-think what a scandal--"

But they burst out with maledictions, imprecations and all the hard
names they could dig out of the rich accumulations of their educated
memories, and in the midst of it the man shouted--

"When _gentlemen_ come to this house, I treat them _as_ gentlemen. When
people come to this house with the ordinary appetites of gentlemen, I
charge them a dollar and thirty cents for what I furnished you; but when
a man brings a hell-fired Famine here that gorges a barrel of pork and
four barrels of beans at two sittings--"

Sage broke in, in a voice that was eloquent with remorse and
self-reproach, "I never thought of that, and I ask your pardon; I am
ashamed of myself and of my friend. Here's your thirteen dollars, and my
apologies along with it."

[_Dictated March 12, 1906._] I have always taken a great interest in
other people's duels. One always feels an abiding interest in any heroic
thing which has entered into his own experience.

[Sidenote: (1878.)]

In 1878, fourteen years after my unmaterialized duel, Messieurs Fortu
and Gambetta fought a duel which made heroes of both of them in France,
but made them rather ridiculous throughout the rest of the world. I was
living in Munich that fall and winter, and I was so interested in that
funny tragedy that I wrote a long account of it, and it is in one of my
books, somewhere--an account which had some inaccuracies in it, but as
an exhibition of the _spirit_ of that duel, I think it was correct and
trustworthy. And when I was living in Vienna, thirty-four years after my
ineffectual duel, my interest in that kind of incident was still strong;
and I find here among my Autobiographical manuscripts of that day a
chapter which I began concerning it, but did not finish. I wanted to
finish it, but held it open in the hope that the Italian ambassador, M.
Nigra, would find time to furnish me the _full_ history of Senor
Cavalotti's adventures in that line. But he was a busy man; there was
always an interruption before he could get well started; so my hope was
never fulfilled. The following is the unfinished chapter:

[Sidenote: (1898.)]

As concerns duelling. This pastime is as common in Austria to-day
as it is in France. But with this difference, that here in the
Austrian States the duel is dangerous, while in France it is not.
Here it is tragedy, in France it in comedy; here it is a solemnity,
there it is monkey-shines; here the