I remained at first nearly upright, not availing myself in the least of my superiority in height, and only acting on the defensive. Calton played well enough for a gentleman; but he was no match for one who had, at the age of thirteen, beat the Life Guardsmen at Angelo's. Suddenly, when I had excited a general laugh at the clumsy success with which I warded off a most rapid attack of Calton's, I changed my position, and keeping Calton at arm's length till I had driven him towards a corner, I took advantage of a haughty imprudence on his part, and by a common enough move in the game, drew back from a stroke aimed at my limbs, and suffered the whole weight of my weapon to fall so heavily upon his head, that I felled him to the ground in an instant. I was sorry for the severity of the stroke, the moment after it was inflicted; but never was punishment more deserved. We picked up the discomfited hero, and placed him on a chair to recover his senses; meanwhile I received the congratulations of the conclave with a frank alteration of manner which delighted them; and I found it impossible to get away, till I had promised to dine with Dartmore, and spend the rest of the evening in the society of his friends. CHAPTER XLIX. Heroes mischievously gay, Lords of the street and terrors of the way, Flush'd as they are with folly, youth, and wine. --Johnson's London. Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te--his humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. --Shakspeare. I went a little after seven o'clock to keep my dinner engagement at---'s; for very young men are seldom unpunctual at dinner. We sat down, six in number, to a repast at once incredibly bad, and ridiculously extravagant; turtle without fat--venison without flavour--champagne with the taste of a gooseberry, and hock with the properties of a pomegranate. [Note: Pomum valde purgatorium.] Such is the constant habit of young men: they think any thing expensive is necessarily good, and they purchase poison at a dearer rate than the most medicine-loving hypochondriac in England.