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stealth campaign to preserve the county court and its privileges, the mere listing of their names was an accusation. Pulitzer’s list also suggested guilt by association. For instance, he sandwiched Augustine’s name between those of two notorious lobbyists. At the end of his list, Pulitzer displayed his characteristic cheekiness. “I would like to pose the question,” he wrote, changing from German to English, “who pays the expenses? But since this could be misinterpreted by some of these gentlemen, who are genteel types, I prefer to leave this be and turn to a more interesting topic”—and here he abruptly ended his sentence, prompting the readers to look down to the title of the next section of his dispatch from the state capital: “Abolition of the County Court.”

That evening the St. Louis delegation met in the parlor of Schmidt’s Hotel, a large room, about sixty by fifty feet. Around seven, a dozen or so men gathered, and then their ranks swelled as others came in from supper. Several German legislators were talking with Augustine about Pulitzer’s article when the author himself arrived. Pulitzer asked what they were discussing. “You,” they replied. Augustine then asked Pulitzer why he had published such charges, especially as he didn’t know the facts. Not so, replied Pulitzer, claiming that he knew the “facts” very well.

“Nothing but a pup could make such a statement, not knowing them to be facts,” Augustine said. That phrase crossed the line. In the nineteenth-century code of honor, a reference to a “liar” or a “pup” could provoke a duel. In 1817, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri used the term “puppy” in reference to the attorney Charles Lucas, and the latter died in the ensuing duel. Pulitzer warned Augustine to be more cautious with his language, and Augustine responded by calling him a “damned liar.”

Pulitzer moved away and joined several friends. “Pulitzer, why didn’t you knock that man down when he called you a damned liar?” asked one of them, who had overheard the exchange. “You must keep up the esprit du corps, man.”

“Oh, it’s all about the County Court,” replied Pulitzer, who then left.

Back at the boardinghouse, Pulitzer flung open the door to his room and stormed in, startling Anthony Ittner, who had just returned from some late-afternoon bowling. Making straight for the lounge chair, Pulitzer removed his pistol from his suitcase and pocketed it, hiding his actions from his roommate. Ittner said he was heading back to the bowling lanes to retrieve a coat he had forgotten. “Hold on, Tony,” Pulitzer said, “and I’ll go with you.”

“That damned Augustine insulted me,” Pulitzer told Ittner when they reached the street. “I am going back there to call him every bad name there is in the dictionary, I am going to call him a ‘son-of-a-bitch.’” Ittner admonished him not to, reminding Pulitzer that he revered his own mother by carrying her likeness in his pocket watch.

“Well, Tony,” Pulitzer replied, “I think you are right and I will be governed by your advice, but I assure you I will call him every other bad name I can think of.” The two then walked east. At the corner, Ittner took a right turn toward the bowling alley and Pulitzer went left toward the hotel.

Heading down the hill to the hotel, Pulitzer encountered two newspapermen on their way to the telegraph office. Pulitzer told them that if they headed back to the hotel they would get a good item. “Thinking he was alluding to the meeting of the delegation,” one of them said, “I told him we would be back in a few minutes.”

When Pulitzer reached the parlor of Schmidt’s Hotel, Augustine was still there, talking with a county judge and another man. Pulitzer walked directly across the room, and angry words once again passed between the two men. “Mr. Augustine, just one word, and I hope that it will be the last word that I speak to you,” Pulitzer said. “I would like to explain to you that I am no longer inclined to associate with you, and I also do not wish that you speak to me again. Should you, however, persist in insulting me, you will, despite your great