"
"Which refutes another base scandal," said Lord Dalgarno, laughing,
"alleging that linen was scarce among the French gentlemen-at-arms."
"Gentlemen out at arms and elbows both, you mean, my lord," said the
captain, from the bottom of the table." Craving your lordship's
pardon, I do know something of these same gens-d'armes."
"We will spare your knowledge at present, captain, and save your
modesty at the same time the trouble of telling us how that knowledge
was acquired," answered Lord Dalgarno, rather contemptuously.
"I need not speak of it, my lord," said the man of war; "the world
knows it--all perhaps, but the men of mohair--the poor sneaking
citizens of London, who would see a man of valour eat his very hilts
for hunger, ere they would draw a farthing from their long purses to
relieve them. O, if a band of the honest fellows I have seen were once
to come near that cuckoo's nest of theirs!"
"A cuckoo's nest!-and that said of the city of London!" said a gallant
who sat on the opposite side of the table, and who, wearing a splendid
and fashionable dress, seemed yet scarce at home in it--"I will not
brook to hear that repeated."
"What!" said the soldier, bending a most terrific frown from a pair of
broad black eyebrows, handling the hilt of his weapon with one hand,
and twirling with the other his huge mustaches; "will you quarrel for
your city?"
"Ay, marry will I," replied the other.
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