hey_ regard as brains. They had better
swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile
carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve.

"That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville _Thunderbolt and
Battle-Cry of Freedom_, is down here again sponging at the Van
Buren.

"We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs
_Morning Howl_ is giving out, with his usual propensity for
lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of
journalism is to disseminate truth: to eradicate error; to
educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals and
manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more
charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier; and
yet this black-hearted scoundrel degrades his great office
persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny,
vituperation, and vulgarity.

"Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement--it wants a jail and a
poor-house more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town
composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith-shop, and that
mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the _Daily Hurrah_! The crawling
insect, Buckner, who edits the _Hurrah_, is braying about this
business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is
talking sense."

"Now _that_ is the way to write--peppery and to the point.
Mush-and-milk journalism gives me the fan-tods."

About this time a brick came through the window with a splintering
crash, and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved
out of range--I began to feel in the way.

The chief said: "That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting
him for two days. He will be up now right away."

He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment
afterwards with a dragoon revolver in his hand.

He said: "Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who
edits this mangy sheet?"

"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs
is gone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar,
Colonel Blatherskite Tecumseh?"

"Right, sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are
at leisure we will begin."

"I have an article on the 'Encouraging Progress of Moral and
Intellectual Development in America' to finish, but there is no
hurry. Begin."

Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The
chief lost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its
career in the fleshy pa