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desolation. Mr. Twain owes to himself, as well as to the great people
whose suffrage he asks, to clear this matter up. Will he do it?
I thought I should burst with amazement! Such a cruel,
heartless charge! I never had seen Cochin China! I never had heard
of Wakawak! I didn't know a plantain-patch from a kangaroo! I did
not know what to do. I was crazed and helpless. I let the day slip
away without doing anything at all. The next morning the same paper
had this — nothing more:
"SIGNIFICANT.— Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is
suggestively silent about the Cochin China perjury."
1
[Mem . — During the rest of the campaign this paper never
referred to me in any other way than as "the infamous perjurer
Twain."]
Next came the Gazette, with this:
"WANTED TO KNOW.— Will the new candidate for
Governor deign to explain to certain of his fellow-citizens (who are
suffering to vote for him!) the little circumstance of his cabin-mates
in Montana losing small valuables from time to time, until at last,
these things having been invariably found on Mr. Twain's person or
in his 'trunk' (newspaper he rolled his traps in), they felt compelled to
give him a friendly admonition for his own good, and so tarred and
feathered him, and rode him on a rail, and then advised him to leave a
permanent vacuum in the place he usually occupied in the camp. Will
he do this?"
Could anything be more deliberately malicious than that? For I
never was in Montana in my life. [After this, this journal customarily
spoke of me as "Twain, the Montana Thief."]
I got to picking up papers apprehensively — much as one
would lift a desired blanket which he had some idea might have a
rattlesnake under it. One day this met my eye:
"THE LIE NAILED. —By the sworn affidavits of Michael
2
O'Flanagan, Esq. , of the Five Points, and Mr. Kit Burns and Mr.
John Alien, of Water Street, it is established that Mr. Mark Twain's
vile statement that the lamented grandfather of our noble standard-

1
Mem = memento (Lat.): remember
2
Esq. (=esquire) is used, though less frequently than before, in addressing an
envelope to an adult male who has no title, in which case Mr is omitted in front
of the name.