hotel, consisting of a bar-room, a dining-room, a lean-to
kitchen, and above a loft with fifteen or twenty beds in it. When
he entered the bar-room late in the evening--it was a cold night
and there was nowhere else to go--a would-be "bad man," with a
cocked revolver in each hand, was striding up and down the floor,
talking with crude profanity. There were several bullet holes in
the clock face, at which he had evidently been shooting. This
bully greeted the newcomer as "Four Eyes," in reference to his
spectacles, and announced, "Four Eyes is going to treat."
Roosevelt joined in the laugh that followed and sat down behind
the stove, thinking to escape notice. But the "bad man" followed
him, and in spite of Roosevelt's attempt to pass the matter over
as a joke, stood over him, with a gun in each hand and using the
foulest language. "He was foolish," said Roosevelt, in describing
the incident, "to stand so near, and moreover, his heels were
closer together, so that his position was unstable." When he
repeated his demand that Four Eyes should treat, Roosevelt rose
as if to comply. As he rose he struck quick and hard with his
right fist just to the left side of the point of the jaw, and, as
he straightened up hit with his left, and again with his right.
The bully's guns went off, whether intentionally or involuntarily
no one ever knew. His head struck the corner of the bar as he
fell, and he lay senseless. "When my assailant came to," said
Roosevelt, "he went down to the station and left on a freight."
It was eminently characteristic of Roosevelt that he tried his
best to avoid trouble, but that, when he could not avoid it
honorably, he took care to make it "serious trouble" for the
other fellow.

Even after he became President, Roosevelt liked to box, until an