THE CODE 47 



pushed me aside; my new-found manly dignity was offended; 

 therefore, as usual in such cases, I asked him for his card. His 

 answer was: "I beg pardon, my dear sir, I took you for a boy." 

 We both saw the fun of the situation and became friends. He 

 was one of the glories of this world ; he lifted my sense of what 

 it was to be a man the ancient type of gentleman. The other 

 instance, when I had to compose trouble between men, was more 

 serious. In 1859 I went with a party of young people to the 

 Mammoth Cave. With me went Courtland Prentice, son of the 

 once well-known George D. Prentice, editor of a Louisville 

 paper, who, though some years my senior, was then my nearest 

 friend. As the railway was not completed, we journeyed in 

 stage-coaches privately hired. At a relay place a gentleman, a 

 stranger to us all, mounted the stage and sat beside my friend, 

 who was in an excited state and resented the intrusion in an 

 improper manner. It quickly came to the point where he had to 

 challenge the stranger, which he did on the spot. There being 

 no one more fit, I had to serve Prentice as second. Fortunately, 

 as the other principal knew no one in the throng at the Mam- 

 moth Cave, I had to help him to find a second, and so had a 

 very reasonable person to deal with. The stranger, who turned 

 out to be a well-known duellist from Mississippi, accepted the 

 invitation to battle, choosing as weapons shot-guns with buck- 

 shot at twenty paces distant which meant certain death to a 

 novice. But once again the difficulty was easily arranged; in 

 fact, they were with rare exceptions mere fooling. 



The only good side of the system was certain features of the 

 code which require that the antagonists should not dispute 

 with one another, and that as soon as there was a grievance it 

 should be put into the hands of disinterested persons ; and the 

 further theory that the seconds, with an arbiter if need be, 

 should try to compose the matter, their decision being quite 

 beyond appeal. One of the maxims one often impressed on 

 me by my grandfather and other elders was that gentlemen 

 sometimes fought, but they never quarrelled in the manner of 



