There was a laugh for the speaker before him. "You see, sir," cried a noted lawyer, "Brutus and Cato, Helvidius, Decius, and Aurelius, and all the noble Romans died before duelling came in! 'Sir, the editor of the--ahem!--newspaper, I take exception to this statement in your pages.' 'Sir, I refer you to Junius Brutus. Answer, Roman!' Never a sound from Limbo!--'Sir, Decius has grossly misrepresented. Where shall I send my challenge?' 'To Hades, no less! Not the least use in knocking up John Randolph of Roanoke.'--'Sir, I am at odds with Aurelius. Pray favour me with the gentleman's address.' 'Sir, he left no name. You see, he lived so long ago!'" Amid the laugh that followed, Cary turned a smiling face upon the speaker. "_I_ will answer, Mr. Wickham, for Aurelius. Do you really want to challenge me?" He slightly changed his position so as to confront Rand's table. "In this instance, Mr. Rand, I am certain there was no fear." His speech, heard of all, wrought in various ways. Mocket the day before had not exaggerated the general interest in the letter signed "Aurelius." Now at Lynch's there arose a small tumult of surprise, acclaim, enthusiasm, and dissent. His friends broke into triumph, his political enemies--he had few others--strove for a deeper frown and a growling note. The only indifferent in Lynch's was Adam Gaudylock, who smoked tranquilly on, not having read the letter in question nor being concerned with Roman history. Lewis Rand sat in silence with compressed lips, bodily there in the lit coffee room, but the inner man far away on the mind's dark plains, struggling with the fiend that dogged him. Fairfax Cary's cheek glowed and his eyes shone. He looked at his brother, then poured a glass of wine and raised it to his lips. "Wait, Fairfax! We'll all drink with you!" cried a neighbour. "Gentlemen and Federalists, glasses!--Ludwell Cary, and may he live to hear his children's children read 'Aurelius'!" The Federalists drank the toast with acclaim, while the Republicans with equal ostentation did no such thing. Mr. Pincornet in his corner, hearing the words "Gentlemen" and "Cary," drank with gusto his very thin wine, and Adam drank because he had always liked the Carys and certainly had no grudge against "Aurelius," whoever he might be. In the first lull of sound the man at the table with Lewis Rand spoke in a loud, harsh, but agreeable voice. "Well, Mr. Cary, the staunchest of Republicans, though he can't drink that toast, need not deny praise to a masterpiece of words. Words, sir, not facts. What I want to know is at whom--not at what, at _whom_--you were firing? I thought once that Aaron Burr was your mark. But he's too light metal--a mere buccaneer! That broadside of yours would predicate a general foe--and I'm damned if I wouldn't like to know his name!" "We would all like to know his name," said Rand. "And when we know it, I for one would like to hear Mr. Cary's proofs of faithlessness to obligations."