The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-07-28

walked off, and then and there deter
mined to nave no more to do with him
He held a chair in the college, sub,
but he was no gentleman.
Interest in my bill began to wane.
and in order to revive it I had COM
mittee appointed and went with them
to the nearest frog pond. I there sat
1sfed them that the frog was a quiet
and respectable member of the com
munity unless driven to the wall. He
would mediate in silence for hours IN
til hearing darby whistling or a mule
braying. Then he would break forth in
bellows of protest The Investigations of
the committee were made known in the
public prints, and then Professor Ches-
ter broke out again. 1 paid no afren-
ton to him until he called me the boss
bullfrog charlatan. Then I had to do
something, and I did it. 1 pulled his
nose Tor him on the street and it would
nave done your heart good to hear the
promptness with which he challenged
me He seemed so fiercely in earnest
Thu time that I accepted and named
pistols as the weapons.
Again we met on the field of honah.
me professor was pale but deter
mined, and he went so far as to take
weapon in hand. Then he demanded
that we be stationed fifty rods apart at
first He had never fred a shot in his
lie and wanted time to get used to
nrearms- We were to fire and then
advance II inches, and he hoped to be
able TO put q bullet into me by the
time we were SO feet apart. Nothing
OF the sort could be allowed. of course
1 stepped over and pulled the profess
sor's nose, hoping to bring him TO the
mark He instantly challenged me
again, and claimed that the last chal-
lenge took precedence OF the first.
same as an amendment to a motion
When We had wrangled over that for
ten minutes he suddenly discovered a
new kind of grub in the grass and cap
tured it and started for home
My position was ridiculous. such. If
1t had been anybody but Colonel
Bunker who led his regiment at
Gettysburg and lost two hundred men
out of seven hundred, and who had
fought twenty-six duels, he would
have been driven out of the senate by
the jokes and jibes. I stood on my
dignity and held my position, sub To
do so, It became necessary to chaI-
lenge and meet and wound two other
parties.
THE joking ceased after that, and
things were going along all right when
the professor bobbed up again. He
suddenly remembered that we had two
duels to fight, and he sent a friend to
say that I would be expected to show
up on the field of honah next mawn-
ing. I waited until I heard that the
professor was there and then sauntered
forth. He was there, sub, but he was
armed with a butcher knife-the same
weapon he had used half an hour be-
fore to disembowel a coon to find how
his liver compared with that Of the
woodchuckl He wanted a butcher
knife duel or none at all. and he want
ed it in the rules that both of US could
kick and bite as well as thrust and
stab.
Il turned my back and left him. He
was no gentleman, suh-no gentle
man. He simply resembled one in hts
dress. He called me a coward in the
public prints. but by the advice Of my
friends I paid no heed to it. When
Colonel Bunker meets up with man
who wants to fight a duel with pitch
forks axes or bludgeons he retires
gracefully from the field. He will
either be killed by a gentleman, with
gentleman's weapons, or live on to i'm
bfbe other cocktails. - Copyright.
1906. by Homer Sprague.)