"Was that whistle intended for _me_, sir?" demanded the Colonel, tragically. "Certainly not," answered Wallace. "I was directing my whistle, which is not a good one, and certainly impolite in company--at the cornice. The cornice is a handsome one, you will notice, Colonel, and I think by Garvey. Those festoons of roses--" "Mr. Wallace, you shall answer to me for this!" broke out the Colonel, now no longer master of himself. "Gentlemen! gentlemen!" said Aunt Martha, rising. "Don't, Frank! for heaven's sake don't torment him any more!" plead Emily, passing rapidly before her lover and speaking in a low tone. Whether he understood her is a question to be settled between them at some future time. "Don't!" is a very easy thing to say, when Niagara is pouring or a herd of wild buffaloes sweeping down; but if the imploration is addressed to either of the moving bodies, it may not win quick obedience. As the human temper is a combination of the torrent, the herd, and all the other unmanageable things in nature and beyond, "Don't!" even from a voice that we love, with right and reason behind it, is sometimes painfully powerless. There is no intention, on the part of the narrator, of defending the previous or subsequent action of Mr. Frank Wallace on this occasion; but actual events must be recorded. "Well sir, and what am I to answer?" asked the young man, without a quiver in his voice, but with much more earnest in it than it had before manifested. "You made an offensive comment on my veracity, by whistling, a moment ago." "And what then, sir?" "That offensive comment shows that you doubt my veracity!" "Gentlemen! gentlemen!" again spoke Aunt Martha; and poor Emily, now half frightened out of her wits, made one more attempt at imploring her lover to be quiet. This done, and both now aware that the tide, on one side at least, had overflowed the bounds of all prudence, they desisted, stepped back from between the rivals, and allowed the quarrel to take its own course. "And suppose I _do_ doubt your veracity!" answered Wallace to the last remark of the Colonel. "You call yourself thirty-two! Bah! you are fifty, if you are ten!" The obvious rage on the countenance of the Colonel did not stop the torrent, now, nor even check it! "Such fine crows'-feet under the eyes, as those of yours, never come much before fifty, except in case of a nice round of brandy-smashes, late hours and general dissipation, or--" "Well, sir, what is the _or_?" broke out the Colonel, still more furious. "A severe course of early piety!" concluded the young man, throwing a terrible sting into the tail of his sentence, not less by the manner than the voice. "You should answer for this, Mr. Wallace, as you call yourself," foamed the Colonel--"but--" "But _what_, Lieut. Colonel Bancker--as you _try_ to call yourself?" thundered the young man, in reply.