Scheherazade by Florence Warden

The next morning, before he was up, George Lauriston was surprised by an apparition in a dressing-gown, with a black eye and a strip of sticking-plaister across its upper lip. It proved to be Clarence Massey, who came up to his bedside to offer to smoke the pipe of peace while yet the soft influence of slumber might be supposed to mollify any desire for vengeance which might haply be still burning in his comrade's breast. As a matter of fact, George had, before retiring to rest the night before, regretted his violence to the little Irish lad, and was ready to meet him more than half-way. So that when Massey humbly made a clean breast of the trick he had played, valiantly omitting all mention of Dicky Wood's share in it, and apologised for his intrusion into Lauriston's quarters the evening before, the latter held out his hand from the bed and told him not to think any more about it.

"I'm awfully sorry I was so rough with you, old chap," said he. "It was all a misunderstanding from beginning to end. Nouna is so young, and knows so little of the world, that she hasn't dignity enough yet to awe an Irishman. She'll know better when she's married; and if you don't come to our wedding, at least you must be the first to congratulate us afterwards, Massey, since it was you who brought about our first meeting."