I thought I should burst with amazement! Such a cruel, heartless charge!

I never had seen Cochin China! I never had heard of Wakawak! I didn't

know a plantain-patch from a kangaroo! I did not know what to do. I was

crazed and helpless. I let the day slip away without doing anything at

all. The next morning the same paper had this--nothing more:

SIGNIFICANT.--Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is suggestively

silent about the Cochin China perjury.

[

Mem.--During the rest of the campaign this paper never referred to me in

any other way than as "the infamous perjurer Twain."]

Next came the Gazette, with this:

WANTED TO KNOW.--Will the new candidate for Governor deign to

explain to certain of his fellow-citizens (who are suffering to vote

for him!) the little circumstance of his cabin-mates in Montana

losing small valuables from time to time, until at last, these

things having been invariably found on Mr. Twain's person or in his

trunk" (newspaper he rolled his traps in), they felt compelled to

give him a friendly admonition for his own good, and so tarred and

feathered him, and rode him on a rail; and then advised him to leave

a permanent vacuum in the place he usually occupied in the camp.

Will he do this?

Could anything be more deliberately malicious than that? For I never was

389

Sketches New and Old