Some people actually tried to combat my resolution by telling me what a shameless profligate Stephen Monkton had been--as if I had a strong personal interest in hunting out his remains! Ridicule moved me as little as any arguments of this sort; my mind was made up, and I was as obstinate then as I am now.
In two days' time I had got everything ready, and had ordered the traveling carriage to the door some hours earlier than we had originally settled.

We were jovially threatened with "a parting cheer" by all our English acquaintances, and I thought it desirable to avoid this on my friend's account; for he had been more excited, as it was, by the preparations for the journey than I at all liked.

Accordingly, soon after sunrise, without a soul in the street to stare at us, we privately left Naples.
Nobody will wonder, I think, that I experienced some difficulty in realizing my own position, and shrank instinctively from looking forward a single day into the future, when I now found myself starting, in company with "Mad Monkton," to hunt for the body of a dead duelist all along the frontier line of the Roman States!.