But the little hunchback was quicker.
"What young man, sir ?" he cried sharply.

"Do you mean Tristram Salt ?" "I really don't know his name; but he was accompanied, to be sure, by a Captain Salt when I met him at Vlaardingen." Captain Barker groaned.
"But excuse me," pursued the old gentleman in blue, still addressing Captain Runacles, "I spoke not only of a young man, but of a message.
Did he deliver it ?" "If you mean Tristram Salt, I have not clapped eyes on him since the 1st of May last." "Then I will deliver it myself.

You do not appear to know me--" "Not from Adam." "My name is Cornelius van Adrienssen, and you, Captain Runacles, once flung a boot at my head." "Did I, indeed! It was in a moment of extreme irritation, no doubt." "We were engaged off the Texel--June the 5th, '71, was the date.
You were on board the _Galloper_, I on the _Zeelandshoop_.
Night parted us--" "I begin to remember the incident." "Then I need not proceed.

Let me merely remark that I have kept that boot." "Whatever for ?" "What for, sir ?" cried the choleric old gentleman, now fairly hopping with rage.

"What for?
To throw it back, sir--that's why." "My dear Captain van Adrienssen, is not this rather childish?
Twenty years is a long time to harbour resentment." "You shall fight me, sir." "Tut, tut!" "I regret that I have not the boot with me to fling back at you--" "You have a pair on your feet, sir," suggested the Englishman, whose temper was rising.
"-- But this shall do instead!" and taking his glove Captain van Adrienssen dashed it in Captain Runacles' face.
"By the Lord, you shall pay for this!" "I am ready, sir." They tugged off their coats and pulled out their swords.
"Sirs, sirs!" cried the young ensign; "remember you are in his Majesty's park." But before his sentence was out the two swords were crossed, and the old gentlemen attacking each other with the unregulated ardour of a pair of schoolboys.
"Jerry, Jerry," murmured Captain Barker, "you never had much science, but this is fool-work." Captain Runacles heard, straightened his arm and controlled himself.
He had little science, but an extremely tough wrist.