skeleton, and defied all the efforts of the physicians to cure it. He
went to the Adirondacks and took Harris with him. Sage had always been
an active man, and he couldn't idle any day wholly away in inanition,
but walked every day to the limit of his strength. One day, toward
nightfall, the pair came upon a humble log cabin which bore these words
painted upon a shingle: "Entertainment for Man and Beast." They were
obliged to stop there for the night, Sage's strength being exhausted.
They entered the cabin and found its owner and sole occupant there, a
rugged and sturdy and simple-hearted man of middle age. He cooked supper
and placed it before the travellers--salt junk, boiled beans, corn bread
and black coffee. Sage's stomach could abide nothing but the most
delicate food, therefore this banquet revolted him, and he sat at the
table unemployed, while Harris fed ravenously, limitlessly, gratefully;
for he had been chaplain in a fighting regiment all through the war, and
had kept in perfection the grand and uncritical appetite and splendid
physical vigor which those four years of tough fare and activity had
furnished him. Sage went supperless to bed, and tossed and writhed all
night upon a shuck mattress that was full of attentive and interested
corn-cobs. In the morning Harris was ravenous again, and devoured the
odious breakfast as contentedly and as delightedly as he had devoured
its twin the night before. Sage sat upon the porch, empty, and
contemplated the performance and meditated revenge. Presently he
beckoned to the landlord and took him aside and had a confidential talk
with him. He said,
"I am the paymaster. What is the bill?"
"Two suppers, fifty cents; two beds, thirty cents; two breakfasts, fifty
cents--total, a dollar and thirty cents."
Sage said, "Go back and make out the bill and fetch it to me here on the
porch. Make it thirteen dollars."
"Thirteen dollars! Why, it's impossible! I am no robber. I am charging
you what I charge everybody. It's a dollar and thirty cents, and that's
all it is."
"My man, I've got something to say about this as well as you. It's
thirteen dollars. You'll make out your bill for that, and you'll _take_
it, too, or you'll not get a cent."
The man was troubled, and said, "I don't understand this. I can't make
it out."
"Well, I understand it. I know what I am about. It's thirteen dollars,
and I want the bill made out for that. There's no other terms. Get it
ready and bring it out here. I will examine it and be outraged. You
understand? I will dispute the bill. You must stand to it. You must
refuse to take less. I will begin to lose my temper; you must begin to
lose yours. I will call you hard names; you must answer with harder
ones. I will raise my voice; you must raise yours. You must go into a
rage--foam at the mouth, if you can; insert some soap to help it along.
Now go along and follow your instructions."
The man played his assigned part, and played it well. He brought the
bill and stood waiting for results. Sage's face began to cloud up, his
eyes to snap, and his nostrils to inflate like a horse's; then he broke
out with--
"_Thirteen dollars!_ You mean to say that you charge thirteen dollars
for these damned inhuman hospitalities of yours? Are you a professional
buccaneer? Is it your custom to--"
The man burst in with spirit: "Now, I don't want any more out of
you--that's a plenty. The bill is thirteen dollars and you'll _pay_
it--that's all; a couple of characterless adventurers bilking their way
through this country and attempting to dictate terms to a gentleman! a
gentleman who received you supposing you were gentlemen yourselves,
whereas in my opinion hell's full of--"
Sage broke in--
"Not another word of that!--I won't have it. I regard you as the
lowest-down thief that ever--"
"Don't you use that word again! By ----, I'll take you by the neck
and--"
Harris came rushing out, and just as the two were about to grapple he
pushed himself between them and began to implore--
"Oh, Dean, don't, _don't_--now, Mr. Smith, control yourself! Oh, think
of your family, Dean!--think what a scandal--"
But they burst out with maledictions, imprecations and all the hard
names they could dig out of the rich accumulations of their educated
memories, and in the midst of it the man shouted--
"When _gentlemen_ come to this house, I treat them _as_ gentlemen. When
people come to this house with the ordinary appetites of gentlemen, I
charge them a dollar and thirty cents for what I furnished you; but when
a man brings a hell-fired Famine here that gorges a barrel of pork and
four barrels of beans at two sittings--"
Sage broke in, in a voice that was eloquent with remorse and
self-reproach, "I never thought of that, and I ask your pardon; I am
ashamed of myself and of my friend. Here's your thirteen dollars, and my
apologies along with it."
[_Dictated March 12, 1906._] I have always taken a great interest in
other people's duels. One always feels an abiding interest in any heroic
thing which has entered into his own experience.
[Sidenote: (1878.)]
In 1878, fourteen years after my unmaterialized duel, Messieurs Fortu
and Gambetta fought a duel which made heroes of both of them in France,
but made them rather ridiculous throughout the rest of the world. I was
living in Munich that fall and winter, and I was so interested in that
funny tragedy that I wrote a long account of it, and it is in one of my
books, somewhere--an account which had some inaccuracies in it, but as
an exhibition of the _spirit_ of that duel, I think it was correct and
trustworthy. And when I was living in Vienna, thirty-four years after my
ineffectual duel, my interest in that kind of incident was still strong;
and I find here among my Autobiographical manuscripts of that day a
chapter which I began concerning it, but did not finish. I wanted to
finish it, but held it open in the hope that the Italian ambassador, M.
Nigra, would find time to furnish me the _full_ history of Señor
Cavalotti's adventures in that line. But he was a busy man; there was
always an interruption before he could get well started; so my hope was
never fulfilled. The following is the unfinished chapter:
[Sidenote: (1898.)]
As concerns duelling. This pastime is as common in Austria to-day
as it is in France. But with this difference, that here in the
Austrian States the duel is dangerous, while in France it is not.
Here it is tragedy, in France it in comedy; here it is a solemnity,
there it is monkey-shines; here the duellist risks his life, there
he does not even risk his shirt. Here he fights with pistol or
sabre, in France with a hairpin--a blunt one. Here the desperately
wounded man tries to walk to the hospital; there they paint the
scratch so that they can find it again, lay the sufferer on a
stretcher, and conduct him off the field with a band of music.
At the end of a French duel the pair hug and kiss and cry, and
praise each other's valor; then the surgeons make an examination
and pick out the scratched one, and the other one helps him on to
the litter and pays his fare; and in return the scratched one
treats to champagne and oysters in the evening, and then "the
incident is closed," as the French say. It is all polite, and
gracious, and pretty, and impressive. At the end of an Austrian
duel the antagonist that is alive gravely offers his hand to the
other man, utters some phrases of courteous regret, then bids him
good-by and goes his way, and that incident also is closed. The
French duellist is painstakingly protected from danger, by the
rules of the game. His antagonist's weapon cannot reach so far as
his body; if he get a scratch it will not be above his elbow. But
in Austria the rules of the game do not provide against danger,
they carefully provide _for_ it, usually. Commonly the combat must
be kept up until one of the men is disabled; a non-disabling slash
or stab does not retire him.
For a matter of three months I watched the Viennese journals, and
whenever a duel was reported in their telegraphic columns I
scrap-booked it. By this record I find that duelling in Austria is
not confined to journalists and old maids, as in France, but is
indulged in by military men, journalists, students, physicians,
lawyers, members of the legislature, and even the Cabinet, the
Bench and the police. Duelling is forbidden by law; and so it seems
odd to see the makers and administrators of the laws dancing on
their work in this way. Some months ago Count Bodeni, at that time
Chief of the Government, fought a pistol-duel here in the capital
city of the Empire with representative Wolf, and both of those
distinguished Christians came near getting turned out of the
Church--for the Church as well as the State forbids duelling.
In one case, lately, in Hungary, the police interfered and stopped
a duel after the first innings. This was a sabre-duel between the
chief of police and the city attorney. Unkind things were said
about it by the newspapers. They said the police remembered their
duty uncommonly well when their own officials were the parties
concerned in duels. But I think the underlings showed good
bread-and-butter judgment. If their superiors had carved each other
well, the public would have asked, Where were the police? and their
places would have been endangered; but custom does not require them
to be around where mere unofficial citizens are explaining a thing
with sabres.
There was another duel--a double duel--going on in the immediate
neighborhood at the time, and in this case the police obeyed custom
and did not disturb it. Their bread and butter was not at stake
there. In this duel a physician fought a couple of surgeons, and
wounded both--one of them lightly, the other seriously. An
undertaker wanted to keep people from interfering, but that was
quite natural again.
Selecting at random from my record, I next find a duel at Tarnopol
between military men. An officer of the Tenth Dragoons charged an
officer of the Ninth Dragoons with an offence against the laws of
the card-table. There was a defect or a doubt somewhere in the
matter, and this had to be examined and passed upon by a Court of
Honor. So the case was sent up to Lemberg for this purpose. One
would like to know what the defect was, but the newspaper does not
say. A man here who has fought many duels and has a graveyard, says
that probably the matter in question was as to whether the
accusation was true or not; that if the charge was a very grave
one--cheating, for instance--proof of its truth would rule the
guilty officer out of the field of honor; the Court would not allow
a gentleman to fight with such a person. You see what a solemn
thing it is; you see how particular they are; any little careless
act can lose you your privilege of getting yourself shot, here. The
Court seems to have gone into the matter in a searching and careful
fashion, for several months elapsed before it reached a decision.
It then sanctioned a duel and the accused killed his accuser.
Next I find a duel between a prince and a major; first with
pistols--no result satisfactory to either party; then with sabres,
and the major badly hurt.
Next, a sabre-duel between journalists--the one a strong man, the
other feeble and in poor health. It was brief; the strong one drove
his sword through the weak one, and death was immediate.
Next, a duel between a lieutenant and a student of medicine.
According to the newspaper report these are the details. The
student was in a restaurant one evening: passing along, he halted
at a table to speak with some friends; near by sat a dozen military
men; the student conceived that one of these was "staring" at him;
he asked the officer to step outside and explain. This officer and
another one gathered up their caps and sabres and went out with the
student. Outside--this is the student's account--the student
introduced himself to the offending officer and said, "You seemed
to stare at me"; for answer, the officer struck at the student with
his fist; the student parried the blow; both officers drew their
sabres and attacked the young fellow, and one of them gave him a
wound on the left arm; then they withdrew. This was Saturday night.
The duel followed on Monday, in the military riding-school--the
customary duelling-ground all over Austria, apparently. The weapons
were pistols. The duelling terms were somewhat beyond custom in the
matter of severity, if I may gather that from the statement that
the combat was fought "_unter sehr schweren Bedingungen_"--to wit,
"Distance, 15 steps--with 3 steps advance." There was but one
exchange of shots. The student was hit. "He put his hand on his
breast, his body began to bend slowly forward, then collapsed in
death and sank to the ground."
It is pathetic. There are other duels in my list, but I find in
each and all of them one and the same ever-recurring defect--the
_principals_ are never present, but only their sham
representatives. The _real_ principals in any duel are not the
duellists themselves, but their families. They do the mourning, the
suffering, theirs is the loss and theirs the misery. They stake all
that, the duellist stakes nothing but his life, and that is a
trivial thing compared with what his death must cost those whom he
leaves behind him. Challenges should not mention the duellist; he
has nothing much at stake, and the real vengeance cannot reach him.
The challenge should summon the offender's old gray mother, and his
young wife and his little children,--these, or any to whom he is a
dear and worshipped possession--and should say, "You have done me
no harm, but I am the meek slave of a custom which requires me to
crush the happiness out of your hearts and condemn you to years of
pain and grief, in order that I may wash clean with your tears a
stain which has been put upon me by another person."
The logic of it is admirable: a person has robbed me of a penny; I
must beggar ten innocent persons to make good my loss. Surely
nobody's "honor" is worth all that.
Since the duellist's family are the real principals in a duel, the
State ought to compel them to be present at it. Custom, also, ought
to be so amended as to require it; and without it no duel ought to
be allowed to go on. If that student's unoffending mother had been
present and watching the officer through her tears as he raised his
pistol, he--why, he would have fired in the air. We know that. For
we know how we are all made. Laws ought to be based upon the
ascertained facts of our nature. It would be a simple thing to make
a duelling law which would stop duelling.
As things are now, the mother is never invited. She submits to
this; and without outward complaint, for she, too, is the vassal of
custom, and custom requires her to conceal her pain when she learns
the disastrous news that her son must go to the duelling-field, and
by the powerful force that is lodged in habit and custom she is
enabled to obey this trying requirement--a requirement which exacts
a miracle of her, and gets it. Last January a neighbor of ours who
has a young son in the army was wakened by this youth at three
o'clock one morning, and she sat up in bed and listened to his
message:
"I have come to tell you something, mother, which will distress
you, but you must be good and brave, and bear it. I have been
affronted by a fellow officer, and we fight at three this
afternoon. Lie down and sleep, now, and think no more about it."
She kissed him good night and lay down paralyzed with grief and
fear, but said nothing. But she did not sleep; she prayed and
mourned till the first streak of dawn, then fled to the nearest
church and implored the Virgin for help; and from that church she
went to another and another and another; church after church, and
still church after church, and so spent all the day until three
o'clock on her knees in agony and tears; then dragged herself home
and sat down comfortless and desolate, to count the minutes, and
wait, with an outward show of calm, for what had been ordained for
her--happiness, or endless misery. Presently she heard the clank of
a sabre--she had not known before what music was in that
sound!--and her son put his head in and said:
"X was in the wrong, and he apologized."
So that incident was closed; and for the rest of her life the
mother will always find something pleasant about the clank of a
sabre, no doubt.
In one of my listed duels--however, let it go, there is nothing
particularly striking about it except that the seconds interfered.
And prematurely, too, for neither man was dead. This was certainly
irregular. Neither of the men liked it. It was a duel with cavalry
sabres, between an editor and a lieutenant. The editor walked to
the hospital, the lieutenant was carried. In this country an editor
who can write well is valuable, but he is not likely to remain so
unless he can handle a sabre with charm.
The following very recent telegram shows that also in France duels
are humanely stopped as soon as they approach the (French)
danger-point:
"_Reuter's Telegram._--PARIS, _March 5_.--The duel between Colonels
Henry and Picquart took place this morning in the Riding School of
the Ecole Militaire, the doors of which were strictly guarded in
order to prevent intrusion. The combatants, who fought with swords,
were in position at ten o'clock.
"At the first reengagement Lieutenant-Colonel Henry was slightly
scratched in the fore arm, and just at the same moment his own
blade appeared to touch his adversary's neck. Senator Ranc, who was
Colonel Picquart's second, stopped the fight, but as it was found
that his principal had not been touched, the combat continued. A
very sharp encounter ensued, in which Colonel Henry was wounded in
the elbow, and the duel terminated."
After which, the stretcher and the band. In lurid contrast with
this delicate flirtation, we have this fatal duel of day before
yesterday in Italy, where the earnest Austrian duel is in vogue. I
knew Cavalotti slightly, and this gives me a sort of personal
interest in his duel. I first saw him in Rome several years ago. He
was sitting on a block of stone in the Forum, and was writing
something in his note-book--a poem or a challenge, or something
like that--and the friend who pointed him out to me said, "That is
Cavalotti--he has fought thirty duels; do not disturb him." I did
not disturb him.
[_May 13, 1907._] It is a long time ago. Cavalotti--poet, orator,
satirist, statesman, patriot--was a great man, and his death was deeply
lamented by his countrymen: many monuments to his memory testify to
this. In his duels he killed several of his antagonists and disabled the
rest. By nature he was a little irascible. Once when the officials of
the library of Bologna threw out his books the gentle poet went up there
and challenged the whole fifteen! His parliamentary duties were
exacting, but he proposed to keep coming up and fighting duels between
trains until all those officials had been retired from the activities of
life. Although he always chose the sword to fight with, he had never had
a lesson with that weapon. When game was called he waited for nothing,
but always plunged at his opponent and rained such a storm of wild and
original thrusts and whacks upon him that the man was dead or crippled
before he could bring his science to bear. But his latest antagonist
discarded science, and won. He held his sword straight forward like a
lance when Cavalotti made his plunge--with the result that he impaled
himself upon it. It entered his mouth and passed out at the back of his
neck. Death was instantaneous.
[_Dictated December 20, 1906._] Six months ago, when I was recalling
early days in San Francisco, I broke off at a place where I was about
to tell about Captain Osborn's odd adventure at the "What Cheer," or
perhaps it was at another cheap feeding-place--the "Miners' Restaurant."
It was a place where one could get good food on the cheapest possible
terms, and its popularity was great among the multitudes whose purses
were light It was a good place to go to, to observe mixed humanity.
Captain Osborn and Bret Harte went there one day and took a meal, and in
the course of it Osborn fished up an interesting reminiscence of a dozen
years before and told about it. It was to this effect:
He was a midshipman in the navy when the Californian gold craze burst
upon the world and set it wild with excitement. His ship made the long
journey around the Horn and was approaching her goal, the Golden Gate,
when an accident happened.
"It happened to me," said Osborn. "I fell overboard. There was a heavy
sea running, but no one was much alarmed about me, because we had on
board a newly patented life-saving device which was believed to be
competent to rescue anything that could fall overboard, from a
midshipman to an anchor. Ours was the only ship that had this device; we
were very proud of it, and had been anxious to give its powers a
practical test. This thing was lashed to the garboard-strake of the
main-to'gallant mizzen-yard amidships,[19] and there was nothing to do
but cut the lashings and heave it over; it would do the rest. One day
the cry of 'Man overboard!' brought all hands on deck. Instantly the
lashings were cut and the machine flung joyously over. Damnation, it
went to the bottom like an anvil! By the time that the ship was brought
to and a boat manned, I was become but a bobbing speck on the waves half
a mile astern and losing my strength very fast; but by good luck there
was a common seaman on board who had practical ideas in his head and
hadn't waited to see what the patent machine was going to do, but had
run aft and sprung over after me the moment the alarm was cried through
the ship. I had a good deal of a start of him, and the seas made his
progress slow and difficult, but he stuck to his work and fought his way
to me, and just in the nick of time he put his saving arms about me when
I was about to go down. He held me up until the boat reached us and
rescued us. By that time I was unconscious, and I was still unconscious
when we arrived at the ship. A dangerous fever followed, and I was
delirious for three days; then I come to myself and at once inquired
for my benefactor, of course. He was gone. We were lying at anchor in
the Bay and every man had deserted to the gold-mines except the
commissioned officers. I found out nothing about my benefactor but his
name--Burton Sanders--a name which I have held in grateful memory ever
since. Every time I have been on the Coast, these twelve or thirteen
years, I have tried to get track of him, but have never succeeded. I
wish I could find him and make him understand that his brave act has
never been forgotten by me. Harte, I would rather see him and take him
by the hand than any other man on the planet."
At this stage or a little later there was an interruption. A waiter near
by said to another waiter, pointing,
"Take a look at that tramp that's coming in. Ain't that the one that
bilked the house, last week, out of ten cents?"
"I believe it is. Let him alone--don't pay any attention to him; wait
till we can get a good look at him."
The tramp approached timidly and hesitatingly, with the air of one
unsure and apprehensive. The waiters watched him furtively. When he was
passing behind Harte's chair one of them said,
"He's the one!"--and they pounced upon him and proposed to turn him over
to the police as a bilk. He begged piteously. He confessed his guilt,
but said he had been driven to his crime by necessity--that when he had
eaten the plate of beans and flipped out without paying for it, it was
because he was starving, and hadn't the ten cents to pay for it with.
But the waiters would listen to no explanations, no palliations; he must
be placed in custody. He brushed his hand across his eyes and said
meekly that he would submit, being friendless. Each waiter took him by
an arm and faced him about to conduct him away. Then his melancholy eyes
fell upon Captain Osborn, and a light of glad and eager recognition
flashed from them. He said,
"Weren't you a midshipman once, sir, in the old 'Lancaster'?"
"Yes," said Osborn. "Why?"
"Didn't you fall overboard?"
"Yes, I did. How do you come to know about it?"
"Wasn't there a new patent machine aboard, and didn't they throw it over
to save you?"
"Why, yes," said Osborn, laughing gently, "but it didn't do it."
"No, sir, it was a sailor that done it."
"It certainly was. Look here, my man, you are getting distinctly
interesting. Were you of our crew?"
"Yes, sir, I was."
"I reckon you may be right. You do certainly know a good deal about that
incident. What is your name?"
"Burton Sanders."
The Captain sprang up, excited, and said,
"Give me your hand! Give me both your hands! I'd rather shake them than
inherit a fortune!"--and then he cried to the waiters, "Let him
go!--take your hands off! He is my guest, and can have anything and
everything this house is able to furnish. I am responsible."