That was more than my professional meekness could endure,
so I reproached him with his rascality and abuse of hospitality towards
me, adding that I expected he would now repay me what he had so
unceremoniously taken from me while I was asleep. General Meyer looked
perfectly aghast, and calling me a liar, a scoundrel, and a villain, he
rushed upon me with his drawn bowie-knife, and would have indubitably
murdered me, had he not been prevented by a tall powerful chap, to whom,
but an hour before, I had lent, or given, five dollars, partly from fear
of him and partly from compassion for his destitution.
"The next day I started for Houston, where I settled, and preached to
old women, children, and negroes, while the white male population were
getting drunk, swearing, and fighting, just before the door of the
church. I had scarcely been there a month when a constable arrested me
on the power of a warrant obtained against me by that rascally Meyer.
Brought up before the magistrate, I was confronted with the blackguard
and five other rascals of his stamp, who positively took their oaths
that they had seen me taking the pocket-book of the general, which he
had left accidentally upon the table in the bar of Tremont's. The
magistrate said, that out of respect for the character of my profession
he would not push the affair to extremities, but that I must immediately
give back the two hundred dollars Meyer said I had stolen from him, and
pay fifty dollars besides for the expenses.
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