From Pillar to Post: Leaves from a Lecturer's Note-Book

by John Kendrick Bangs

The effect was instantaneous. A wave of enthusiasm swept over the lads, and the only interference I had from them during my talk was a somewhat too-ready inclination on their part to help me along with laughter and applause at points where tears and silence would have been more appropriate. Moreover, when at the close of my lecture I started with some reluctance to leave the hall, instead of the volley of arctic ammunition that I had expected, I found those youngsters lined up twenty on a side between the door and my motor with their hats off, forming a little alley of honor for me to tread, giving me three rousing cheers as I departed.

From which somewhat trying experience I deduce that there is a good deal more latent courtesy in Young America than certain despairing critics of modern manners would have us believe. It may be that the reason why we do not find it oftener is that we do not ourselves give it the opportunity to express itself.

I have spoken of our exposure to "battle, murder, and sudden death," and to some it may have seemed an exaggeration to claim anything of the sort as a platform peril; and yet there was one occasion upon which I was so uncomfortably tangent to such conditions that they seemed all too real. It was in one of our far western States. Scheduled to lecture there at eight P.M., my train did not reach the town until nine-forty-five. I had telegraphed news of my delay ahead, and my audience with rare courtesy had voted to remain at the hall until I arrived.

I dressed on the train, and on descending from it was whisked to the opera house in a prehistoric hack, which shed one of its wheels en route, spilling the committee and myself into the road, but without damage; while my Only Muse went on to the hotel, a two-story affair, where she secured accommodations for the night. Later, on the conclusion of my talk, on my arrival at the hotel, I found the Muse sitting up in bed, pallid as a ghost, with a revolver at her side.

"Laughter where tears would have been more appropriate."

"What on earth is the matter with you?" I demanded, more than startled at the sight.

She hardly needed to answer; for almost as I spoke from a saloon located immediately underneath our room came the sharp crack of pistols. Somebody below there was engaged in the pleasing occupation of "shooting up" the place. Not having seen the plans and specifications of the hotel, I did not know how thick the floor was, or what were the prospects for a sudden eruption of bullets through the carpet. It was not any safer to venture out either; for there was no telling how far the trouble might spread. So I jumped into bed and trusted to a combination of Providence, floor, and hair mattress to hold me immune. The disturbance did not last long, however, and shortly after midnight all was quiet, and sleep came.

Two hours later we were awakened by a snarling quarrel going on directly under our window. Two men were applying epithets of an uncomplimentary nature to each other, when suddenly one of them passed the bounds of even occidental toleration. He called the other a name that no right-minded man could be expected to stand, and we heard three sharp cracks of a revolver zipping out in the air. We sprang from the bed and rushed to the window, and there lying flat on his back, on a light fall of snow, in the glare of an electric lamp, was a man, with a gradually widening red spot staining the white of the road on which he lay. There was no sign of an assailant anywhere; but in a few moments, in absolute, almost ghostly silence, black figures appeared from seemingly everywhere, and bent over the fallen victim. We could hear low whisperings, and then suddenly one of the black figures detached himself from the group, and ran off down the street, returning shortly with a covered carriage. Into this the murdered man was placed, the carriage was driven off, the snow muffling the feet of the horses, the black figures vanished as silently as they had come, and all that was left of the tragedy was the red spot in the snow.

We had heard tales of witnesses to similar disturbances being detained for months under surveillance, practically prisoners of the law, pending the trial of the guilty, and were in no mind to suffer a similar experience ourselves. Wherefore when morning came we rose with the first glimmer of dawn, packed our suitcases, and, asking no questions of anybody, departed for other scenes on the earliest milk train we could catch; which happened, fortunately, to be going in the right direction for us.