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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
Corruptionist" 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 indorsed and reindorsed by his own
eloquent silence, till at this day he stands forever 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
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