The Forrest City times., 1894-06-15
THEY HAD THEIR REVENGE.
Mark Twain's Friends Asked for His Auto
 graphs in Wholesale Lots.

1 Mark Twain's Friends Asked for His Auto graphs in Wholesale Lots.
 | A number of Marks friends who had solved to give him an unhappy quarter hour one April Fools day. George w. Cable, knowing Mark had special horror of the chronic autograph collec- tor. arranged with couple of hundred well-known people to come down on him simultaneously for specimen of his handwriting. Some of the de- mands were very funny, Edmund Clarence Stedman's letter was a good | burlesque of the average schoolgirls. ! Many of the words were under scored and Mir. Clemens was tickled with such phrases as my Amer 1 ican author" your well-known kindness" etc. Mir. Stedman not only solicited different kinds of l signatures. but wanted a sentiment in Marks handwriting, or a few pages from 'Roughing It." ''The Prince Abroad or "The Innocents and the Pauper." John Hay wrote from Cleve, land, asking Mark to take leisure hour or two and copy for him a few hundred lines of .Young's Night Thoughts" and an equal amount from | Pollock's Course of Time" Thomas l W. Knox's request came from the Lotus club. He had a royal commits sion from the king of Siam, he said, for autographs for the kings two hun. dred and fifty-eight children, but begged to suggest that the order be filled for three hundred. as the kings family was increasing. Stephen Fiske wanted Mark Twain autograph for a friend who was going abroad and wished to take it along as mascot, and Mrs. Fiske modestly spelled the name elements" and solicited one hundred and sixty autographs for 8 church fair booth.
 H. c. Runner. of Puck, wanted an autograph for his two-weeks'-old granddaughter. adding: 'The little innocent abroad in this strange world of ours will value your gift when she is old enough to appreciate it." Joe How ard, Jr., recalled meeting Mr. Clemens twenty-four years before in front of the New York city hall, and appealed for an autograph on that ground c. c. Buel, of the Century wanted a humorous article for publi- cation with Mr. Clemens signature att tached to every paragraph, so that the ''copy" would be sold to advantages; while Robert Underwood Johnson ap- piled by postal card as follows: Gould you let me have an autograph for a lame boy whose mother has interested him in things spiritual by encouraging him to make an autograph collection to be raffied for at fair, the proceeds to go to the Society for the Suppress sion of Toy Pistols?'
 Mark gave his prosecutors something of fright in return. He published an interview in which he stated that he intended to make up a pamphlet of their letters, with various humorous and satirical annotations of his own,. have it illustrated, and issue it in suit able form for sale at the news stands and on railroad trains. The profits, he declared, he should pocket entirely himself; and if he found, when the book was ready for the printer, that it did not seem sensational enough to catch the public fancy, he would en- large it by the addition of lot of the private letters he had received from i time to time from these ladies and gentlemen, dressed up with enenda- tions from his own pen which would make them more spics. He never car ried out his threat, however.-Kate Fields Washington.