skit #54: the instruments of their debate

One Mr Leslie and another Mr Leslie stood ankle-deep in Weehawken snow, a case of the sniffles a distant threat only to whomever stood vindicated. The immediate danger posed by the snow was its erasure everything aside from Mr Leslie (a gentleman), Mr Leslie (another gentleman), Fr Tibbler (the witness), the point of contention (the latter Mr Leslie's nobility), and their instruments of debate (a pair of rarely-used dueling pistols); The two gentleman saw only their twenty paces of separation.

Ever since Burr offed Hamilton, Weehawken became a fashionable dueling locale. Gentlemen exercised their First and Second Amendment rights often, dispensing opinions in 14g plumbic doses. This fad attracted macabre entrepreneurs of all professions: botanists for the widows, distillers for the victors, undertakers for the undone, surgeons for the unlimbed, and gun dealers for the unarmed. Equality grew affordable; The esteemed title of Gentleman cost the price of a pistol.

Every injustice could be remedied by satisfaction. The world had gone crass, and there were many dishonorable foes that might offend an upstanding gentleman's sensibilities: murderers, rapists, adulterers, blackmailers, pickpockets, slanderers, liars, ruffians, inebriates, quibblers, derelicts, yokels.

The two Leslie gentleman were misters of the same loins. Subtleties noticed only by twins (between themselves) and narcissists (in themselves) eluded the Weehawkenians. Society saw Mr Leslie and Mr Leslie as two people by count of bodies. But Mr Leslie and Mr Leslie saw all their differences, all the moles they were born with, the scars accrued over time. And they intimately knew all the differences they contrived, the preferences for tenors or baritones, for ascots or cravats.

A third Mr Leslie, their long dead great-grandfather, hailed from a past age when firearms and diatribes finished each other' thoughts. Mr Leslie's dueling pistol set remained mounted above his fireplace, a delicate reminder of politeness to any guests he hosted. Mr Leslie slew many gentlemen over his years -- 'Forty-nine and three-fifths,' boasted the Leslie family's yarn. Past his fighting years and rife with battle wounds, an insolent fop mocked Mr Leslie's limp. They dueled; Mr Leslie perished and the fop limped home.

Among his estate, he bequeathed his legendary dueling pistol set to '[his] irreplaceably unique great-grandsons.' Mr Leslie and Mr Leslie both sought Mr Leslie's heirloom. After a petty run of spats, thefts, and slaps, the brothers agreed to let the dueling pistols decide their new master.

Ankle-deep in Weehawken snow, Fr Tibbler prompted: 'Ready, aim, fire.' A misfire and a misfire. Mr Leslie and Mr Leslie returned unharmed to their homes, an ass and an ass, proving nothing to anyone, defending no one's honor, the pistols prefering rust and disuse to exchanging bullets between twins or brothers, brothers or friends, friends or men, men or gentlemen.