock and flung him into the kennel--the fittest bed he ever lay in.

Had he remained there it had been well for him; but the fool, accounting himself affronted, came up to demand satisfaction.

I gave it him, and plague on it--he's dead!" "An ugly tale," was Crispin's sour comment.
"Ugly, maybe," returned Hogan, spreading out his palms, "but what choice had I?
The fool came at me, bilbo in hand, and I was forced to draw.' "But not to slay, Hogan!" "Twas an accident.