“I have chosen my men like Joshua in the Bible,” said Mr. Morris, “and I now believe I have the pick of London. Your appearance pleased my hansom cabmen; then it delighted me; I have watched your behaviour in a strange company, and under the most unusual circumstances: I have studied how you played and how you bore your losses; lastly, I have put you to the test of a staggering announcement, and you received it like an invitation to dinner. It is not for nothing,” he cried, “that I have been for years the companion and the pupil of the bravest and wisest potentate in Europe.” “At the affair of Bunderchang,” observed the Major, “I asked for twelve volunteers, and every trooper in the ranks replied to my appeal. But a gaming party is not the same thing as a regiment under fire. You may be pleased, I suppose, to have found two, and two who will not fail you at a push. As for the pair who ran away, I count them among the most pitiful hounds I ever met with. Lieutenant Rich,” he added, addressing Brackenbury, “I have heard much of you of late; and I cannot doubt but you have also heard of me. I am Major O’Rooke.” And the veteran tendered his hand, which was red and tremulous, to the young Lieutenant. “Who has not?” answered Brackenbury. “When this little matter is settled,” said Mr. Morris, “you will think I have sufficiently rewarded you; for I could offer neither a more valuable service than to make him acquainted with the other.” “And now,” said Major O’Rooke, “is it a duel?” “A duel after a fashion,” replied Mr. Morris, “a duel with unknown and dangerous enemies, and, as I gravely fear, a duel to the death. I must ask you,” he continued, “to call me Morris no longer; call me, if you please, Hammersmith; my real name, as well as that of another person to whom I hope to present you before long, you will gratify me by not asking and not seeking to discover for yourselves. Three days ago the person of whom I speak disappeared suddenly from home; and, until this morning, I received no hint of his situation. You will fancy my alarm when I tell you that he is engaged upon a work of private justice. Bound by an unhappy oath, too lightly sworn, he finds it necessary, without the help of law, to rid the earth of an insidious and bloody villain. Already two of our friends, and one of them my own born brother, have perished in the enterprise. He himself, or I am much deceived, is taken in the same fatal toils. But at least he still lives and still hopes, as this billet sufficiently proves.” And the speaker, no other than Colonel Geraldine, proffered a letter, thus conceived:—