ears. My tipsiness was gone now, and, in considering my conduct during the dispute, the uncomfortable thought came over me that I had behaved like a coward.

“Yet what right had he to attack me?” I reflected. “Why did he not simply intimate to me that I was annoying him? After all, it may have been he that was in the wrong. Why, too, when he called me a young cad, did I not say to him, ‘A cad, my good sir, is one who takes offence’? Or why did I not simply tell him to hold his tongue? That would have been the better course.

Or why did I not challenge him to a duel? No, I did none of those things, but swallowed his insults like a wretched coward.”

Still the words, “You are a cad, young sir,” kept sounding in my ears with maddening iteration.