parlor-pistol

Updated: May 11, 2025

I may render myself obnoxious to persons whom it is not safe to offend, persons that won't come out in the public prints, perhaps, but will poke incendiary letters under your doors, that won't step up to you in broad daylight, and lug a Colt out of their pocket, or draw a bowie-knife from their back, where they had carried it under their coat, but who will dog you about to do you a mischief unseen, who will carry air-guns in the shape of canes, and hang round the place where you get your provisions, and practise with long-range rifles out in the lonely fields, rifles that crack no louder than a parlor-pistol, but spit a bit of lead out of their mouths half a mile and more, so that you wait as you do for the sound of the man's axe who is chopping on the other side of the river, to see the fellow you have "saved" clap his hand to his breast and stagger over.

Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 27, January, 1860