FIRST INTERVIEW WITH ARTEMUS WARD. 



I HAD never seen him before. He brought letters of introduction from mutual 

 friends in San Francisco, and by invitation I breakfasted with him. It was 

 almost religion, there in the silver mines, to precede such a meal with whiskey 

 cocktails. Artemus, with the true cosmopolitan instinct, always deferred to the 

 customs of the country he was in, and so he ordered three of those abominations. 

 Kingston was present. I said I would rather not drink a whiskey cocktail. I 

 said it would go right to my head, and confuse me so that I would be in a helpless 

 tangle in ten minutes. I did not want to act like a lunatic before strangers. But 



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