Crab. With pistols, nephew—pistols! I have it from undoubted authority.

Mrs. Can. Oh, Mr. Crabtree, then it is all true!

Crab. Too true, indeed, madam, and Sir Peter is dangerously wounded—

Sir Ben. By a thrust in segoon quite through his left side—

Crab. By a bullet lodged in the thorax.

Mrs. Can. Mercy on me! Poor Sir Peter!

Crab. Yes, madam; though Charles would have avoided the matter, if he could.

Mrs. Can. I told you who it was; I knew Charles was the person.

Sir Ben. My uncle, I see, knows nothing of the matter.

Crab. But Sir Peter taxed him with the basest ingratitude—

Sir Ben. That I told you, you know—

Crab. Do, nephew, let me speak!—and insisted on immediate—

Sir Ben. Just as I said—

Crab. Odds life, nephew, allow others to know something too! A pair of pistols lay on the bureau (for Mr. Surface, it seems, had come home the night before late from Salthill, where he had been to see the Montem with a friend, who has a son at Eton), so, unluckily, the pistols were left charged.

Sir Ben. I heard nothing of this.

Crab. Sir Peter forced Charles to take one, and they fired, it seems, pretty nearly together. Charles’s shot took effect, as I tell you, and Sir Peter’s missed; but, what is very extraordinary, the ball struck against a little bronze Shakspeare that stood over the fireplace, glanced out of the window at a right angle, and wounded the postman, who was just coming to the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire.

Sir Ben. My uncle’s account is more circumstantial, I confess; but I believe mine is the true one, for all that.

Lady Sneer. [Aside.] I am more interested in this affair than they imagine, and must have better information.

[Exit.

Sir Ben. Ah! Lady Sneerwell’s alarm is very easily accounted for.

Crab. Yes, yes, they certainly do say—but that’s neither here nor there.

Mrs. Can. But, pray, where is Sir Peter at present?

Crab. Oh! they brought him home, and he is now in the house, though the servants are ordered to deny him.

Mrs. Can. I believe so, and Lady Teazle, I suppose, attending him.

Crab. Yes, yes; and I saw one of the faculty enter just before me.