Hor. You are too hasty: it happened before company; in such cases, friends, or any gentlemen present, should interpose and take care, that if threatening words ensue, they are, by the civil authority, both put under arrest; and before they came to uncourteous language, they ought to have been parted by friendly force, if it were possible. After that, overtures may be made of reconciliation with the nicest regard to the point of honour. Cleo. I do not ask for directions to prevent a quarrel; what you say may be done, or it may not be done: The good offices of friends may succeed, and they may not succeed. I am to make what suppositions I think fit within the verge of possibility, so they are reasonable and consistent with the character I have drawn: can we not suppose these two persons in such a situation that you yourself would advise your friend to send his adversary a challenge? Hor. Without doubt such a thing may happen. Cleo. That is enough. After that a duel must ensue, in which, without determining any thing, the fine gentleman, we will say, behaves himself with the utmost gallantry. Hor. To have suspected or supposed otherwise would have been unreasonable. Cleo. You see, therefore, how fair I am. But what is it, pray, that so suddenly disposes a courteous sweet-tempered man, for so small an evil, to seek a remedy of that extreme violence? But above all, what is it that buoys up and supports him against the fear of death? for there lies the greatest difficulty. Hor. His natural courage and intrepidity, built on the innocence of his life, and the rectitude of his manners. Cleo. But what makes so just and prudent a man, that has the good of society so much at heart, act knowingly against the laws of his country? Hor. The strict obedience he pays to the laws of honour, which are superior to all others. Cleo. If men of honour would act confidently, they ought all to be Roman Catholics. Hor. Why, pray? Cleo. Because they prefer oral tradition to all written laws: for nobody can tell when, in what king's or emperor's reign, in what country, or by what authority these laws of honour were first enacted: it is very strange they should be of such force. Hor. They are wrote and engraved in every ones breast that is a man of honour: there is no denying of it; you are conscious of it yourself; every body feels it within.