They had
succeeded in separating "very friends," and had arranged a hostile
meeting; but, through the intervention of better men, and without their
cognisance, the principals entered into explanation, and, finding that
they had been misled, mutually agreed to fire at the seconds, who had
made the mischief. One Blab received a bullet in the calf of his leg,
and the other a _ping_ close to his whiskers; and then the combatants
said that their honour was satisfied, and the party broke up.
Some years ago there lived in our village an individual who was known to
us as _Brawnging_ Bill. Does not the epithet describe the man? As you
pronounce it, does not William's photograph present itself to your
mental eye? A large, obese, idle _hulk_ of a man (fine old Saxon word,
that _hulc_!) lounging about with his hands in his pockets and a pipe in
his mouth; a man who talks at the top of his voice, and laughs the loud
laugh which tells the vacant mind, and lies with such volubility that
you would think truth was a fool. Eloquent, didactic, imperious was he
in the taproom and by the blacksmith's forge, in the quoit-yard and in
the alley of skittles, and yet, whene'er his tongue led him into
trouble, and there was whisper of peril to that fat form of his, at the
first utterance of a threat, the first sign of aggressive anger, there
was a dissolving view of our Brawnging Bill.
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