DUEL WITH THE SQUIRE. 



see every day, unless, indeed, we put all the -world 

 down as swindlers, And I cannot but think, and 

 many will think Av r ith me, that Lord George -was in 

 the wrong in making so grave an accusation without 

 being able to substantiate it. It would seem rather 

 to have been a novel and good way of settling one's 

 debts without payment. I am sure that no one who 

 ever knew 'the Squire,' will imagine for a moment 

 that he was capable of doing anything approaching 

 an ungentlemanly action. That he was constantly 

 in the habit of doing foolish ones, I admit, and 

 was oftener swindled, and in a variety of ways, than 

 most men, and, indeed, lost a fortune through the 

 duplicity of others. But he remained to the last, 

 though poor, an upright, straightforward, honest 

 English gentleman, and would never have asked 

 Lord George, or anyone else, for anything that he 

 did not know he was fairly entitled to receive. To 

 my thinking, and I shall not be alone in the con- 

 clusion, his lordship should either have paid the 

 squire, or given proof that he was not indebted to 

 him in some other way than the brusque one of 

 saying, ' You swindled me out of it.' His behaviour 

 in the duel itself, on the other hand, gave proof, not 

 needed, of the possession of courage and a superb 

 nonchalance. But so much cannot be said as to the 

 origin of it. For his lordship, if he felt himself 

 aggrieved, could have appealed to the tribunal that is 

 open to other people who have disputed bets. That 



