"I got the old rag up somehow. 'Round this, men!' I yelled, jumping on the Colonel's dead charger. Get round, ye blanky blanks!' Then I saw this boy-girl chap grinning above me. 'Slash away!' I roared. 'Here's one for yourself!' and I jabbed the staff in his mug. 'No,' says he, as jolly as you like, 'I don't fight with poultry!' And dam-my-soul!-- if he don't sneak his hand under the rag and tweak my nose!--this nose!" the Parson squeaked, tapping it--"this nose upon this face! this nose I'm talking to you out o now! And he jumped that wallopin old white out the way he came. 'Come along, children,' says he. 'You've had quite enough for one meal.' And away he goes, laughing like the devil, his blessed pathriots after him." CHAPTER XXXIII FIGHTING FITZ The tempest in the Parson's wrathful blue eyes subsided. "Yes, that was my first real meeting with Fighting Fitz." "Was that Fighting Fitz?" cried the boy, ablaze. He had heard, as who had not, of the brilliant young Irishman whom Napoleon had called the first light cavalryman in Europe after Marengo. "That was Fighting Fitz of Green Brigade fame," said the Parson, mopping his forehead. "We knew him as the Boy Sabreur in Egypt. Even then it was said that no woman could resist him, and no man stand up against him. He went out with young de Beauharnais, Boney's step-son, and ran him through the body; and he carried on an intrigue with ... but there! there!... When he was First Consul, Boney decorated him before the Army, and disgraced him within the year. They said the little Corporal began to be jealous: the men worshipped Fitz.... Anyway I know it'll be the regret of my life that I missed my chance when I first met him." He sighed profoundly. "But you met him again, didn't you, sir?" The Parson nodded. "Last month. I was up on Beachy Head with the spy-glass, when I saw the _Kite_ beating up for Cuckmere Haven. So I ran down to Birling Gap thinking--thinking--" he coughed--"she might a--a--be bringing me a little present from France--a bit o bacca, or dallop o tea, or what not, ye know.... What ye say?" He turned on the boy savagely. "I didn't say anything," replied Kit, astonished. The Parson scowled. "Well, as I swung round into the cutting I nearly ran into a chap on a chestnut--quite the Corinthian, with a bit o red riband stuck on his stomach. I brought up sharp on my heels. "'Well, my fine fellow,' thinks I, 'what you posing here for?--and why's that mare in a lather?' But before I could say anything-- "'Hullo!' says he, 'I think I should know that nose.' "'What ye mean?' says I, pretty sharp. "'Why,' says he, 'I once had the pleasure of pulling it.' "Then he laughed. And directly he laughed of course I knew. "I put my hand upon my sword. "'And what you doing attitudinising in _my_ land, my lord?' says I, the bristles at the back of my neck rising. 'Play-acting your Caesar about to conquer Britain by the look o you!'