Falconer of Balmawhapple,
has craved of my age and experience, as of one not wholly unskilled in
the dependencies and punctilios of the duello or monomachia, to be his
interlocutor in expressing to you the regret with which he calls to
remembrance certain passages of our symposion last night, which could
not but be highly displeasing to you, as serving for the time under this
present existing government. He craves you, sir, to drown in oblivion
the memory of such solecisms against the laws of politeness, as being
what his better reason disavows, and to receive the hand which he offers
you in amity; and I must needs assure you, that nothing less than a
sense of being DANS SON TORT, as a gallant French chevalier, Mons, Le
Bretailleur, once said to me on such an occasion, and an opinion also
of your peculiar merit, could have extorted such concessions; for he and
all his family are, and have been time out of mind, MAVORTIA PECTORA, as
Buchanan saith, a bold and warlike sept, or people.'
Edward immediately, and with natural politeness, accepted the hand which
Balmawhapple, or rather the Baron in his character of mediator, extended
towards him. 'It was impossible,' he said, 'for him to remember what
a gentleman expressed his wish he had not uttered; and he willingly
imputed what had passed to the exuberant festivity of the day.
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