den one? If I hit his leg,
why, he will have another to-morrow, and be pegging about as well as
usual. If he hits mine, I may lose my life by it; but almost certainly
my leg, and be compelled, like Tate, to stump it the balance of my
life. I cannot risk this; and must have a gum to put my leg in: then I
am as much wood as he is, and on equal terms with him."

"I understand you, Colonel Dooly; you do not intend to fight."

"Well, really, Mr. Crawford, I thought everybody knew that."

"Very well, sir," said Crawford; "but remember, colonel, your name, in
no enviable light, shall fill a column of a newspaper."

"Mr. Crawford, I assure you," replied Colonel Dooly, "I would rather
fill every newspaper in Georgia than one coffin."

It is scarcely necessary to say, that Tate and Crawford left the field
discomfited, and here the matter ended.

Dooly never pretended to belligerency. When Judge Gresham threatened to
chastise him, he coolly replied he could do it; but that it would be no
credit to him, for anybody could do it. And when he introduced his
friend to another as the inferior judge of the Inferior Court of the
inferior County of Lincoln, and was knocked down for the insult, he
intreated the bystanders not to suffer him to be injured. When released
from the grasp of his antagonist, he rubbed his head, and facetiously
said: "This is the forty-second fight I have had, and if I ever got the
best of one, I do not now recollect it."

Judge Dooly was much beloved by the younger members of the Bar, to whom
he was ever kind and indulgent, associating with them upon his circuit,
and joining in all their amusements. His wit spared no one, and yet no
one was offended at it. His humor was the life of the company wherever
he was, and he was never so burdened with official dignity as to
restrain it on the bench. Unbiassed by party considerations or personal
prejudices, and only influenced by a sense of duty and wish to do
right, it was impossible he could be otherwise than popular. This
popularity, however, was personal, not political, and could never
secure to him any political distinction. He was ambitious of a seat in
the United States Senate, a distinction to which he more than once
aspired; but here the grinning ghost of Federalism always met him,
frightening from his support even the nearest of his social friends.
Mr. Crawford's wishes controlled the State, through the instrumentality
of those he had distinguished with hi