314 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



[It shows what effect the times were having on me when I say that I saw 

 myself confidently dubbed " Mr. Delirium Tremens Twain '' in the next issue of 

 that journal without a pang — notwithstanding I knew that with monotonous 

 fidelity the paper would go on calling me so to the very end.] 



By this time anonymous letters were getting to be an important part of my 

 mail matter. This form was common — 



" How about that old woman you kiked of your premisers which was beging. Pol Pry." 



And this — 



" There is things which you have done which is unbeknowens to anybody but me. You better 

 trot out a few dols. to yours truly, or you'll hear thro' the papers from Handy Andy." 



This is about the idea. I could continue them till the reader was surfeited, 

 if desirable. 



Shortly the principal Republican journal "convicted" me of wholesale 

 bribery, and the leading Democratic paper " nailed " an aggravated case of 

 blackmailing to me. 



[In this way I acquired two additional names : " Twain the Filthy Corruption- 

 ist," and "Twain the Loathsome Embracer."] 



By this time there had grown to be such a clamor for an " answer " to all the 

 dreadful charges that were laid to me that the editors and leaders of my party 

 said it would be political ruin for me to remain silent any longer. As if to 

 make their appeal the more imperative, the following appeared in one of the 

 papers the very next day : — 



" Behold the Man ! —The independent candidate still maintains silence. Because he dare not 

 speak. Every accusation against him has been amply proved, and they have been endorsed and 

 re-endorsed by his own eloquent silence, till at this day he stands for ever convicted. Look upon 

 your candidate, Independents ! Look upon the Infamous Perjurer! the Montana Thief! the Body- 

 Snatcher ! , Contemplate your incarnate Delirium Tremens ! your Filthy ~ Corruptionist ! your 

 Loathsome Embracer ! Gaze upon him — ponder him well — and then say if you can give your 

 honest votes to a creature who has earned this dismal array of titles by his hideous crimes, and dares 

 not open his mouth in denial of any one of them !" 



There was no possible way of getting out of it, and so in deep humiliation, I 

 set about preparing to " answer " a mass of baseless charges and mean and 

 wicked falsehoods. But I never finished the task, for the very next morning a 

 paper came out with a new horror, a fresh malignity, and seriously charged me 

 with burning a lunatic asylum with all its inmates, because it obstructed the 



