RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR. ' 313 



[After this, this journal customarily spoke of me as " Twain, the Montana 



Thief." 



I got to picking up papers apprehensively — much as one would lift a desired 



blanket which he had some idea might have a rattlesnake under it. One day 



this met my eye : — 



" The Lie Nailed ! — By the sworn aiBdavits of Michael O'Flanagan, Esq., of the Five Points, 

 and Mr. Snub Rafferty and Mr. Catty Mulligan, of Water Street, it is established that Mr. Mark 

 Twain's vile statement that the lamented grandfather of our noble standard-bearer. Blank J. Blank, 

 was hanged for highway robbery, is a brutal and gratuitous lie, without a shadow of foundation in 

 fact. It is disheartening to virtuous men to see such shameful means resorted to to achieve political 

 success as the attacking of the dead in their graves, and defiling their honored names with slander. 

 When we think of the anguish this miserable falsehood must cause the innocent relatives and 

 friends of the deceased, we are almost driven to incite an outraged and insulted public to summary 

 and unlawful vengeance upon the traducer. But no ! let us leave hiin to the agony of a lacerated 

 conscience (though if passion should get the better of the public, and in its blind fury they should 

 do the traducer bodily injury, it is but too obvious that no jury could convict and no court punish 

 the perpetrators of the deed)." 



The ingenious closing sentence had the effect of moving me out of bed with 

 despatch that night, and out at the back door also, while the " outraged and 

 insulted public " surged in the front way, breaking furniture and windows in 

 their righteous indignation as they came, and taking off such property as they 

 could carry when they went. And yet I can lay my hand upon the Book and 

 say that I never slandered Mr. Blank's grandfather. More : I had never even 

 heard of him or mentioned him up to that day and date. 



[I will state, in passing, that the journal above quoted from always referred to 

 me afterward as " Twain, the Body-Snatcher."] 



The next newspaper article that attracted my attention was the following : — 



" A Sweet Candidate. — Mr. Mark Twain, who was to make such a blighting speech at the mass 

 meeting of the Independents last night, didn't come to time ! A telegram from his physician stated 

 that he had been knocked down by a runaway team, and his leg broken in two places — sufferer 

 lying in great agony, and so forth, and so forth, and <>. lot more bosh of the same sort. And the 

 Independents tried hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge, and pretend that they did not know 

 what was the real reason of the absence of the abandoned creature whom they denominate their 

 standard-bearer. A certain man was seen to reel into Mr. Twain's hotel last night in a state of beastly 

 intoxication. It is the imperative duty of the Independents to prove that this besotted brute was 

 not Mark Twain himself. We have them at last ! This is a case that admits of no shirking. The 

 voice of the people demands in thunder-tones, ' Who was that man ?' " 



It was incredible, absolutely incredible, for a moment, that it was really my 

 name that was coupled with this disgraceful suspicion. Three" long years had 

 passed over my head since I had tasted ale, beer, wine, or liquor of any kind. 



