The interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1872-1881, 1873-02-07
How 1 Happened not 10 be Killed
I'm n Duel.
BY MARK TWAIN.

the following narrative is that it is true
story. 1t has a moral at the end Of it,
but / claim nothing on that, as it is
merely thrown in to curry favor with the
religious element.
After / had reported couple Of years
on the Virginia City (Nevada) Daily
Enterprise, they promoted me to be editor
in chief, and lasted just week, by the
watch. But / made an uncommon lively
newspaper while did last, and when /
retired had duel on my hands and
three horse-whippings promised me. The
latter | made no attempt to collect; how
ever, this history concerns only the for
mer. 1t was the old flush times" of
the silver excitement, when the popula-
ton was wonderfully wild and mixed
everybody went armed to the teeth, and
insults had to be atoned for with the best
article of blood your system could fur
nish. In the course of my editing |
made trouble with Mr.. Lord, editor of
the Evol.paper. He flew up about some
little trihe or other that / had said about
him. | do not remember now what it
was. suppose | called him thief, or
a body-snatcher, or an idiot, or some
thing like that. / was obliged to make
the paper readable, and could not fail
in my duty to whole community of
subscribers merely to save the exagger-
ated sensitiveness of an individual. Mr..
Lord was offended, and replied vigorous
ly in his paper. Vigorously means a
great deal when it refers to personal
editorial in frontier newspaper. Duel
ing was all the fashion among the upper
classes in that country, and 'ery few
gentlemen would throw away an oppor-
tunity of fighting one. To kill person
m a duel caused a man to be even more
looked up to than to kill two men in the
ordinary way. Well, out there, if you
abused man and that man didn't like
it, you had to call him out and kill him !;
otherwise you would be disgraced. So l
challenged Mr.. Lord, and | did hope he
would not accept; but knew perfectly
well that he did not want to fight, and
so challenged him in the most violent
and implacable manner. And then l
sat and suffered and suffered till the an
swer came. All our boys-the editors
were in the office "helping" me in the
dismal business, and telling about duels,
and discussing the code with lot Of aged
ruffians who had had experience in such
things. and altogether there was loving
interest taken in the matter which made
me unspeakably uncomfortable. The
answer came-Mr. Lord declined. Our
boys were furious, and so was lon the
surface.
sent him another challenge, and an
other, and another; and the more he did
not want to fight, the blood-thirstier l
became. But at last the mans tone
changed. He appeared to be waking
up. 1t was becoming apparent that he
was going to- fight me, after all. fought
to have known how it would be-he was
a man who never could be depended on.
Our boys were exultant. ! was not,
though tried to be.
1t was now time TO 90 out and prac-
tice. 1t was the custom there to fight
duels with navy sixshooters at fifteen
paces-load and empty till the game for
the funeral was secured. We went TO a
little ravine just outside Of town, and
borrowed barn-door for target-bor-
rowed il Of a gentleman who was absent
and we stood this barn-door up, and
stood rail ON end against the middle Of
it TO represent Lord. and put squash
on top of the rail to represent his head.
He was very tall, lean creature, the
poorest sort Of material for duel-for
nothing but line shot could "fetch"
him. and even then he might split your
bullet. Exaggeration aside, the rail was
of course little too thin to represent
his body accurately, but tho squash was
all right. If there was any intellectual
difference between the squash and his
head, II was in favor Of the squash.
Well, practiced and practioed at the
barn-door, and could not hit IL; and l
practioed at the rail, and could not hit
that and l tried hard for the squash.
and could not hit the squash. ] would