During the giving of toasts, Mr. Lacy and Charley fell into a quiet chat, only pausing to lift their glasses in courtesy to the authors, ignorant, most of the time, of the sentiment proposed. Lynn was more sedate; from delirium he was relapsing into a comatose state, when he was brought to his feet by a toast to his art, coupled with a neatly turned compliment to himself, from Mr. Thornton. His unpremeditated reply was beautiful and touching. He was under the very spur of genius; rich metaphors, apt classical allusions, and delicate pathos poured from his lips, as thoughts from his brain; his rapt hearers scarcely conscious that he employed the machinery of words. The applause that succeeded the last musical echo was deafening. For a moment, the wild glare that had distressed Morton, disappeared, and with a happy, grateful smile, he bowed his thanks for this spontaneous tribute of approbation and regard. "Egad!" said Pemberton, "you have mistaken your calling, Holmes--you had better burn up your canvass, and take to stump-speaking, you'd make more money by it." Angry frowns and rebuking eyes were directed to the drunken speaker. "If stumps and blockheads claim kindred, I shall not need to go far to exercise my vocation," said Lynn, hotly. "Ha! ha!" laughed the other, with a violent affectation of derision. "Don't be frightened, gentlemen! Mr. Holmes and myself have wrestled upon another battle-field, and I can afford to forgive him, from the soreness of his defeat. Your friend and instructress, that loud-tongued virago, Ida Ross, could not have uttered--" Like a wounded panther, Lynn cleared the table at a bound, and grasped his throat. A general rush was made to the spot, and they were parted before either sustained serious injury. Pemberton had drawn a dirk at the attack, but it was wrested from him by Mr. Lacy. Reconciliation was impossible in the excited state of the combatants. Charley prudently withdrew his friend, relying upon time and reflection to prepare the mind of each for overtures and concessions. Lynn did not speak until they reached his room; then, extricating his arm from Charley's hold, he demanded in a high tone, what had been his object in terminating the conflict. "If not finished there, you know it must be somewhere." "I do not see the necessity," was the reply. "It is a drunken broil, of which you will be ashamed to-morrow. No man in his senses would have noticed him as you did. He shall have a cow-hiding for his last speech; I would not disgrace a more honorable weapon by using it against him. I am mortified, Lynn--I hoped you were learning to control those childish fits of passion." "Am I to be crossed and bullied forever by a meddling fool? Is it not enough that he has helped to wreck my peace, but he must taunt me with it?" cried Lynn passionately. "He ought not to live, and I do not care to!"