Part 1 (2/2)
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 sc.r.a.pe and scratch its way so viciously, or plough 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 erasures and interlineations. Just as he finished them a hand-grenade came down the stove-pipe, and the explosion s.h.i.+vered 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 ma.n.u.script. 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:
”SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS
”The inveterate liars of the _Semi-Weekly Earthquake_ are evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a n.o.ble 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 carca.s.ses the cowhiding they so richly deserve.
”That a.s.s, 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 black-hearted 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 poor-house 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 this 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 afterwards 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 Tec.u.mseh?”
”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 partic.i.p.ating in it further. But both gentlemen begged me to keep my seat, and a.s.sured me that I was not in the way.
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