MORK COMMON INCIDENTS. 



pushed me aside snatched the pistol I held,, and cried, " Est-ce moi 

 qui en ai menti, polisson que tit es. Je te couperai la Jigure-sacre Per- 

 ruquier!" Then giving a preparatory spit on the ground, he slapped 

 Mynheer's face, in true foreign pugilistic regie. It was too late now 

 to interfere ; nor could the Frenchman have been pacified. He strode 

 away from the groupe wheeled round at twelve paces and my 

 friend and I were compelled to become bottle-holders. 



It was arranged that I should utter, as signals, ' un,' ' deux,' 

 .' trois.' Van Raven levelled as ' un ' fell from my lips ; and before 

 ' deux' could be pronounced, his adversary's hat was perforated by 

 his ball. 



" Sacrecochon!" exclaimed the ?nilitaire, who reduced his prim 

 but well-worn beaver to proper discipline, and levelled his bar- 

 rel as he spoke. 



" You shall reserve your fires, sare," shouted the Heer, " since the 

 triggers of my pistols have shot themselves before I was aware of 

 myself." 



" Vous me pardonnerez, bien," coolly responded the militaire, who, 

 before the expiration of another moment, scientifically buried his 

 bullet in the biceps flexor crurls of his friend. All that humanity 

 could suggest was promptly executed, to alleviate the misfortune of 

 poor Van Raven. We saw him safely conveyed to Clifton,, and 

 there left him with his camaradc. 



Six months after, I learnt that he was united to Eliza's mother, who 

 had previously driven me to the necessity of inducing my beloved to 

 elope. I have since often had occasion to suspect that the appel- 

 lation, ' Perruquier,' bestowed upon him by the hair-trigger amateur, 

 was not quite irrelevant to Van Raven's early professional avocations. 

 The old Lady was no Ninon De 1'Enclos. Long before Van Raven saw 

 her, she had ceased to be fascinating. In fact, she had become des- 

 perately objectionable as the mothers of beauties frequently do, 

 when their daughters come into full bloom to all except those who, 

 blessed with tonic reminiscences, cherish and adore each wrinkle, as 

 being the grave of a by-gone dimple. Her income was, however, 

 not merely nominally inviting to a pecuniary gastronome without a 

 guinea (nothing has transpired, since the marriage, of the Heer's 

 " properties,") but securely fastened by last will and testament (I 

 abhor its horrid clause) on the back of my dear Eliza's estate. He 

 is too phlegmatic to beat his wife or, it may be, that he makes a 

 passably good husband, because the old lady's provision is saddled 

 on the property, only for her own life. His hair, I am told, has be- 

 come more brambly than ever. His nose, however, appears to have 

 been wholly decomposed by the remote and immediate effects of his 

 pop-gun propulsion through the aperture bored by himself in the 

 blackthorn hedge: the nasal feature no longer presents its former 

 pleasing variety of hill and dale, being now flat as the Lincolnshire 

 fens: nor does it retain its once admirably soft, suetty tint; but 

 after having flirted with every intermediate shade, from livid purple 

 to yellowish azure, has permanently assumed that carrion green hue, 

 which, as the Heer has discovered, is supremely attractive to blue- 

 bottles and blow-flies. K. K. 



