Here Bentley sneezed and coughed both together and came nigh choking outright (a highly dangerous thing in one of his weight), which necessitated my loosening his steenkirk and thumping him betwixt the shoulder-blades, while Jack strode up and down, swearing under his breath, and Mr. Tawnish took another pinch of snuff. "French sauce, by heaven!" cries Jack suddenly, "did any man ever hear the like of it?--French sauce!" and herewith he snatched off his wig and trampled upon it, and Bentley choked himself purple again. I will admit that Jack's round bullet head, with its close-cropped, grizzled hair standing on end, would have been a whimsical, not to say laughable sight in any other (Bentley for instance)--but Jack in a rage is no laughable matter. "By the Lord, sir," cries he, turning upon Mr. Tawnish, who sat cross-legged, regarding everything with the same mild wonderment--"by the Lord! I'd call you out for that French sauce if I thought you were a fighting man." "Heaven forfend!" exclaimed Mr. Tawnish, with a gesture of horror, "violence of all kinds is abhorrent to my nature, and I have always regarded the duello as a particularly clumsy and illogical method of settling a dispute." Hereupon Jack looked about him in a helpless sort of fashion, as indeed well he might, and catching sight of his wig lying in the middle of the floor, promptly kicked it into a corner, which seemed to relieve him somewhat, for he went to it and, picking it up again, knocked out the dust upon his knee, and setting it on very much over one eye, sat himself down again, flushed and panting, but calm. "Mr. Tawnish," says he, "as regards my daughter, I must ask--nay demand--that you cease your persecution of her once and for all." "Sir John," says Mr. Tawnish, bowing across the table, "allow me to suggest in the most humble and submissive manner, that the word 'persecution' is perhaps a trifle--I say just a trifle--unwarranted." "Be that as it may, sir, I repeat it, nevertheless," says Jack, "and furthermore I must insist that you communicate no more with the Lady Penelope either by poetry or--or any other means." "Alas!" sighs Mr. Tawnish, "cheat myself as I may, the possibility will obtrude itself that you do not look upon my suit with quite the degree of warmth I had hoped. Sir, I am not perfect, few of us are, but even you will grant that I am not altogether a savage?" As he ended, he helped himself to another pinch of snuff with a pretty, delicate air such as a lady would use in taking a comfit; indeed his hand, small and elegantly shaped, whose whiteness was accentuated by the emerald and ruby ring upon his finger, needed no very strong effort of fancy to be taken for a woman's outright. I saw Jack's lip curl and his nostrils dilate at its very prettiness. "There be worse things than savages, sir," says he, pointedly.