through warm criticism and
disapproval--so that when I laid down my editorial pen I had four
horse-whippings and two duels owing to me. We didn't care for the
horse-whippings; there was no glory in them; they were not worth the
trouble of collecting. But honor required that some notice should be
taken of that other duel. Mr. Cutler had come up from Carson City, and
had sent a man over with a challenge from the hotel. Steve went over to
pacify him. Steve weighed only ninety-five pounds, but it was well known
throughout the territory that with his fists he could whip anybody that
walked on two legs, let his weight and science be what they might. Steve
was a Gillis, and when a Gillis confronted a man and had a proposition
to make, the proposition always contained business. When Cutler found
that Steve was my second he cooled down; he became calm and rational,
and was ready to listen. Steve gave him fifteen minutes to get out of
the hotel, and half an hour to get out of town or there would be
results. So _that_ duel went off successfully, because Mr. Cutler
immediately left for Carson a convinced and reformed man.

I have never had anything to do with duels since. I thoroughly
disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise, and I know they are
dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now, I would go to
that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to
a quiet retired spot, and _kill_ him.

MARK TWAIN.

(_To be Continued._)

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

No. DCVI.

JANUARY 4, 1907.

CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--IX.

BY MARK TWAIN.

[_Dictated December 13, 1906._] As regards the coming American monarchy.
It was before the Secretary of State had been heard from that the
chairman of the banquet said:

"In this time of unrest it is of great satisfaction that such a man as
you, Mr. Root, is chief adviser of the President."

Mr. Root then got up and in the most quiet and orderly manner touched
off the successor to the San Francisco earthquake. As a result, the
several State governments were well shaken up and considerably weakened.
Mr. Root was prophesying. He was prophesying, and it seems to me that no
shrewder and surer forecasting has been done in this country for a good
many years.

He did not say, in so many words, that we are proceeding, in a steady
march, toward eventual and unavoidable replac