The Lieutenant's friends and seconds stood close together laughing at some jest.
"That's funny, I'll say, what--what!" said one of the gentlemen.
Jack turned to look at him, for there had been a curious inflection in his "what, what!" He was a stout, highly colored man with large, staring gray eyes.

The young American wondered where he had seen him before.
Preston paced the ground and laid down strips of white ribband marking the distance which was to separate the principals.

He summoned the young men and said: "Gentlemen, is there no way in which your honor can be satisfied without fighting ?" They shook their heads.
"Your stations have been chosen by lot.

Irons, yours is there.

Take your ground, gentlemen." The young men walked to their places and at this point the graphic Major Solomon Binkus, whose keen eyes observed every detail of the scene, is able to assume the position of narrator, the words which follow being from a letter he wrote to John Irons of Albany.
"Our young David stood up thar as straight an' han'some as a young spruce on a still day--not a quiver in ary twig.