CAMBRIDGE
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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 gave 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
Y ill a Im"ll 1 1;11 ler, With 1,11c 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
