DUELLING EXTRAORDINARY.
The contemplated single-stick encounter between Colonel ARCHER-SHEE and Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING recalls to mind a ludicrous affair which actually happened some years ago in a foreign city which I will here call Killemalivo.
Mr. Alec McTavish, a Briton many years resident in that fair capital and editor of the only English newspaper, had taken up stout verbal cudgels on behalf of the Americans, who had been viciously attacked in the columns of a local "daily." The United States of the North, in its capacity of "special" to the entire American continent, comes in for plenty of abuse when a new revolution is about to be perpetrated.
The strife had waxed fast and furious and eventually had taken on a personal tone, the editor of La Muera accusing the editor of the English paper of being "that lowest of all living things—a Texan." It will be remembered that in times gone by the State of Texas decided to desert its Latin parents and roost under the shadow of the eagle's wing, thereby earning for itself prosperity and an evil reputation—in certain quarters.
McTavish's editorial reply was a gem of satire and displayed an intimate knowledge of the antecedents of the rival editor.
At that time duelling was still prevalent, and it was not many days before the editorial sanctum of The Tribune was honoured by the visit of two officers in full-dress uniform.
The eventual outcome of their visit was that Mr. McTavish found himself pledged to fight a duel with a man who was, among other things, a first-class pistol shot and exceptionally expert with the "florette," all of which McTavish was not.
The affair looked particularly unpleasant—to McTavish, who was short, fat, and by no means young. But the dignity of the foreign population as represented by the editor of The Killemalivo Tribune must of necessity be upheld.
Faced by this quite unusual difficulty, McTavish bethought him of his old and tried friend, General O'Flynnone, an Irish-American of many years' residence in the Latin Americas. No one seemed to know his real name, and the title of General had come to him from his last place.