A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

exercise it affords. And it ought also to moderate that

foolish talk about French duelists and socialist-hated

monarchs being the only people who are immoral.

But it is time to get at my subject. As soon as I heard

of the late fiery outbreak between M. Gambetta and M. Fourtou

in the French Assembly, I knew that trouble must follow.

I knew it because a long personal friendship with

M. Gambetta revealed to me the desperate and implacable

nature of the man. Vast as are his physical proportions,

I knew that the thirst for revenge would penetrate

to the remotest frontiers of his person.

I did not wait for him to call on me, but went at once

to him. As I had expected, I found the brave fellow

steeped in a profound French calm. I say French calm,

because French calmness and English calmness have points

of difference. He was moving swiftly back and forth

among the debris of his furniture, now and then staving

chance fragments of it across the room with his foot;

grinding a constant grist of curses through his set teeth;

and halting every little while to deposit another handful

of his hair on the pile which he had been building of it on

the table.

He threw his arms around my neck, bent me over his stomach

to his breast, kissed me on both cheeks, hugged me four

or five times, and then placed me in his own arm-chair.

As soon as I had got well again, we began business at once.

I said I supposed he would wish me to act as his second,

and he said, “Of course.” I said I must be allowed

to act under a French name, so that I might be shielded

from obloquy in my country, in case of fatal results.

He winced here, probably at the suggestion that dueling was

not regarded with respect in America. However, he agreed

to my requirement. This accounts for the fact that in all

the newspaper reports M. Gambetta’s second was apparently

a Frenchman.

First, we drew up my principal’s will. I insisted upon this,

and stuck to my point. I said I had never heard of a man

in his right mind going out to fight a duel without

first making his will. He said he had never heard

of a man in his right mind doing anything of the kind.

When he had finished the will, he wished to proceed

to a choice of his “last words.” He wanted to know

how the following words, as a dying exclamation, struck me:

“I die for my God, for my country, for freedom of speech,

for progress, and the universal brotherhood of man!”

I objected that this would require too lingering a death;

it was a good speech for a consumptive, but not suited

to the exigencies of the field of honor. We wrangled

over a good many ante-mortem outburts, but I finally got

him to cut his obituary down to this, which he copied

into his memorandum-book, purposing to get it by heart:

“I DIE THAT FRANCE MIGHT LIVE.”

I said that this remark seemed to lack relevancy; but he

said relevancy was a matter of no consequence in last words,

what you wanted was thrill.

The next thing in order was the choice of weapons.

My principal said he was not feeling well, and would leave

that and the other details of the proposed meeting to me.

Therefore I wrote the following note and carried it to

M. Fourtou’s friend:

Sir: M. Gambetta accepts M. Fourtou’s challenge,

and authorizes me to propose Plessis-Piquet as the place

of meeting; tomorrow morning at daybreak as the time;

and axes as the weapons.

I am, sir, with great respect,

Mark Twain.

M. Fourtou’s friend read this note, and shuddered.

Then he turned to me, and said, with a suggestion of

severity in his tone:

“Have you considered, sir, what would be the inevitable

result of such a meeting as this?”

“Well, for instance, what WOULD it be?”

“Bloodshed!”

“That’s about the size of it,” I said. “Now, if it is

a fair question, what was your side proposing to shed?”

I had him there. He saw he had made a blunder, so he hastened