A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

the parks, on the street, and anywhere and everywhere that

the students go, caps of a color group themselves together.

If all the tables in a public garden were crowded

but one, and that one had two red-cap students at it

and ten vacant places, the yellow-caps, the blue-caps,

the white caps, and the green caps, seeking seats,

would go by that table and not seem to see it, nor seem

to be aware that there was such a table in the grounds.

The student by whose courtesy we had been enabled to visit

the dueling-place, wore the white cap–Prussian Corps.

He introduced us to many white caps, but to none of

another color. The corps etiquette extended even to us,

who were strangers, and required us to group with the white

corps only, and speak only with the white corps, while we

were their guests, and keep aloof from the caps of the

other colors. Once I wished to examine some of the swords,

but an American student said, “It would not be quite polite;

these now in the windows all have red hilts or blue;

they will bring in some with white hilts presently,

and those you can handle freely. “When a sword was broken

in the first duel, I wanted a piece of it; but its hilt

was the wrong color, so it was considered best and politest

to await a properer season. It was brought to me after

the room was cleared, and I will now make a “life-size”

sketch of it by tracing a line around it with my pen,

to show the width of the weapon. [Figure 1] The length of

these swords is about three feet, and they are quite heavy.

One’s disposition to cheer, during the course of the

duels or at their close, was naturally strong, but corps

etiquette forbade any demonstrations of this sort.

However brilliant a contest or a victory might be,

no sign or sound betrayed that any one was moved.

A dignified gravity and repression were maintained at

all times.

When the dueling was finished and we were ready to go,

the gentlemen of the Prussian Corps to whom we had been

introduced took off their caps in the courteous German way,

and also shook hands; their brethren of the same order

took off their caps and bowed, but without shaking hands;

the gentlemen of the other corps treated us just as

they would have treated white caps–they fell apart,

apparently unconsciously, and left us an unobstructed pathway,

but did not seem to see us or know we were there.

If we had gone thither the following week as guests of

another corps, the white caps, without meaning any offense,

would have observed the etiquette of their order and ignored

our presence.

[How strangely are comedy and tragedy blended in this life!

I had not been home a full half-hour, after witnessing

those playful sham-duels, when circumstances made it

necessary for me to get ready immediately to assist

personally at a real one–a duel with no effeminate

limitation in the matter of results, but a battle

to the death. An account of it, in the next chapter,

will show the reader that duels between boys, for fun,

and duels between men in earnest, are very different affairs.]

CHAPTER VIII

The Great French Duel

[I Second Gambetta in a Terrific Duel]

Much as the modern French duel is ridiculed by certain

smart people, it is in reality one of the most dangerous

institutions of our day. Since it is always fought in the

open air, the combatants are nearly sure to catch cold.

M. Paul de Cassagnac, the most inveterate of the French

duelists, had suffered so often in this way that he is at

last a confirmed invalid; and the best physician in Paris

has expressed the opinion that if he goes on dueling for

fifteen or twenty years more–unless he forms the habit

of fighting in a comfortable room where damps and draughts

cannot intrude–he will eventually endanger his life.

This ought to moderate the talk of those people who are

so stubborn in maintaining that the French duel is the

most health-giving of recreations because of the open-air