The writer of the letter from Bombay, signed Ormont, was a born subject for the antithetical craftsmen's tricky springes.
He was, additionally, of infamous repute for morale in burgess estimation, from his having a keen appreciation of female beauty and a prickly sense of masculine honour.

The stir to his name roused pestilential domestic stories.

In those days the aristocrat still claimed licence, and eminent soldier-nobles, comporting themselves as imitative servants of their god Mars, on the fields of love and war, stood necessarily prepared to vindicate their conduct as the field of the measured paces, without deeming themselves bounden to defend the course they took.

Our burgess, who bowed head to his aristocrat, and hired the soldier to fight for him, could not see that such mis-behaviour necessarily ensued.

Lord Ormont had fought duels at home and abroad.