“ ‘Blood and thunder!’ roared the other gentleman. With this, he whipped his sword out, and made a lunge at my uncle without further ceremony. My uncle had no weapon about him, but with great dexterity he snatched the ill-looking gentleman’s three-cornered hat from his head, and, receiving the point of his sword right through the crown, squeezed the sides together, and held it tight.

“ ‘Pink him behind!’ cried the ill-looking gentleman to his companion, as he struggled to regain his sword.

“ ‘He had better not,’ cried my uncle, displaying the heel of one of his shoes, in a threatening manner. ‘I’ll kick his brains out, if he has any⁠—, or fracture his skull if he hasn’t.’ Exerting all his strength, at this moment, my uncle wrenched the ill-looking man’s sword from his grasp, and flung it clean out of the coach window, upon which the younger gentleman vociferated, ‘Death and lightning!’ again, and laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword, in a very fierce manner, but didn’t draw it. Perhaps, gentlemen, as my uncle used to say with a smile, perhaps he was afraid of alarming the lady.