CHAPTER XIII.
DISAPPOINTMENT.
_Evans._ I pray you now, good Master Slender's serving-man, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for Master Caius?
_Slender._ Marry, sir, the City-ward, the Park-ward, every way; Old Windsor way, and every way.
_Merry Wives of Windsor._ Sir Bingo Binks received the Captain's communication with the same dogged sullenness he had displayed at sending the challenge; a most ungracious _humph_, ascending, as it were, from the very bottom of his stomach, through the folds of a Belcher handkerchief, intimating his acquiescence, in a tone nearly as gracious as that with which the drowsy traveller acknowledges the intimation of the slipshod ostler, that it is on the stroke of five, and the horn will sound in a minute.

Captain MacTurk by no means considered this ejaculation as expressing a proper estimate of his own trouble and services.

"Humph ?" he replied; "and what does that mean, Sir Bingo?
Have not I here had the trouble to put you just into the neat road; and would you have been able to make a handsome affair out of it at all, after you had let it hang so long in the wind, if I had not taken on myself to make it agreeable to the gentleman, and cooked as neat a mess out of it as I have seen a Frenchman do out of a stale sprat ?" Sir Bingo saw it was necessary to mutter some intimation of acquiescence and acknowledgment, which, however inarticulate, was sufficient to satisfy the veteran, to whom the adjustment of a personal affair of this kind was a labour of love, and who now, kindly mindful of his promise to Tyrrel, hurried away as if he had been about the most charitable action upon earth, to secure the attendance of some one as a witness on the stranger's part.
Mr.Winterblossom was the person whom MacTurk had in his own mind pitched upon as the fittest person to perform this act of benevolence, and he lost no time in communicating his wish to that worthy gentleman.
But Mr.Winterblossom, though a man of the world, and well enough acquainted with such matters, was by no means so passionately addicted to them as was the man of peace, Captain Hector MacTurk.

As a _bon vivant_, he hated trouble of any kind, and the shrewd selfishness of his disposition enabled him to foresee, that a good deal might accrue to all concerned in the course of this business.

He, therefore, coolly replied, that he knew nothing of Mr.Tyrrel--not even whether he was a gentleman or not; and besides, he had received no regular application in his behalf--he did not, therefore, feel himself at all inclined to go to the field as his second.