Excerpt from The Youth of Jefferson, or a Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, 1764
The visitor kicked the door, to the great damage of his Spanish shoes.
"Beware!" cried the hidden voice; "I am armed to the teeth, and rather than be captured I will die in defence of my rights - namely, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness under difficulties."
"Tom! you are mad."
"What? that voice? not the proctor"s!"
"No, no," cried the visitor, kicking again; "Jacquelin"s."
"Ah, ah!"
And with these ejaculations the inmate of the chamber was heard drawing back a table, then the butt of a gun sounded upon the floor, and the door opened.
The young man who had asserted his inalienable natural rights with so much fervor was scarcely twenty - at least he had not reached his majority. He was richly clad, with the exception of an old faded dressing gown, which fell gracefully like a Roman toga around his legs; and his face was full of intelligence and careless, somewhat cynical humor. The features were hard and pointed, the mouth large, the hair sandy with a tinge of red.
"Ah, my dear forlorn lover!" he cried, grasping his visitor"s hand, "I thought you were that rascally proctor, and was really preparing for a hand-to-hand conflict, to the death."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, sir! could I expect anything else, from the way you turned my knob? You puzzled me."
"So I see," said his visitor; "you had your gun, and were evidently afraid."
"Afraid? Never!"
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