"Not for my heart's blood," fervently ejaculated Mr. Basher. Rosina's glance at him brought out that sentence unbroken, and for a moment left the colonel quite disconcerted. Returning, however, like a veteran to the charge, he rejoined with snapping eyes, (snapping _is_ just the word, so don't interrupt me:) "_Your_ heart's blood! Nor for mine, perhaps?" "Yours, colonel?--ha--'pon my word--ha--Yes, if you'll engage to shed it--ha--" "Out with it, man," cried the general. "Yourself." "Capital! By the gods of war, that is a new way of fighting!" Colonel Dolickem was confused and baffled. There's not a doubt of it. How could he say that he was not ready to shed the last drop of his blood to obtain possession of that rose, coming, as it did, from the hand of Rosina? Vainly beating his brains for an evasive reply, he could do nothing meanwhile but carry two or three mouthfuls from his plate to his mouth, after that ugly fashion of his, as you know, upon his knife, and snarl. Now, as a general rule, it is not the thing, as I have already said, to feed one's self with one's knife. As a particular and special rule, never attempt it when you are nervous or disturbed in mind. Don't, you'll cut yourself. That is why the colonel, his hand trembling with suppressed rage, cut himself. In vain he attempted to hide it; the blood trickled down upon his chin, and was quickly seen by that irrepressible Miss Boggles, who cried out in alarm: "O Colonel Dolickem! you have cut yourself!" "Done, done!" cried the general. "Chivalry, my dear colonel, had no knight like you! Blood is shed at the first blast of the trumpet, and, according to the most extraordinary terms of this fray, by your own hand. Basher, you're conquered. Sacrifice the rose!" {132} Poor Basher did as he was bidden, and slowly, with great reluctance, drew the flower from its place, and held it across the table for the colonel's acceptance, saying: "It is the greatest sacrifice--ha I--ha--ever--" "Mr. Basher," said Rosina, with an approving smile, "you are the soul of honor." But the colonel heeded not the outstretched arm of Mr. Basher, and the rose for which he bled, I am sorry to say, dropped from Mr. Basher's hand into a dish of tomatoes. What could the colonel do? Nothing, I think, but what he did--rise with a lofty and majestic air, look a black thunder-cloud of wrath at Mr. John Basher, say to Papa Criggles, with his handkerchief to his mouth, "Under the circumstances," and then get out of the house, and into a towering passion as he drove home. Next day he took the first train for Washington. It was in the conservatory again, at about 2.20 A.M., that Mr. John Basher tried if the timid and trusting Rosina Criggles could refuse _him_. She couldn't, as I have already told you. He got as far as "Will you have--" and she added, "Me for your own," and there was an end of it. "So the sacrifice of Mr. Basher did not consist in popping the question?" "By no means. Who ever said it did?"