A SCRAPE 227 



box to whom I was addressing myself failed to make 

 me understand my danger. Warming with the subject, 

 I animadverted strongly, and no doubt uidiscreetly, 

 on the conduct of certain inhabitants of a certain 

 portion of the empire. This called forth his intense 

 indignation. Rising from his seat, he came towards the 

 table at which I was sitting, and, putting both his hands 

 uj^on it, said, in a most solemn tone, that he would sit no 

 longer and hear his country and his friends traduced. 

 He insisted on my retracting all I had said, for he con- 

 sidered himself grossly insulted by the remarks I had 

 chosen to make, and stated that he should therefore hold 

 me accountable for them. 



1 must confess to have been a little surprised and 

 perhaps unnerved by the very determined manner in 

 which he delivered himself, and some of my companions 

 stared at him with astonishment. However, soon recover- 

 ing myself, and not at all misconstruing his meaning, I 

 deliberately said, " I am sorry, sir, my conversation has 

 discomposed you, or that any observation I should have 

 made has in the smallest degree outraged your feelings ; 

 but as to retracting what I have said, knowing it to be 

 true, I must decline, as it would be giving myself the lie, 

 and that I will not do for any one." 



" Then, sir, you know the alternative," he observed, 

 and resumed his seat. 



That alternative I knew very well ; consequently, I 

 found myself in an awful scrape : but thinking there was 

 nothing like being open and honest, I at once told him 

 it would not be in my power to comply with his wishes. 



" Why not, sir ? " 



