Mr. Denton On Doomsday - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Formerly great gunslinger Al Denton has let himself go after shooting and killing an unarmed teenage boy. Now an alcoholic and object of ridicule, he is given another chance by a mysterious salesman named Henry J. Fate, who offers him two potions guaranteed to make him the fastest gun in the West for exactly ten seconds. When Denton drinks the first potion, he sobers up, recovers his gun-fighting abilities, and earns the respect of the town.

Later, Denton faces Pete Grant, a young gunfighter who has ridden into town looking for a duel. Denton downs his second potion only to find his opponent holding an identical empty bottle. Each man shoots the other in the hand, causing injuries which are minor but ruin both men's ability to fire.

Denton tells his young opponent that they have both been blessed because they will never again be able to fire a gun in anger. Henry J. Fate tips his hat to Denton and rides quietly out of town.

Read more about this topic:  Mr. Denton On Doomsday

Famous quotes containing the words plot and/or summary:

    Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)

    Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.
    Walter Pater (1839–1894)