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was--but I did, finally, though I don't remember her name, now. I was
introduced to her in San Francisco by Hon. A. B. Paul, and saw her
afterwards in Gold Hill. They were a very pleasant lot of girls--she and
her sisters.
P. S. I have just heard five pistol shots down street--as such things
are in my line, I will go and see about it.
P. S. No 2--5 A.M.--The pistol did its work well--one man--a Jackson
County Missourian, shot two of my friends, (police officers,) through
the heart--both died within three minutes. Murderer's name is John
Campbell.
The "Unreliable" of this letter was a rival reporter on whom Mark
Twain had conferred this name during the legislative session. His
real name was Rice, and he had undertaken to criticize Clemens's
reports. The brisk reply that Rice's letters concealed with a show
of parliamentary knowledge a "festering mass of misstatements the
author of whom should be properly termed the 'Unreliable," fixed
that name upon him for life. This burlesque warfare delighted the
frontier and it did not interfere with friendship. Clemens and Rice
were constant associates, though continually firing squibs at each
other in their respective papers--a form of personal journalism much
in vogue on the Comstock.
In the next letter we find these two journalistic "blades" enjoying
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