merely remark, that I could have done it myself if I had tried. Adios! Respectfully Yours. INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE EDITOR AND PHOENIX The Thomas Hunt had arrived, she lay at the wharf at New Town, and a rumor had reached our ears that "the Judge was on board. Public anxiety had been excited to the highest pitch to witness the result of the meeting between us. It had been stated publicly that "the Judge " would whip us the moment he arrived; but though we thought a conflict probable, we had never been very sanguine as to its terminating in this manner. Coolly we gazed from the window of the office upon the New Town road; we descried a cloud of dust in the distance; high above it waved a whip-lash, and we said, "the Judge" cometh, and "his driving is like that of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he driveth furiously." Calmly we seated ourselves in the "arm-chair," and continued our labors upon our magnificent Pictorial. Anon, a step, a heavy step, was heard upon the stairs, and "the Judge" stood before us. "In shape and gesture proudly eminent, stood like a tower: but his face deep scars of thunder had entrenched, and care sat on his faded cheek; but under brows of dauntless courage and considerate pride, waiting revenge." We rose, and with an unfaltering voice said: Well, Judge, how do you do?" He made no reply, but commenced taking off his coat. We removed ours, also our cravat. The sixth and last round is described by the pressman and compositors as having been fearfully scientific. We held "the Judge" down over the Press by our nose (which we had inserted between his teeth for that purpose), and while our hair was employed in holding one of his hands, we held the other in our left, and with the "sheep's foot" brandished above our head, shouted to him, "say Waldo." Never! he gasped "Oh! my Bigler he would have muttered, But that he 'dried up,' ere the word was uttered." At this moment we discovered that we had been laboring under a "misunderstanding," and through the amicable intervention of the pressman, who thrust a roller between our faces (which gave the whole affair a very different complexion), the matter was finally settled on the most friendly terms"and without prejudice to the honor of either party." We write this while sitting without any clothing, except our left stocking, and the rim of our hat encircling our neck like a "ruff" of the Elizabethan era—that article of dress having been knocked over our head at an early stage of the proceedings, and the crown subsequently torn off, while the Judge is sopping his eye with cold water in the next room, a small boy standing beside the sufferer with a basin, and glancing with interest over the advertisements on the second page of the San Diego Herald, a fair copy of which was struck off upon the back of his shirt at the time we held him over the Press. Thus ends our description of this long anticipated personal collision, of which the public can believe precisely as much as they please if they disbelieve the whole of it, we shall not be at all offended, but can simply quote as much to the point, what might have been the commencement of our epitaph, had we fallen in the conflict, "HERE LIES PHOENIX." 4 |