idual went one storey
too high, and tried to burst in to shoot me with a revolver, but I
repelled him after a severe struggle, in which I had sharp work to avoid
being shot. I would much rather fight a decent duel any time than have
such a "hog-fight." I only had a loaded cane. The worst of it was that
the injured husband, having traced his wife, as he erroneously thought,
to my room, went to Bixby and the clerk, and asked who lived in it. But
as they were my friends, they dismissed him gruffly, yet believed all the
same that _I_ had "a petticoat in my wardrobe." Hence for a week all my
friends kept making cruel allusions in my presence to gay deceivers and
Don Juan _et cetera_, until in a rage I asked what the devil it all
meant, when there was an explanation by a clergyman, and I swore myself
clear. But I thought it was hard lines to have to stand the revolver,
endure all the scandal for a week, and be _innocent_ all the time withal!
That was indeed bitter in the cup!

Apropos of this small affair, I can recall a droll scene, _de eodem
genere_, which I witnessed within a week of the other. There was a
rather first-class saloon, bar, and restaurant on Broadway, kept by a
good-looking pugilistic-associated individual named George Shurragar. As
he had black eyes, and was a shoulder-hitter, and as the name in Romany
means "a captain," I daresay he was partly gypsy. And, when weary with
editorial work, I sometimes dropped in there for refreshment. One night
an elderly, vulgar individual, greatly exalted by many brandies, became
disorderly, and drawing a knife, made a grand Malay charge on all
present, _a la mok_. George Shurragar promptly settled him with a blow,
disarmed him, and "fired him out" into outer darkness. Then George
exhibited the knife. It was such a dirty, disreputable-looking
"pig-sticker," that we were all disgusted, and George cast it with
contempt into the street. Does the reader remember the scene in "The
Bohemian Girl" in which the dandy Count examines the nasty knife left
behind by the gypsy Devilshoof? It was the very counterpart of this, the
difference being that in this case it was the gypsy who despised the
instrument.

Such trivial amusing incidents and rencontres as these were matters of
almost daily occurrence to me in those days, and I fear that I incur the
reproach of padding by narrating these. Yet, as I write this, I have
just read in the "Life of Benvenuto Cellini" that he