To measure out the ground not long The seconds then forbore, And having taken one rash step They took a dozen more. They next prepared each pistol-pan Against the deadly strife, By putting in the prime of death Against the prime of life. Now all was ready for the foes, But when they took their stands, Fear made them tremble so they found They both were shaking hands. Said Mr. C. to Mr. B., Here one of us may fall, And like St. Paul’s Cathedral now, Be doom’d to have a ball. I do confess I did attach Misconduct to your name; If I withdraw the charge, will then Your ramrod do the same? Said Mr. B., I do agree-- But think of Honour’s Courts! If we go off without a shot, There will be strange reports. But look, the morning now is bright, Though cloudy it begun; Why can’t we aim above, as if We had call’d out the sun? So up into the harmless air, Their bullets they did send; And may all other duels have That upshot in the end! [Illustration: EXCHANGING--RECEIVING THE DIFFERENCE.] THE ROPE DANCER. AN EXTRAVAGANZA,--AFTER RABELAIS. I am going, my masters, to tell you a strange romantic, aye, necromantic, sort of story--and yet every monosyllable of it is as true as the Legend of Dumpsius. If you should think otherwise, I cannot help it. All I can say is, you are not experte credo, or expert at believing. You must know, then, that on a certain day, of a certain year, certain officers went on certain information, to a certain house, in a certain court, in a certain city, to take up a certain Italian for a certain crime. What gross fools are they who say there is nothing certain in this world! However, in they went, with a crash and a dash, and a grip and a grapple, and if they did not take him by the scruff of the neck, like a dog, there is no truth in St. Winifred’s Well. He made no resistance, not so much as a left-hander, though he was by trade a smasher. As for any verbal defence, he never so much as attempted to lay a lie, much less to hatch one. There he was, caught in the very thing, act and fact, as poor a devil as need be to be making money. He was as dead as any die he had about him: as sure of a gallows and a rope, as if he had paid for them down on the nail of before-hand. Oh, ye City Crœsuses, what think ye of a man having his quantum suffocate of twisted hemp for making money! For my own part, if I was to swing for saying so, I’d cry out like a Stentor, that one of God’s images ought not to be made worm’s meat of for only washing the King’s face. ’Twould be a very hard-boiled case, and yet, ’fore Gog and Magog, so it was. For gilding a brass farthing he was to change twelve stone of good human flesh to a clod of clay; to change a jolly, laughing, smiling, grinning, crying, wondering, staring, face-making face for a