Volume I Part 34 (1/2)
”Neither new nor old. I mean, simply, that I have changed my mind.”
”But this is very extraordinary!” said Rossitur. ”What reason do you give?”
”I give none, Sir.”
”In that case,” said Captain Beebee, ”perhaps Mr. Carleton will not object to explain or unsay the things which gave offence yesterday.”
”I apprehend there is nothing to explain, Sir ? I think I must have been understood; and I never take back my words, for I am in the habit of speaking the truth.”
”Then we are to consider this as a further unprovoked unmitigated insult, for which you will give neither reason nor satisfaction!” cried Rossitur.
”I have already disclaimed that, Mr. Rossitur.”
”Are we, on mature deliberation, considered unworthy of the honour you so condescendingly awarded to us yesterday?”
”My reasons have nothing to do with you, Sir, nor with your friend; they are entirely personal to myself.”
”Mr. Carleton must be aware,” said Captain Beebee, ”that his conduct, if unexplained, will bear a very strange construction.”
Mr. Carleton was coldly silent.
”It never was heard of,” the Captain went on, ”that a gentleman declined both to explain and to give satisfaction for any part of his conduct which had called for it.”
”It never was heard that a _gentleman_ did,” said Thorn, removing his cigar a moment, for the purpose of supplying the emphasis, which his friend had carefully omitted to make.
”Will you say, Mr. Carleton,” said Rossitur, ”that you did not mean to offend us yesterday, in what you said?”
”No, Mr. Rossitur.”
”You will not!” cried the Captain.
”No Sir; for your friends had given me, as I conceived, just cause of displeasure; and I was, and am, careless of offending those who have done so.”
”You consider yourself aggrieved, then, in the first place?”
said Beebee.
”I have said so, Sir.”
”Then,” said the Captain, after a puzzled look out to sea, ”supposing that my friends disclaim all intention to offend you, in that case ?”
”In that case I should be glad, Captain Beebee, that they had changed their line of tactics ? there is nothing to change in my own.”
”Then what are we to understand by this strange refusal of a meeting, Mr. Carleton? what does it mean?”
”It means one thing in my own mind, Sir, and probably another in yours; but the outward expression I choose to give it is, that I will not reward uncalled-for rudeness with an opportunity of self-vindication.”
”You are,” said Thorn, sneeringly, ”probably careless as to the figure your own name will cut in connection with this story?”
”Entirely so,” said Mr. Carleton, eyeing him steadily.
”You are aware that your character is at our mercy.”