St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1889-06-08
MARK rwAlN's STORY.


Mads Fool Of the Hamorlse.
'No," said Mark Twain . week or
two ago as he sat In his room at the
Murray Hill Hotel and dreamily
watched the smoke from the pipe
which he was putting. mo; would
not say that it was the best thing that
l ever wrote, but I remember that I
was pretty proud Of it at the time and
was decidedly disappointed when it
didn't come out the next day. l didn't
know until you told me that the story
had ever reached this part of the coun-
try. But you haven't got it just right;
it wasn't the foreman at all; it was q
fool of q compositor who ruined the
story. Poor devil! I suppose no is
dead now. and 1t doesn't much matter
what we say about his stupidity. But
he was certainly an awful fool
"You have one part Of it right" con.
tinued the humorist. 1T happened
when l was q reporter on the Virginia
City Enterprise. l was assigned to re-
port dinner given by party Of some
Of the most notoriously hard drinkers
in town, and Virginia City was not sup
porting many temperance unions at tina.
time. Every body knew that the dinner
was going to resolve itself into a glori-
ous drunk. and the result proved that
every body was right. OF course !
didn't want to he too hard on the boys
in reporting their dinner. and yet as a
truthful reporter. I had to give the
public to understand just what had
taken place there. In a happy mo-
ment I conceived the idea OF con-
veying this information in . delicate
way without really saying that all
hands were drunk. My plan was to
begin E-y report in the regular cut
and-dried way. After giving a few
sentences in this way grew a little
more careless in style. Gradually !
became more and more mixed up in my
language, until at last the words were
written without any real or apparent
connection with each other. l tried
my best to give the reader the idea
that as I wrote the report / became
more and more intoxicated, until ]
wound up in stupidity drunken
condition. / was greatly inter.
ested in carrying out this plan
as we'll and naturally rs could. and
when after an hours hard work the
report was finished ! felt that ! had
written the very funniest thing that
had ever appeared in that paper Tho
copy went out without being read. and
the first part Of it was set up just as ]
had written it.
.'The fool compositor got hold OF the
last part and of course couldn't make
head or tail OF it. Instead of setting It
up as he found it and leaving the rest
TO the proof-reader or editor he made
up his mind that l had really been
drunk when wrote it. He was kind
hearted man and he never liked to see
one of the boys in trouble. So he
calmly proceeded to change my copy
and put in little connecting words so as
to make sense Of it 1t was all done
with the kindest intention in the
world. He didn't want to see me dis
charged for being drunk. Then he
destroyed my copy so that it couldn't
be brought in evidence OF my damning
guilt.
Il wouldn't care to say how fearfully
disappointed was when I picked up
the Enterprise the next day and looked
for my funny report. 1t was as coldly
stupid as a ten-year-old patent Office
report. Iwcpt scalding tears and left
the Office. On the street l met the
compositor who had taken such pains
to fix my story for me. He looked SO
happy when he told me how he had
been the means Of keeping me out OF
trouble with the managers Of the pa
per that hadn't the heart to tell him
what fool he actually was. was
sorry afterward that didn't do so. how
ever, for I discovered that for years he
told the story of how he had saved me
from disgrace in half Of the newspaper
Offices west Of the Mississippi river. He
was an old man and so think that he
must be dead by this time. II he isn't
%o11s~~ h;o ~or,inm ~