ever fought in this part of the country?"

"Scarcely any since Burr shot Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton was one of
our greatest men, and his death excited a feeling throughout the
Northern States which put down the practice almost entirely; and I
certainly think it a step forward in real civilization."

"Do you mean to say that it is with you as with us, where, if a man
becomes so involved in a quarrel that he is challenged, it is against
him and almost ruin to him whether he fights or does not fight? Or is
public opinion decidedly in favor of the man who does not fight, and
against the man who does? For instance, suppose you were challenged
yourself?"

"A man can't say beforehand what he would do in an emergency of the
kind; but my impression is that I should not fight, and that the opinion
of society would bear me out."

"But suppose a man insulted your wife or sister?"

"It is next door to impossible that an American gentleman should do such
a thing; but if he did, I should consider that he had reduced himself to
the level of a snob, and should treat him as I would any snob in the
streets,--knock him down, if I was able; and if I wasn't, take the law
of him: and if a man had wronged me irreparably, I fancy I should do as
these uncivilized Southerners themselves do in such a case,--shoot him
down in the street, wherever I could catch him. What sense or justice is
there in a duel? It is as if a man stole your coat, and instead of
having him put into prison, you drew lots with him whether you or he
should go."

"But suppose a man was spreading false reports about you; suppose he
said you were no gentleman, or that you had cheated somebody?"

"Bah!" replied Benson, dexterously evading the most important part of
the question, "if I were to fight all the people that spread false
reports about me, I should have my hands full. There is a man in this
room that slandered me as grossly as he could four years ago, and was
very near breaking off my marriage. That fat man there, with all the
jewelry--Storey Hunter."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the other, really surprised, for he had just seen
Mrs. Benson conversing with the ponderous exquisite, apparently on most
amicable terms.

"Yes, and it was entirely gratuitous. I never gave the scamp any
provocation. By Jupiter!" Benson turned very white and then very red,
"if he isn't dancing with my wife! His impudence is too much, and----. I
believe one of our women would put up with an