A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

to explain it away. He said he had spoken jestingly.

Then he added that he and his principal would enjoy axes,

and indeed prefer them, but such weapons were barred

by the French code, and so I must change my proposal.

I walked the floor, turning the thing over in my mind,

and finally it occurred to me that Gatling-guns at fifteen

paces would be a likely way to get a verdict on the field

of honor. So I framed this idea into a proposition.

But it was not accepted. The code was in the way again.

I proposed rifles; then double-barreled shotguns;

then Colt’s navy revolvers. These being all rejected,

I reflected awhile, and sarcastically suggested brickbats

at three-quarters of a mile. I always hate to fool away

a humorous thing on a person who has no perception of humor;

and it filled me with bitterness when this man went soberly

away to submit the last proposition to his principal.

He came back presently and said his principal was charmed

with the idea of brickbats at three-quarters of a mile,

but must decline on account of the danger to disinterested

parties passing between them. Then I said:

“Well, I am at the end of my string, now. Perhaps YOU

would be good enough to suggest a weapon? Perhaps you

have even had one in your mind all the time?”

His countenance brightened, and he said with alacrity:

“Oh, without doubt, monsieur!”

So he fell to hunting in his pockets–pocket after pocket,

and he had plenty of them–muttering all the while,

“Now, what could I have done with them?”

At last he was successful. He fished out of his vest pocket

a couple of little things which I carried to the light

and ascertained to be pistols. They were single-barreled

and silver-mounted, and very dainty and pretty.

I was not able to speak for emotion. I silently hung

one of them on my watch-chain, and returned the other.

My companion in crime now unrolled a postage-stamp

containing several cartridges, and gave me one of them.

I asked if he meant to signify by this that our men were

to be allowed but one shot apiece. He replied that the

French code permitted no more. I then begged him to go

and suggest a distance, for my mind was growing weak

and confused under the strain which had been put upon it.

He named sixty-five yards. I nearly lost my patience.

I said:

“Sixty-five yards, with these instruments? Squirt-guns

would be deadlier at fifty. Consider, my friend,

you and I are banded together to destroy life, not make

it eternal.”

But with all my persuasions, all my arguments, I was only

able to get him to reduce the distance to thirty-five yards;

and even this concession he made with reluctance,

and said with a sigh, “I wash my hands of this slaughter;

on your head be it.”

There was nothing for me but to go home to my old

lion-heart and tell my humiliating story. When I entered,

M. Gambetta was laying his last lock of hair upon the altar.

He sprang toward me, exclaiming:

“You have made the fatal arrangements–I see it in your eye!”

“I have.”

His face paled a trifle, and he leaned upon the table

for support. He breathed thick and heavily for a moment

or two, so tumultuous were his feelings; then he hoarsely

whispered:

“The weapon, the weapon! Quick! what is the weapon?”

“This!” and I displayed that silver-mounted thing.

He cast but one glance at it, then swooned ponderously

to the floor.

When he came to, he said mournfully:

“The unnatural calm to which I have subjected myself

has told upon my nerves. But away with weakness!

I will confront my fate like a man and a Frenchman.”

He rose to his feet, and assumed an attitude which

for sublimity has never been approached by man,

and has seldom been surpassed by statues. Then he said,

in his deep bass tones:

“Behold, I am calm, I am ready; reveal to me the distance.”

“Thirty-five yards.” …

I could not lift him up, of course; but I rolled him over,

and poured water down his back. He presently came to,