"
"What would you have them do, Cap? The longer an affair of this sort
is agitated, the more offensive it becomes! Besides, chivalry is out
of date! The knights-errant are all dead."
"The men are all dead! If any ever really lived!" cried Cap, in a
fury. "Heaven knows I am inclined to believe them to have been a
fabulous race like that of the mastodon or the centaur! I certainly
never saw a creature that deserved the name of man! The very first
of your race was the meanest fellow that ever was heard of--ate the
stolen apple and when found out laid one half of the blame on his
wife and the other on his Maker--'The woman whom thou gavest me' did
so and so--pah! I don't wonder the Lord took a dislike to the race
and sent a flood to sweep them all off the face of the earth! I will
give you one more chance to retrieve your honor--in one word, now--
will you fight that man?"
"My dear little cousin, I would do anything in reason to vindicate
the assailed manhood of my whole sex, but really, now--"
"Will you fight that man? One word--yes or no?"
"Tut, Cap! you are a very reckless young woman! You--it's your
nature--you are an incorrigible madcap! You bewitch a poor wretch
until he doesn't know his head from his heels--puts his feet into
his hat and covers his scalp with his boots! You are a will-o'-the-
wisp who lures a poor fellow on through woods, bogs and briars,
until you land him in the quicksands! You whirl him around and
around until he grows dizzy and delirious, and talks at random, and
then you'd have him called out, you blood-thirsty little vixen! I
tell you, Cousin Cap, if I were to take up all the quarrels your
hoydenism might lead me into, I should have nothing else to do!"
"Then you won't fight!"
"Can't, little cousin! I have a wife and family, which are powerful
checks upon a man's duelling impulses!"
"Silence! You are no cousin of mine--no drop of your sluggish blood
stagnates in my veins--no spark of the liquid fire of my life's
current burns in your torpid arteries, else at this insult would it
set you in a flame! Never dare to call me cousin again.
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