The Press., 1889-07-04
MARK TWAIN'S STORY.

ago, as he set Tn his room at the Murray Hill Hotel, and dreamily watched the smoke from the pipe which he was pufing. ''No ]; I would not say that it was the best thing ever wrote, but remember that was pretty proud of it at the time, and was de- oidedly disappointed when it didn't come out the next day. didn't know until you told me that the story had ever reached this part of the country. But you haven't got it just right; it wasn't the foreman at all :; it was the fool of compositor who ruined the story. Poor devil I suppose he is dead now, and it doesn't much mat ter what we say about his stupidity. But he was certainly an awful fool.
 "You have one part of it right" contin- ued the humorist. ''It happened when I was reporter on the Virginia City Enter prise. was assigned to report dinner by party of some of the most notoriously hard drinkers in town, and Virginia City was not supporting many temperance unions at thattime. Everybody knew that the dinner was going to resolve itself into 8 glorious drunk, and the result proved that everybody was right. Of course, didn't want to be too hard on the boys in reporting that dinner, and yet as truth full reporter, I had got to give. the public tounderstand just what had taken place there. Ina happy moment I conceived the idea of conveying this information in a delicate way without really saying that all hands were drunk. My plan was to begin my report in the regular cut-and-d dried way. After giving few sentences in this way grew little more careless in style. Gradually I 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. I tried my best to give the reader the idea that as l wrote the report I became more and more intoxicated until I wound up in stupidly drunken condition. was greatly inter- ested in carrying out this plan as we'll and naturally as I could, and when after an hours hard work the report was finished, l felt that l had written the very funniest thing that had ever appeared in that paper. The copy. went out without being read, and the first part of it was set up just as l had written it.
 "The fool compositor got hold of the last part of the copy and of course couldn't make head or tail of it. Instead of setting to the proof-reader or editor, he made uI his mind that had really been drunk when I wrote it. He was a kind-hearted man and he never liked to see one of the boys in trouble. So he calmly proceeded tc change my copy, and put in little connect ing words so as to make sense of it. It was all done with the kindest intention in the world. He didn't want to see me dis charged for being drunk. Then he de- stroyed my copy so that it couldn't be brought in as evidence of my damnine guilt.
 ''I wouldn't care to say how fearfullJ disappointed I was when picked up the Enterprise the next day and looked for my funny report. It was as coldly stupid as { ten-year-old ratent office report. I wep scalding tears and left the office. On th' street met the compositor who had takel such pains to fix my story for me. HI looked so happy when he told me how h. had been the means of keeping me out o trouble with the managers of the paper that hadn't the heart to tell him what
 fool he actually was. I was sorry after ward that didn't do so, however, for
 discovered that for years he told the stor. of how he had saved me from disgrace il
 half the newspaper offices west of the Miss
 issippi river. He was an old man, and s
 I think he must be dead by this time. ]
 he isn't he is probably telling his versio
 of the story yet. "-Nea0 Yoak Staa. M