CAMBRIDGE 77 



not long before I quitted it, during, I suppose, my 

 absence of one term from Cambridge through illness. 

 Anyhow, I do not in the least recollect his presence. 



Speaking of the still lingering practice of duelling, 

 C. Bristed, an American who came to Cambridge for 

 a couple of years or so, and whose racy ways made 

 him everywhere an acceptable guest, had a strange 

 experience. Some few years after we had left the 

 University, F. Campbell asked us both to dine with 

 him at Stratheden House, where he was at the 

 moment the only member of his family in residence. 

 Bristed eave us there the full account of a duel in 

 which he had unexpectedly become engaged. It 

 occurred near a German watering-place that lay 

 within a short distance of French territory. He 

 had been criticising his future opponent pretty 

 freely in a local paper, with the result that on 

 leaving church with his young wife, where they 

 had just joined in taking the Sacrament, a note 

 was handed to him containing a challenge, and 

 suggesting a place in French territory for the 

 encounter. There seemed no other feasible course 

 than to accept that most untimely challenge, which 

 he did. On arriving at the ground, the combatants 

 were placed 40 paces apart, with instructions to 

 walk towards one another, each to fire his one shot 

 whenever he thought proper. Bristed, who was 

 rather short-sighted, said that his opponent looked 

 absurdly far away, and that he considered the safest 

 plan for himself was to "draw" his adversary's shot 

 before they came nearer together, which he did. He 

 fired harmlessly, and a harmless shot came in reply. 

 All the time he was recounting this very irregular 



