It never pays a man to be too officious and volunteer information
or advice when it is not asked, for he very often makes enemies
and courts a disturbance that he could easily have avoided if he
had simply minded his own business.
Some seven years ago I attended a fair at Cynthiana, Ky., and opened
out a gentleman's game in the Smith Hotel bar-room. There were a
number of sports from Louisville and Cincinnati present, and
everything was moving along lively, and as decorous as a funeral,
when some of the Paris and Louisville boys indulged in a scrimmage
and were arrested. Everybody left the hotel and went to see the
result of the trial. I sat near the judge, and when the evidence
was all in I whispered to him to fine them $10 each. This he did,
and as we were leaving the court-room, I noticed that a big fellow
from Paris, Ky., regarded me with very sour looks.
After supper I opened up my game, and in he came, and going to the
bar-keeper, whispered in a tone of voice loud enough for me to
hear: "I am going to whip that dealer."
Pretty soon I closed up the game, and then Sam Aliways and myself
took a turn around the town, and running into a saloon, met the
big bully. He had his coat off and a six-shooter a foot long
hanging to his side; so, edging up to where he stood, I tapped him
on the shoulder, observing:
"You are the gentleman that is looking for a fight."
As soon as he saw who it was, he grabbed for his shooting-iron;
but just as he got hold of the handle, I dealt him a blow in the
neck and he fell over against the counter, but I soon grabbed him
and hit him a butt with my head. That ended the fight. He had
sense enough to say, "That will do;" and seeing a policeman coming
in one door, I went out another, hastened to the hotel and paid my
bill, and caught the train for Covington. I was none too quick,
however; for the next day when Aliways came along with my tools,
he said that the fellow had a host of friends in the town, and that
at least fifty fellows came around armed with case-knives, axes,
double-barreled shotguns, revolvers, and rocks; and that if they
had caught me, I would have met a fate worse than the martyr Stephen
or the Chicago anarchists.
The fellow went by the name of Bill Legrets. When he was asked
why he didn't shoot me, he said:
"Shoot h--l. The first lick he hit me, I thought my neck was
disjointed; and when he ran that head into me, I though it was a
cannon-ball."
Bob Linn was dealing up stairs at the time, and he afterwards said
that when the bloody duffer fell to the floor, that all the checks
on the table trembled like aspen leaves. Poor fellow! He is dead
now, having been shot in Paris a few years since.