The talk occasioned by Maguire’s unseemly castigation of Macdougall, while the latter was engaged in conversation with a lady, was dying out, happily for both parties, but Mr. Macdougall has set it going again by bringing that suit of his for $5,000 for the assault and battery. If he can get the money, I suppose that is at least the most profitable method of settling the matter. But then, will he? Maybe so, and maybe not. But if he feels badly—feels hurt—feels disgraced at being chastised, will $5,000 entirely soothe him and put an end to the comments and criticisms of the public? It is questionable. If he would pitch in and whale Maguire, though, it would afford him real, genuine satisfaction, and would also furnish me with a great deal more pleasing material for a paragraph than I can get out of the regular routine of events that transpire in San Francisco—which is a matter of still greater importance. If the plaintiff in this suit of damages were to intimate that he would like to have a word from me on this subject, I would immediately sit down and pour out my soul to him in verse. I would tune up my muse and sing to him the following pretty
Come, now, Macdougall!
Say—
Can lucre pay
For thy dismembered coat—
Thy strangulated throat—
Thy busted bugle?
Speak thou! poor W. J.!
And say—
I pray—
If gold can soothe your woes,
Or mend your tattered clothes,
Or heal your battered nose,
Oh bunged-up lump of clay!
No!—arise!
Be wise!
Macdougall, d—n your eyes!
Don’t legal quips devise
To mend your reputation,
And efface the degradation
Of a blow that’s struck in ire!
But ’ware of execration,
Unless you take your station
In a strategic location,
In mood of desperation,
And “lam” like all creation
This infernal Tom Maguire!
December 20, 1865