'The young lady?' Wogan had told Rose Townley of how he saved the life of a Colonel Montague, and to-night he had informed her that this Colonel was the man. She had been standing by his elbow when he had picked his quarrel with Montague. Sure she had overheard and had interfered to prevent it. 'The young lady!' he cried. 'All women are spoil-sports. But, Colonel, you must not believe her. I made a great deal of that story when I told it to Miss Townley. But you would find it a very simple affair if you had it from an eye-witness.' The Colonel shook his head. 'Yet the story was very circumstantial, how you leaped from the barricades--' 'That were but two feet high.' 'And, through a cross fire of bullets, crossed the square to where I lay--' 'The fire was a half charge of duckshot that an old fellow let off by mismanagement from a rusty pistol. Both sides stopped firing the moment I jumped over--the politest thing. I might have been tripping down the Mall with a lady on my arm, for all the danger I ran.' 'But your wounds?' 'I slipped and cut my shin on the sharp cobbles, that's true.' 'Mr. Wogan, it will not do! Had I known your name this evening when Lady Mary made us acquainted, certain expressions properly distasteful to you would not have escaped my lips. But now I can make amends for them to the gallant gentleman who brought a wounded enemy out of a cross-fire. I apologise to you, but I cannot oblige you to the extent you wish, however you may attempt to make light of your courage, and of the obligation on my side.' 'Sure, Colonel, to be done with adornment of the real truth, I only saved such a fine man to have the pleasure of killing him myself.' Here the Colonel broke into a laugh. 'Mr. Wogan, if I drew my sword and stood up before you without making a parry or a lunge, would you kill me?' 'No, indeed, there would be little diversion in that game,' said Wogan, who was now grown quite melancholic. 'Well, that is the utmost you will get from me, I am much pressed for time, and look to find another.' 'Another!' Wogan's failing hopes revived. 'Praise be to the Saints! I see your mistake, and you shall understand it in a twinkling. The other and myself are just one man for these purposes. George is my _alter ego_. We are the greatest friends, and have been taken for each other when we are talking. I'll talk all the time we fight, and you can fancy it is George whose ribs you are trying to tickle.' The Colonel, however, was obdurate, and before Wogan could hit upon a likelier argument both gentlemen heard a cough. Someone was standing on Lady Oxford's doorstep looking towards them. The Colonel coughed in reply, and the figure--it was Mr. Kelly's--waved his hand, and marched, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, toward St. James's Park.