At this pronouncement, a joyous exclamation arose from Crockett’s juvenile audience as if from a single throat. “Fight!” they cried. “Mr. Poe and Davy Crockett are going to have a fight!”

Patting the air with both hands, Crockett silenced the boys. “No, no, young ’uns. I don’t mean to tussle with a man in his own home. That ain’t Davy Crockett’s style.”

Turning his intense gaze back at me, he said, “Cricket, I’m givin’ you ’til tomorrow morning to chaw on this matter. You’ll find me stayin’ at Mrs. Macready’s boardin’ house over yonder on Howard Street. I’ll expect to see you there afore breakfast time with your answer. It’s either an apology or an old-fashioned knock-down-and-drag-out fight atween you ’n’ me.”

Thus far I had tolerated Crockett’s brazen behavior out of that ingrained sense of courtesy endemic to the well-bred Southerner. To be so insultingly addressed within the precincts of my own dwelling place, however, was a provocation I could no longer endure. Throwing back my shoulders, I replied to Crockett’s bullying ultimatum with the only answer it deserved: I screwed my lips into a withering sneer.

Pretending to ignore me, Crockett reached inside his vest pocket and consulted his timepiece, “By crackers! If I don’t high-tail it out of here, I’m goin’ to miss that supper that the young Whigs is throwin’ me over to Barnum’s Hotel.”

“But Davy,” a childish voice protested. It was that of little Jimmy Johnston. “You ain’t told us none of your adventures.”

Crockett emitted an indulgent chuckle. “Tell you what, lad. Why don’t you and the rest of your chums stroll with me for a spell and I’ll treat you to a by-gum slam-whanger of a story.”

“Hurray!” came the answering shout.

“Let me see now,” Crockett commenced, stroking his clean-shaven chin. “You boys ever hear ’bout the time I saved the whole livin’ airth from scorchifyin’ destruction by wringin’ the tail off of Halley’s comet?”

He cast me a farewell look that seemed to say, “I will see you in the morning, Mr. Cricket.” Then, with his small band of rapt listeners in tow, he swivelled on his heels and departed through my wide-flung chamber door.

CHAPTER 3

Sleep failed to descend upon me that night. Still brooding upon Crockett’s ultimatum and the insufferable manner of its delivery, I lay awake in the gloom of my bedchamber, listening to the tempest which raged beyond the walls of my abode. The dense clouds which had darkened the heavens all day had let loose their fury at nightfall. In the intensity of its violence, the storm appeared to be the visible expression of my own inner turbulence, as if to confirm the philosophy of those so-called Transcendental thinkers, who regard the multifarious phenomena of Nature as the outward manifestation of the human soul.