 a means of ventilating the stomach of any adversary in a close
contest. He had used these weapons with distinguished effect in several
instances, all duly chronicled in the newspapers; and was greatly beloved for
the gallant manner in which he had jobbed out the eye of one gentleman, as he
was in the act of knocking at his own street-door.
    Mr. Chollop was a man of a roving disposition; and, in any less advanced
community, might have been mistaken for a violent vagabond. But his fine
qualities being perfectly understood and appreciated in those regions where his
lot was cast, and where he had many kindred spirits to consort with, he may be
regarded as having been born under a fortunate star, which is not always the
case with a man so much before the age in which he lives. Preferring, with a
view to the gratification of his tickling and ripping fancies, to dwell upon the
outskirts of society, and in the more remote towns and cities, he was in the
habit of emigrating from place to place, and establishing in each some business
- usually a newspaper - which he presently sold: for the most part closing the
bargain by challenging, stabbing, pistolling, or gouging, the new editor, before
he had quite taken possession of the property.
    He had come to Eden on a speculation of this kind, but had abandoned it, and
was about to leave. He always introduced himself to strangers as a worshipper of
Freedom; was the consistent advocate of Lynch law, and slavery; and invariably
recommended, both in print and speech, the »tarring and feathering« of any
unpopular person who differed from himself. He called this »planting the
standard of civilisation in the wilder gardens of My country.«
    There is little doubt that Chollop would have planted this standard in Eden
at Mark's expense, in return for his plainness of speech (for the genuine
Freedom is dumb, save when she vaunts herself), but for the utter desolation and
decay prevailing in the settlement, and his own approaching departure from it.
As it was, he contented himself with showing Mark one of the revolving-pistols,
and asking him what he thought of that weapon.
    »It ain't long since I shot a man down with that, sir, in the State of Illin
oy,« observed Chollop.
    »Did you, indeed!« said Mark, without the smallest agitation. »Very free of
you. And very independent!«
    »I shot him down, sir,« pursued Chollop, »for asserting in the Spartan
Portico, a
