Seated at a table in the corner, Onions recounted his story, and eat his lamb and peas between whiles. Mr. Henry treated him also to some cherry tart. Onions eat and talked, and exploded into bursts of laughter, contagious to see and hear. The diners in the room turned and looked; there seemed some danger of his going into a fit himself. It was the duel he was telling of, and Mr. Henry, when the boy first began, truly thought he was recounting a fable: though it is possible, having been acclimatized to Germany, that he did not feel so shocked at the idea of the duel as the other masters might have felt; say the Reverend Mr. Jebb, for instance, or Dr. Brabazon. "You see, when they asked me and Lord Shrewsbury to stand seconds, we didn't much like it. Suppose one of them had got killed? But it was of no use our saying a syllable: Gall and Loftus are both just as obstinate as pigs, and a comet with a fiery tail wouldn't have turned either of them. They thought their honour was involved, you see. Oh, and what do you think? Dick went into the sea during a gale, and was all but drowned." "Dick was!" "And Paradyne saved him," continued Onions, having got out of one tale into another. "Nobody saw Dick go in, or knew he was in, until his cries were heard. It was too rough for bathers to venture that day, and the Sauvetage boat was not on duty, but Dick thought he'd try it on the sly. And there he was, drowning without help! While the rest of us were rushing about wildly to find the men, Paradyne quietly threw off his jacket, plunged in, and went swimming after him—and a deuce of a long way Dick had drifted out with the tide. He is a brave fellow after all, that Paradyne. You should have heard the cheers when he came in with Dick!" Mr. Henry was leaning back in his chair, absorbed in the narrative—a hectic flush on his cheeks, a glowing light in his eyes. Praises of George Paradyne stirred every fibre of his heart. "George never said a word of this in his letter to me." "Oh, I daresay not; he's not a fellow to talk of himself," was Mr. Leek's answer. "You never saw such a swimmer. Well, Dick was saved. We wondered afterwards whether, if he had been drowned, it would have stopped the duel." "And the duel really took place? It seems past all belief," continued Mr. Henry. And Onions, his mouth full of pie, went into convulsions again, and upset the beer. When the choking was over, he continued his account.