THE JUMPING FROG

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“Well, Smiley kep’ the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller—a stranger in the camp, he was—come acrost him with his box, and says:

“‘What might it be that you’ve got in the box?’

“And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, ‘It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain’t—it’s only just a frog.’

“And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, ‘H’m—so ’tis. Well, what’s HE good for.

“‘Well,’ Smiley says, easy and careless, ‘he’s good enough for one thing, I should judge—he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.

“The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.’

“‘Maybe you don’t,’ Smiley says. ‘Maybe you understand frogs and maybe you don’t understand ’em; maybe you’ve had experience, and maybe you ain’t only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I’ve got my opinion, and I’ll resk forty dollars thet he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.’

“And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad-like, ‘Well, I’m only a stranger here, and I ain’t got no frog; but if I had a frog, I’d bet you.

“And then Smiley says, ‘That’s all right—that’s all right if you’ll hold my box a minute, I’ll go and get you a frog.’ And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley’s, and set down to wait.

“So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to himself and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail-shot—filled him pretty near up to his chin—and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller and says:

“‘Now, if you’re ready, set him alongside of Dan’l, with his fore paws just even with Dan’l’s, and I’ll give the word.’ Then he says, One-two-three—git’ and him and the feller touches up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively but Dan’l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders—so—like a Frenchman, but it warn’t no use—he couldn’t budge; he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn’t no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn’t have no idea what the matter was of course.

“The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder—so—at Dan’l, and says again, very deliberate, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.’

“Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan’l a long time, and at last he says, ‘I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw’d off for—I wonder if there ain’t something the matter with him—he ’pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.’ And he ketched Dan’l by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, ‘Why blame my cats if he don’t weigh five pound!’ and turned him upside down and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man—he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him. And—”

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[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was wanted.] And turning to me as he moved away, he said: “Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy—I ain’t going to be gone a second.”

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me and recommenced:

“Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn’t have no tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and—”

However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear about the afflicted cow, but took my leave.

Now let the learned look upon this picture and say if iconoclasm can further go:

[From the Revue des Deux Mondes, of July 15th, 1872.]

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[From the Revue des Deux Mondes, of July 15th, 1872.]

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LA GRENOUILLE SAUTEUSE DU COMTE DE CALAVERAS

“—Il y avait, une fois ici un individu connu sous le nom de Jim Smiley: c'était dans l’hiver de 49, peut-être bien au printemps de 50, je ne me reappelle pas exactement. Ce qui me fait croire que c'était l’un ou l’autre, c’est que je me souviens que le grand bief n'était pas achevé lorsqu’il arriva au camp pour la premiére fois, mais de toutes facons il était l’homme le plus friand de paris qui se pût voir, pariant sur tout ce qui se présentait, quand il pouvait trouver un adversaire, et, quand n’en trouvait pas il passait du côté opposé. Tout ce qui convenait à l’autre lui convenait; pourvu qu’il eût un pari, Smiley était satisfait. Et il avait une chance! une chance inouie: presque toujours il gagnait. It faut dire qu’il était toujours prêt à s’exposer, qu’on ne pouvait mentionner la moindre chose sans que ce gaillard offrît de parier là-dessus n’importe quoi et de prendre le côte que l’on voudrait, comme je vous le disais tout à l’heure. S’il y avait des courses, vous le trouviez riche ou ruiné à la fin; s’il y avait un combat de chiens, il apportait son enjeu; il l’apportait pour un combat de chats, pour un combat de coqs;—parbleu! si vous aviez vu deux oiseaux sur une haie il vous aurait offert de parier lequel s’envolerait le premier, et s’il y aviat ‘meeting’ au camp, il venait parier régulièrement pour le curé Walker, qu’il jugeait être le meilleur prédicateur des environs, et qui l'était en effet, et un brave homme. Il aurait rencontré une punaise de bois en chemin, qu’il aurait parié sur le temps qu’il lui faudrait pour aller où elle voudrait aller, et si vous l’aviez pris au mot, it aurait suivi la punaise jusqu’au Mexique, sans se soucier d’aller si loin, ni du temps qu’il y perdrait. Une fois la femme du curé Walker fut très malade pendant longtemps, il semblait qu’on ne la sauverait pas; mais un matin le curé arrive, et Smiley lui demande comment ella va et il dit qu’elle est bien mieux, grâce a l’infinie miséricorde tellement mieux qu’avec la bénédiction de la Providence elle s’en tirerait, et voilá que, sans y penser, Smiley répond:—Eh bien! je gage deux et demi qu’elle mourra tout de même.

“Ce Smiley avait une jument que les gars appelaient le bidet du quart d’heure, mais seulement pour plaisanter, vous comprenez, parce que, bien entendu, elle était plus vite que ca! Et il avait coutume de gagner de l’argent avec cette bête, quoi-qu’elle fût poussive, cornarde, toujours prise d’asthme, de coliques ou de consomption, ou de quelque chose d’approchant. On lui donnait 2 ou 300 ‘yards’ au départ, puis on la dépassait sans peine; mais jamais à la fin elle ne manquait de s'échauffer, de s’exaspérer et elle arrivait, s'écartant, se défendant, ses jambes grêles en l’air devant les obstacles, quelquefois les évitant et faisant avec cela plus de poussière qu’aucun cheval, plus de bruit surtout avec ses éternumens et reniflemens.—-crac! elle arrivait donc toujours première d’une tête, aussi juste qu’on peut le mesurer. Et il avait un petit bouledogue qui, à le voir, ne valait pas un sou; on aurait cru que parier contre lui c'était voler, tant il était ordinaire; mais aussitôt les enjeux faits, il devenait un autre chien. Sa mâchoire inférieure commencait à ressortir comme un gaillard d’avant, ses dents se découvcraient brillantes commes des fournaises, et un chien pouvait le taquiner, l’exciter, le mordre, le jeter deux ou trois fois par-dessus son épaule, André Jackson, c'était le nom du chien, André Jackson prenait cela tranquillement, comme s’il ne se fût jamais attendu à autre chose, et quand les paris étaient doublés et redoublés contre lui, il vous saisissait l’autre chien juste à l’articulation de la jambe de derrière, et il ne la lâchait plus, non pas qu’il la mâchât, vous concevez, mais il s’y serait tenu pendu jusqu'à ce qu’on jetât l'éponge en l’air, fallût-il attendre un an. Smiley gagnait toujours avec cette bête-là; malheureusement ils ont fini par dresser un chien qui n’avait pas de pattes de derrière, parce qu’on les avait sciées, et quand les choses furent au point qu’il voulait, et qu’il en vint à se jeter sur son morceau favori, le pauvre chien comprit en un instant qu’on s'était moqué de lui, et que l’autre le tenait. Vous n’avez jamais vu personne avoir l’air plus penaud et plus découragé; il ne fit aucun effort pour gagner le combat et fut rudement secoué, de sorte que, regardant Smiley comme pour lui dire:—Mon coeur est brisé, c’est ta faute; pourquoi m’avoir livré à un chien qui n’a pas de pattes de derrière, puisque c’est par là que je les bats?—il s’en alla en clopinant, et se coucha pour mourir. Ah! c'était un bon chien, cet André Jackson, et il se serait fait un nom, s’il avait vécu, car il y avait de l’etoffe en lui, il avait du génie, je la sais, bien que de grandes occasions lui aient manqué; mais il est impossible de supposer qu’un chien capable de se battre comme lui, certaines circonstances étant données, ait manqué de talent. Je me sens triste toutes les fois que je pense à son dernier combat et au dénoûment qu’il a eu. Eh bien! ce Smiley nourrissait des terriers à rats, et des coqs combat, et des chats, et toute sorte de choses, au point qu’il était toujours en mesure de vous tenir tête, et qu’avec sa rage de paris on n’avait plus de repos. Il attrapa un jour une grenouille et l’emporta chez lui, disant qu’il prétendait faire son éducation; vous me croirez si vous voulez, mais pendant trois mois il n’a rien fait que lui apprendre à sauter dans une cour retirée de sa maison. Et je vous réponds qu’il avait reussi. Il lui donnait un petit coup par derrière, et l’instant d’après vous voyiez la grenouille tourner en l’air comme un beignet au-dessus de la poêle, faire une culbute, quelquefois deux, lorsqu’elle était bien partie, et retomber sur ses pattes comme un chat. Il l’avait dressée dans l’art de gober des mouches, er l’y exercait continuellement, si bien qu’une mouche, du plus loin qu’elle apparaissait, était une mouche perdue. Smiley avait coutume de dire que tout ce qui manquait à une grenouille, c'était l'éducation, qu’avec l'éducation elle pouvait faire presque tout, et je le crois. Tenez, je l’ai vu poser Daniel Webster là sur se plancher,—Daniel Webster était le nom de la grenouille,—et lui chanter: Des mouches! Daniel, des mouches!—En un clin d’oeil, Daniel avait bondi et saisi une mouche ici sur le comptoir, puis sauté de nouveau par terre, où il restait vraiment à se gratter la tête avec sa patte de derrière, comme s’il n’avait pas eu la moindre idée de sa superiorité. Jamais vous n’avez grenouille vu de aussi modeste, aussi naturelle, douee comme elle l'était! Et quand il s’agissait de sauter purement et simplement sur terrain plat, elle faisait plus de chemin en un saut qu’aucune bete de son espèce que vous puissiez connaître. Sauter à plat, c'était son fort! Quand il s’agissait de cela, Smiley entassait les enjeux sur elle tant qu’il lui, restait un rouge liard. Il faut le reconnaitre, Smiley était monstrueusement fier de sa grenouille, et il en avait le droit, car des gens qui avaient voyagé, qui avaient tout vu, disaient qu’on lui ferait injure de la comparer à une autre; de facon que Smiley gardait Daniel dans une petite boîte a claire-voie qu’il emportait parfois à la Ville pour quelque pari.

“Un jour, un individu étranger au camp l’arrête aver sa boîte et lui dit:—Qu’est-ce que vous avez donc serré là dedans?

“Smiley dit d’un air indifférent:—Cela pourrait être un perroquet ou un serin, mais ce n’est rien de pareil, ce n’est qu’une grenouille.

“L’individu la prend, la regarde avec soin, la tourne d’un côté et de l’autre puis il dit.—Tiens! en effet! A quoi estelle bonne?

“—Mon Dieu! répond Smiley, toujours d’un air dégagé, elle est bonne pour une chose à mon avis, elle peut battre en sautant toute grenouille du comté de Calaveras.

“L’individu reprend la boîte, l’examine de nouveau longuement, et la rend à Smiley en disant d’un air délibéré:—Eh bien! je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu’aucune grenouille.

“—Possible que vous ne le voyiez pas, dit Smiley, possible que vous vous entendiez en grenouilles, possible que vous ne vous y entendez point, possible que vous avez de l’expérience, et possible que vous ne soyez qu’un amateur. De toute manière, je parie quarante dollars qu’elle battra en sautant n’importe quelle grenouille du comté de Calaveras.

“L’individu réfléchit une seconde et dit comme attristé:—Je ne suis qu’un étranger ici, je n’ai pas de grenouille; mais, si j’en avais une, je tiendrais le pari.

“—Fort bien! répond Smiley. Rien de plus facile. Si vous voulez tenir ma boîte une minute, j’irai vous chercher une grenouille.—Voilà donc l’individu qui garde la boîte, qui met ses quarante dollars sur ceux de Smiley et qui attend. Il attend assez longtemps, réflechissant tout seul, et figurez-vous qu’il prend Daniel, lui ouvre la bouche de force at avec une cuiller à thé l’emplit de menu plomb de chasse, mais l’emplit jusqu’au menton, puis il le pose par terre. Smiley pendant ce temps était à barboter dans une mare. Finalement il attrape une grenouille, l’apporte à cet individu et dit:—Maintenant, si vous êtes prêt, mettez-la tout contra Daniel, avec leurs pattes de devant sur la même ligne, et je donnerai le signal; puis il ajoute:—Un, deux, trois, sautez!

“Lui et l’individu touchent leurs grenouilles par derrière, et la grenouille neuve se met à sautiller, mais Daniel se soulève lourdement, hausse les épaules ainsi, comme un Francais; à quoi bon? il ne pouvait bouger, il était planté solide comma une enclume, il n’avancait pas plus que si on l’eût mis à l’ancre. Smiley fut surpris et dégoûté, mais il ne se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu. L’individu empoche l’argent, s’en va, et en s’en allant est-ce qu’il ne donna pas un coup de pouce par-dessus l'épaule, comma ca, au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son air délibéré:—Eh bien! je ne vois pas qua cette grenouille ait rien de muiex qu’une autre.

“Smiley se gratta longtemps la tête, les yeux fixés sur Daniel; jusqu'à ce qu’enfin il dit:—Je me demande comment diable il se fait que cette bête ait refusé . . . Est-ce qu’elle aurait quelque chose? . . . On croirait qu’elle est enfleé.

“Il empoigne Daniel par la peau du cou, le souléve et dit:—Le loup me croque, s’il ne pèse pas cinq livres.

“Il le retourne, et le malheureux crache deux poignées de plomb. Quand Smiley reconnut ce qui en était, il fut comme fou. Vous le voyez d’ici poser sa grenouille par terra et courir aprés cet individu, mais il ne le rattrapa jamais, et ....”

[Translation of the above back from the French:]

THE FROG JUMPING OF THE COUNTY OF CALAVERAS

It there was one time here an individual known under the name of Jim Smiley; it was in the winter of ‘89, possibly well at the spring of ‘50, I no me recollect not exactly. This which me makes to believe that it was the one or the other, it is that I shall remember that the grand flume is not achieved when he arrives at the camp for the first time, but of all sides he was the man the most fond of to bet which one have seen, betting upon all that which is presented, when he could find an adversary; and when he not of it could not, he passed to the side opposed. All that which convenienced to the other to him convenienced also; seeing that he had a bet Smiley was satisfied. And he had a chance! a chance even worthless; nearly always he gained. It must to say that he was always near to himself expose, but one no could mention the least thing without that this gaillard offered to bet the bottom, no matter what, and to take the side that one him would, as I you it said all at the hour (tout à l’heure). If it there was of races, you him find rich or ruined at the end; if it, there is a combat of dogs, he bring his bet; he himself laid always for a combat of cats, for a combat of cocks —by-blue! If you have see two birds upon a fence, he you should have offered of to bet which of those birds shall fly the first; and if there is meeting at the camp (meeting au camp) he comes to bet regularly for the curé Walker, which he judged to be the best predicator of the neighborhood (prédicateur des environs) and which he was in effect, and a brave man. He would encounter a bug of wood in the road, whom he will bet upon the time which he shall take to go where she would go—and if you him have take at the word, he will follow the bug as far as Mexique, without himself caring to go so far; neither of the time which he there lost. One time the woman of the cure Walker is very sick during long time, it seemed that one not her saved not; but one morning the cure arrives, and Smiley him demanded how she goes, and he said that she is well better, grace to the infinite misery (lui demande comment elle va, et il dit qu’elle est bien mieux, grâce a l’infinie miséricorde) so much better that with the benediction of the Providence she herself of it would pull out (elle s’en tirerait); and behold that without there thinking Smiley responds: “Well, I gage two-and-half that she will die all of same.”

This Smiley had an animal which the boys called the nag of the quarter of hour, but solely for pleasantry, you comprehend, because, well understand, she was more fast as that! [Now why that exclamation?—M. T.] And it was custom of to gain of the silver with this beast, notwithstanding she was poussive, cornarde, always taken of asthma, of colics or of consumption, or something of approaching. One him would give two or three hundred yards at the departure, then one him passed without pain; but never at the last she not fail of herself échauffer, of herself exasperate, and she arrives herself écartant, se defendant, her legs greles in the air before the obstacles, sometimes them elevating and making with this more of dust than any horse, more of noise above with his eternumens and reniflemens—crac! she arrives then always first by one head, as just as one can it measure. And he had a small bulldog (bouledogue!) who, to him see, no value, not a cent; one would believe that to bet against him it was to steal, so much he was ordinary; but as soon as the game made, she becomes another dog. Her jaw inferior commence to project like a deck of before, his teeth themselves discover brilliant like some furnaces, and a dog could him tackle (le taquiner), him excite, him murder (le mordre), him throw two or three times over his shoulder, André Jackson—this was the name of the dog—André Jackson takes that tranquilly, as if he not himself was never expecting other thing, and when the bets were doubled and redoubled against him, he you seize the other dog just at the articulation of the leg of behind, and he not it leave more, not that he it masticate, you conceive, but he himself there shall be holding during until that one throws the sponge in the air, must he wait a year. Smiley gained always with this beast-là; unhappily they have finished by elevating a dog who no had not of feet of behind, because one them had sawed; and when things were at the point that he would, and that he came to himself throw upon his morsel favorite, the poor dog comprehended in an instant that he himself was deceived in him, and that the other dog him had. You no have never seen person having the air more penaud and more discouraged; he not made no effort to gain the combat, and was rudely shucked.

Eh bien! this Smiley nourished some terriers à rats, and some cocks of combat, and some cats, and all sorts of things; and with his rage of betting one no had more of repose. He trapped one day a frog and him imported with him (et l’emporta chez lui) saying that he pretended to make his education. You me believe if you will, but during three months he not has nothing done but to him apprehend to jump (apprendre à sauter) in a court retired of her mansion (de sa maison). And I you respond that he have succeeded. He him gives a small blow by behind, and the instant after you shall see the frog turn in the air like a grease-biscuit, make one summersault, sometimes two, when she was well started, and refall upon his feet like a cat. He him had accomplished in the art of to gobble the flies (gober des mouches), and him there exercised continually —so well that a fly at the most far that she appeared was a fly lost. Smiley had custom to say that all which lacked to a frog it was the education, but with the education she could do nearly all—and I him believe. Tenez, I him have seen pose Daniel Webster there upon this plank—Daniel Webster was the name of the frog—and to him sing, “Some flies, Daniel, some flies!”—in a flash of the eye Daniel had bounded and seized a fly here upon the counter, then jumped anew at the earth, where he rested truly to himself scratch the head with his behind foot, as if he no had not the least idea of his superiority. Never you not have seen frog as modest, as natural, sweet as she was. And when he himself agitated to jump purely and simply upon plain earth, she does more ground in one jump than any beast of his species than you can know. To jump plain-this was his strong. When he himself agitated for that, Smiley multiplied the bets upon her as long as there to him remained a red. It must to know, Smiley was monstrously proud of his frog, and he of it was right, for some men who were traveled, who had all seen, said that they to him would be injurious to him compare, to another frog. Smiley guarded Daniel in a little box latticed which he carried bytimes to the village for some bet.

One day an individual stranger at the camp him arrested with his box and him said:

“What is this that you have them shut up there within?”

Smiley said, with an air indifferent:

“That could be a paroquet, or a syringe (ou un serin), but this no is nothing of such, it not is but a frog.”

The individual it took, it regarded with care, it turned from one side and from the other, then he said:

“Tiens! in effect!—At what is she good?”

“My God!” respond Smiley, always with an air disengaged, “she is good for one thing, to my notice (à mon avis), she can batter in jumping (elle peut battre en sautant) all frogs of the county of Calaveras.”

The individual retook the box, it examined of new longly, and it rendered to Smiley in saying with an air deliberate:

“Eh bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each frog.” (Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu’aucune grenouille.) [If that isn’t grammar gone to seed, then I count myself no judge.—M. T.]

“Possible that you not it saw not,” said Smiley, “possible that you—you comprehend frogs; possible that you not you there comprehend nothing; possible that you had of the experience, and possible that you not be but an amateur. Of all manner (De toute manière) I bet forty dollars that she batter in jumping no matter which frog of the county of Calaveras.”

The individual reflected a second, and said like sad:

“I not am but a stranger here, I no have not a frog; but if I of it had one, I would embrace the bet.”

“Strong well!” respond Smiley; “nothing of more facility. If you will hold my box a minute, I go you to search a frog (j’irai vous chercher).”

Behold, then, the individual, who guards the box, who puts his forty dollars upon those of Smiley, and who attends (et qui attend). He attended enough long times, reflecting all solely. And figure you that he takes Daniel, him opens the mouth by force and with a teaspoon him fills with shot of the hunt, even him fills just to the chin, then he him puts by the earth. Smiley during these times was at slopping in a swamp. Finally he trapped (attrape) a frog, him carried to that individual, and said:

“Now if you be ready, put him all against Daniel with their before feet upon the same line, and I give the signal”—then he added: “One, two, three—advance!”

Him and the individual touched their frogs by behind, and the frog new put to jump smartly, but Daniel himself lifted ponderously, exalted the shoulders thus, like a Frenchman—to what good? he not could budge, he is planted solid like a church, he not advance no more than if one him had put at the anchor.

Smiley was surprised and disgusted, but he no himself doubted not of the turn being intended (mais il ne se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu). The individual empocketed the silver, himself with it went, and of it himself in going is it that he no gives not a jerk of thumb over the shoulder—like that—at the poor Daniel, in saying with his air deliberate—(L’individu empoche l’argent, s’en va et en s’en allant est-ce qu’il ne donne pas un coup de pouce par-dessus l'épaule, comme ça, au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son air délibéré):

“Eh bien! I no see not that that frog has nothing of better than another.”

Smiley himself scratched longtimes the head, the eyes fixed upon Daniel, until that which at last he said:

“I me demand how the devil it makes itself that this beast has refused. Is it that she had something? One would believe that she is stuffed.”

He grasped Daniel by the skin of the neck, him lifted and said:

“The wolf me bite if he no weigh not five pounds:”

He him reversed and the unhappy belched two handfuls of shot (et le malheureux, etc.). When Smiley recognized how it was, he was like mad. He deposited his frog by the earth and ran after that individual, but he not him caught never.

Such is the Jumping Frog, to the distorted French eye. I claim that I never put together such an odious mixture of bad grammar and delirium tremens in my life. And what has a poor foreigner like me done, to be abused and misrepresented like this? When I say, “Well, I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog,” is it kind, is it just, for this Frenchman to try to make it appear that I said, “Eh bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each frog”? I have no heart to write more. I never felt so about anything before.

HARTFORD, March, 1875.

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The editor of the Memphis Avalanche swoops thus mildly down upon a correspondent who posted him as a Radical:—“While he was writing the first word, the middle, dotting his i’s, crossing his t’s, and punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood.”—Exchange.

I was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve my health, and so I went down to Tennessee, and got a berth on the Morning Glory and Johnson County War-Whoop as associate editor. When I went on duty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in a three-legged chair with his feet on a pine table. There was another pine table in the room and another afflicted chair, and both were half buried under newspapers and scraps and sheets of manuscript. There was a wooden box of sand, sprinkled with cigar stubs and “old soldiers,” and a stove with a door hanging by its upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed black cloth frock-coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small and neatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal-ring, a standing collar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief with the ends hanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He was smoking a cigar, and trying to think of a word, and in pawing his hair he had rumpled his locks a good deal. He was scowling fearfully, and I judged that he was concocting a particularly knotty editorial. He told me to take the exchanges and skim through them and write up the “Spirit of the Tennessee Press,” condensing into the article all of their contents that seemed of interest.

I wrote as follows:

The editors of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake evidently labor under a misapprehension with regard to the Ballyhack railroad. It is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important points along the line, and consequently can have no desire to slight it. The gentlemen of the Earthquake will, of course, take pleasure in making the correction.John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, arrived in the city yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House.We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs Morning Howl has fallen into the error of supposing that the election of Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete election returns.It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is endeavoring to contract with some New York gentlemen to pave its well-nigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The Daily Hurrah urges the measure with ability, and seems confident of ultimate success.

I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance, alteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded. He ran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous. It was easy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up and said:

“Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of those cattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to stand such gruel as that? Give me the pen!”

I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or plow through another man’s verbs and adjectives so relentlessly. While he was in the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through the open window, and marred the symmetry of my ear.

“Ah,” said he, “that is that scoundrel Smith, of the Moral Volcano—he was due yesterday.” And he snatched a navy revolver from his belt and fired—Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot spoiled Smith’s aim, who was just taking a second chance and he crippled a stranger. It was me. Merely a finger shot off.

Then the chief editor went on with his erasure; and interlineations. Just as he finished them a hand grenade came down the stove-pipe, and the explosion shivered the stove into a thousand fragments. However, it did no further damage, except that a vagrant piece knocked a couple of my teeth out.

“That stove is utterly ruined,” said the chief editor.

I said I believed it was.

“Well, no matter—don’t want it this kind of weather. I know the man that did it. I’ll get him. Now, here is the way this stuff ought to be written.”

I took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and interlineations till its mother wouldn’t have known it if it had had one. It now read as follows:

The inveterate liars of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake are evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard to that most glorious conception of the nineteenth century, the Ballyhack railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off at one side originated in their own fulsome brains—or rather in the settlings which they regard as brains. They had better swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve.That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, is down here again sponging at the Van Buren.We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs Morning Howl is giving out, with his usual propensity for lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of journalism is to disseminate truth; to eradicate error; to educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals and manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier; and yet this blackhearted scoundrel degrades his great office persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny, vituperation, and vulgarity.Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement—it wants a jail and a poorhouse more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith shop, and that mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the Daily Hurrah! The crawling insect, Buckner, who edits the Hurrah, is braying about his business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is talking sense.

“Now that is the way to write—peppery and to the point. Mush-and-milk journalism gives me the fan-tods.”

About this time a brick came through the window with a splintering crash, and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved out of range—I began to feel in the way.

The chief said, “That was the Colonel, likely. I’ve been expecting him for two days. He will be up now right away.”

He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment afterward with a dragoon revolver in his hand.

He said, “Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who edits this mangy sheet?”

“You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs is gone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar, Colonel Blatherskite Tecumseh?”

“Right, Sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are at leisure we will begin.”

“I have an article on the ‘Encouraging Progress of Moral and Intellectual Development in America’ to finish, but there is no hurry. Begin.”

Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The chief lost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel’s bullet ended its career in the fleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel’s left shoulder was clipped a little. They fired again. Both missed their men this time, but I got my share, a shot in the arm. At the third fire both gentlemen were wounded slightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I then said, I believed I would go out and take a walk, as this was a private matter, and I had a delicacy about participating in it further. But both gentlemen begged me to keep my seat, and assured me that I was not in the way.

They then talked about the elections and the crops while they reloaded, and I fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they opened fire again with animation, and every shot took effect—but it is proper to remark that five out of the six fell to my share. The sixth one mortally wounded the Colonel, who remarked, with fine humor, that he would have to say good morning now, as he had business uptown. He then inquired the way to the undertaker’s and left.

The chief turned to me and said, “I am expecting company to dinner, and shall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will read proof and attend to the customers.”

I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I was too bewildered by the fusillade that was still ringing in my ears to think of anything to say.

He continued, “Jones will be here at three—cowhide him. Gillespie will call earlier, perhaps—throw him out of the window. Ferguson will be along about four—kill him. That is all for today, I believe. If you have any odd time, you may write a blistering article on the police—give the chief inspector rats. The cowhides are under the table; weapons in the drawer—ammunition there in the corner—lint and bandages up there in the pigeonholes. In case of accident, go to Lancet, the surgeon, downstairs. He advertises—we take it out in trade.”

He was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours I had been through perils so awful that all peace of mind and all cheerfulness were gone from me. Gillespie had called and thrown me out of the window. Jones arrived promptly, and when I got ready to do the cowhiding he took the job off my hands. In an encounter with a stranger, not in the bill of fare, I had lost my scalp. Another stranger, by the name of Thompson, left me a mere wreck and ruin of chaotic rags. And at last, at bay in the corner, and beset by an infuriated mob of editors, blacklegs, politicians, and desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished their weapons about my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes of steel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the chief arrived, and with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic friends. Then ensued a scene of riot and carnage such as no human pen, or steel one either, could describe. People were shot, probed, dismembered, blown up, thrown out of the window. There was a brief tornado of murky blasphemy, with a confused and frantic war-dance glimmering through it, and then all was over. In five minutes there was silence, and the gory chief and I sat alone and surveyed the sanguinary ruin that strewed the floor around us.

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He said, “You’ll like this place when you get used to it.”

I said, “I’ll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I might write to suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some practice and learned the language I am confident I could. But, to speak the plain truth, that sort of energy of expression has its inconveniences, and a man is liable to interruption.

“You see that yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the public, no doubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention as it calls forth. I can’t write with comfort when I am interrupted so much as I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I don’t like to be left here to wait on the customers. The experiences are novel, I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a fashion, but they are not judiciously distributed. A gentleman shoots at you through the window and cripples me; a bombshell comes down the stove-pipe for your gratification and sends the stove door down my throat; a friend drops in to swap compliments with you, and freckles me with bullet-holes till my skin won’t hold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his cowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all my clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy freedom of an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all the blackguards in the country arrive in their war-paint, and proceed to scare the rest of me to death with their tomahawks. Take it altogether, I never had such a spirited time in all my life as I have had to-day. No; I like you, and I like your calm unruffled way of explaining things to the customers, but you see I am not used to it. The Southern heart is too impulsive; Southern hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. The paragraphs which I have written to-day, and into whose cold sentences your masterly hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennesseean journalism, will wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob of editors will come—and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for breakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present at these festivities. I came South for my health, I will go back on the same errand, and suddenly. Tennesseean journalism is too stirring for me.”

After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at the hospital.

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