Reference has already been made to the fashion among Virginia City papers of permitting reporters to use the editorial columns for ridicule of one another. This custom was especially in vogue during the period when Dan de Quille and Mark Twain and The Unreliable were the shining journalistic lights of the Comstock. Scarcely a week went by that some apparently venomous squib or fling or long burlesque assault did not appear either in the Union or the Enterprise, with one of those jokers as its author and another as its target. In one of his “home” letters of that year Mark Twain says:
I have just finished writing up my report for the morning paper andgiving The Unreliable a column of advice about how to conducthimself in church.
The advice was such as to call for a reprisal, but it apparently made no difference in personal relations, for a few weeks later he is with The Unreliable in San Francisco, seeing life in the metropolis, fairly swimming in its delights, unable to resist reporting them to his mother.
We fag ourselves completely out every day and go to sleep withoutrocking every night. When I go down Montgomery Street shaking handswith Tom, Dick, and Harry, it is just like being on Main Street inHannibal and meeting the old familiar faces. I do hate to go backto Washoe. We take trips across the bay to Oakland, and down to SanLeandro and Alameda, and we go out to the Willows and Hayes Park andFort Point, and up to Benicia; and yesterday we were invited out ona yachting excursion, and had a sail in the fastest yacht on thePacific coast. Rice says: “Oh no—we are not having any fun, Mark—oh no—I reckon it's somebody else—it's probably the gentleman inthe wagon” (popular slang phrase), and when I invite Rice to theLick House to dinner the proprietor sends us champagne and claret,and then we do put on the most disgusting airs. The Unreliable saysour caliber is too light—we can't stand it to be noticed.
Three days later he adds that he is going sorrowfully “to the snows and the deserts of Washoe,” but that he has “lived like a lord to make up for two years of privation.”
Twenty dollars is inclosed in each of these letters, probably as a bribe to Jane Clemens to be lenient with his prodigalities, which in his youthful love of display he could not bring himself to conceal. But apparently the salve was futile, for in another letter, a month later, he complains that his mother is “slinging insinuations” at him again, such as “where did you get that money” and “the company I kept in San Francisco.” He explains:
Why, I sold Wild Cat mining ground that was given me, and my creditwas always good at the bank for $2,000 or $3,000, and I never gamblein any shape or manner, and never drink anything stronger thanclaret and lager beer, which conduct is regarded as miraculouslytemperate in this place. As for company, I went in the very bestcompany to be found in San Francisco. I always move in the bestsociety in Virginia and have a reputation to preserve.
He closes by assuring her that he will be more careful in future and that she need never fear but that he will keep her expenses paid. Then he cannot refrain from adding one more item of his lavish life:
“Put in my washing, and it costs me one hundred dollars a month to live.”
De Quille had not missed the opportunity of his comrade's absence to payoff some old scores. At the end of the editorial column of the Enterprise on the day following his departure he denounced the absent one and his “protege,” The Unreliable, after the intemperate fashion of the day.
It is to be regretted that such scrubs are ever permitted to visitthe bay, as the inevitable effect will be to destroy that exaltedopinion of the manners and morality of our people which was inspiredby the conduct of our senior editor—[which is to say, Danhimself]—.
The diatribe closed with a really graceful poem, and the whole was no doubt highly regarded by the Enterprise readers.
What revenge Mark Twain took on his return has not been recorded, but it was probably prompt and adequate; or he may have left it to The Unreliable. It was clearly a mistake, however, to leave his own local work in the hands of that properly named person a little later. Clemens was laid up with a cold, and Rice assured him on his sacred honor that he would attend faithfully to the Enterprise locals, along with his own Union items. He did this, but he had been nursing old injuries too long. What was Mark Twain's amazement on looking over the Enterprise next morning to find under the heading “Apologetic” a statement over his own nom de plume, purporting to be an apology for all the sins of ridicule to the various injured ones.
To Mayor Arick, Hon. Wm. Stewart, Marshal Perry, Hon. J. B. Winters,Mr. Olin, and Samuel Wetherill, besides a host of others whom wehave ridiculed from behind the shelter of our reportorial position,we say to these gentlemen we acknowledge our faults, and, in allweakness and humility upon our bended marrow bones, we ask theirforgiveness, promising that in future we will give them no cause foranything but the best of feeling toward us. To “Young Wilson” andThe Unreliable (as we have wickedly termed them), we feel that noapology we can make begins to atone for the many insults we havegiven them. Toward these gentlemen we have been as mean as a mancould be—and we have always prided ourselves on this base quality.We feel that we are the least of all humanity, as it were. We willnow go in sack-cloth and ashes for the next forty days.
This in his own paper over his own signature was a body blow; but it had the effect of curing his cold. He was back in the office forthwith, and in the next morning's issue denounced his betrayer.
We are to blame for giving The Unreliable an opportunity tomisrepresent us, and therefore refrain from repining to any greatextent at the result. We simply claim the right to deny the truthof every statement made by him in yesterday's paper, to annul allapologies he coined as coming from us, and to hold him up to publiccommiseration as a reptile endowed with no more intellect, no morecultivation, no more Christian principle than animates and adornsthe sportive jackass-rabbit of the Sierras. We have done.
These were the things that enlivened Comstock journalism. Once in a boxing bout Mark Twain got a blow on the nose which caused it to swell to an unusual size and shape. He went out of town for a few days, during which De Quille published an extravagant account of his misfortune, describing the nose and dwelling on the absurdity of Mark Twain's ever supposing himself to be a boxer.
De Quille scored heavily with this item but his own doom was written. Soon afterward he was out riding and was thrown from his horse and bruised considerably.
This was Mark's opportunity. He gave an account of Dan's disaster; then, commenting, he said:
The idea of a plebeian like Dan supposing he could ever ride ahorse! He! why, even the cats and the chickens laughed when theysaw him go by. Of course, he would be thrown off. Of course, anywell-bred horse wouldn't let a common, underbred person like Danstay on his back! When they gathered him up he was just a bag ofscraps, but they put him together, and you'll find him at his oldplace in the Enterprise office next week, still laboring under thedelusion that he's a newspaper man.
The author of 'Roughing It' tells of a literary periodical called the Occidental, started in Virginia City by a Mr. F. This was the silver-tongued Tom Fitch, of the Union, an able speaker and writer, vastly popular on the Coast. Fitch came to Clemens one day and said he was thinking of starting such a periodical and asked him what he thought of the venture. Clemens said:
“You would succeed if any one could, but start a flower-garden on the desert of Sahara; set up hoisting-works on Mount Vesuvius for mining sulphur; start a literary paper in Virginia City; h—l!”
Which was a correct estimate of the situation, and the paper perished with the third issue. It was of no consequence except that it contained what was probably the first attempt at that modern literary abortion, the composite novel. Also, it died too soon to publish Mark Twain's first verses of any pretension, though still of modest merit—“The Aged Pilot Man”—which were thereby saved for 'Roughing It.'
Visiting Virginia now, it seems curious that any of these things could have happened there. The Comstock has become little more than a memory; Virginia and Gold Hill are so quiet, so voiceless, as to constitute scarcely an echo of the past. The International Hotel, that once so splendid edifice, through whose portals the tide of opulent life then ebbed and flowed, is all but deserted now. One may wander at will through its dingy corridors and among its faded fripperies, seeking in vain for attendance or hospitality, the lavish welcome of a vanished day. Those things were not lacking once, and the stream of wealth tossed up and down the stair and billowed up C Street, an ebullient tide of metals and men from which millionaires would be struck out, and individuals known in national affairs. William M. Stewart who would one day become a United States Senator, was there, an unnoticed unit; and John Mackay and James G. Fair, one a senator by and by, and both millionaires, but poor enough then—Fair with a pick on his shoulder and Mackay, too, at first, though he presently became a mine superintendent. Once in those days Mark Twain banteringly offered to trade businesses with Mackay.
“No,” Mackay said, “I can't trade. My business is not worth as much as yours. I have never swindled anybody, and I don't intend to begin now.”
Neither of those men could dream that within ten years their names would be international property; that in due course Nevada would propose statues to their memory.
Such things came out of the Comstock; such things spring out of every turbulent frontier.
Madame Caprell's warning concerning Mark Twain's health at twenty-eight would seem to have been justified. High-strung and neurotic, the strain of newspaper work and the tumult of the Comstock had told on him. As in later life, he was subject to bronchial colds, and more than once that year he found it necessary to drop all work and rest for a time at Steamboat Springs, a place near Virginia City, where there were boiling springs and steaming fissures in the mountain-side, and a comfortable hotel. He contributed from there sketches somewhat more literary in form than any of his previous work. “Curing a Cold” is a more or less exaggerated account of his ills.
[Included in Sketches New and Old. “Information for the Million,”and “Advice to Good Little Girls,” included in the “Jumping Frog”Collection, 1867, but omitted from the Sketches, are also believedto belong to this period.]
A portion of a playful letter to his mother, written from the springs, still exists.
You have given my vanity a deadly thrust. Behold, I am prone toboast of having the widest reputation as a local editor of any manon the Pacific coast, and you gravely come forward and tell me “if Iwork hard and attend closely to my business, I may aspire to a placeon a big San Francisco daily some day.” There's a comment on humanvanity for you! Why, blast it, I was under the impression that Icould get such a situation as that any time I asked for it. But Idon't want it. No paper in the United States can afford to pay mewhat my place on the Enterprise is worth. If I were not naturally alazy, idle, good-for-nothing vagabond, I could make it pay me$20,000 a year. But I don't suppose I shall ever be any account. Ilead an easy life, though, and I don't care a cent whether schoolkeeps or not. Everybody knows me, and I fare like a prince whereverI go, be it on this side of the mountain or the other. And I amproud to say I am the most conceited ass in the Territory.You think that picture looks old? Well, I can't help it—in realityI'm not as old as I was when I was eighteen.
Which was a true statement, so far as his general attitude was concerned. At eighteen, in New York and Philadelphia, his letters had been grave, reflective, advisory. Now they were mostly banter and froth, lightly indifferent to the serious side of things, though perhaps only pretendedly so, for the picture did look old. From the shock and circumstance of his brother's death he—had never recovered. He was barely twenty-eight. From the picture he might have been a man of forty.
It was that year that Artemus Ward (Charles F. Browne) came to Virginia City. There was a fine opera-house in Virginia, and any attraction that billed San Francisco did not fail to play to the Comstock. Ward intended staying only a few days to deliver his lectures, but the whirl of the Comstock caught him like a maelstrom, and he remained three weeks.
He made the Enterprise office his headquarters, and fairly reveled in the company he found there. He and Mark Twain became boon companions. Each recognized in the other a kindred spirit. With Goodman, De Quille, and McCarthy, also E. E. Hingston—Ward's agent, a companionable fellow—they usually dined at Chaumond's, Virginia's high-toned French restaurant.
Those were three memorable weeks in Mark Twain's life. Artemus Ward was in the height of his fame, and he encouraged his new-found brother-humorist and prophesied great things of him. Clemens, on his side, measured himself by this man who had achieved fame, and perhaps with good reason concluded that Ward's estimate was correct, that he too could win fame and honor, once he got a start. If he had lacked ambition before Ward's visit, the latter's unqualified approval inspired him with that priceless article of equipment. He put his soul into entertaining the visitor during those three weeks; and it was apparent to their associates that he was at least Ward's equal in mental stature and originality. Goodman and the others began to realize that for Mark Twain the rewards of the future were to be measured only by his resolution and ability to hold out. On Christmas Eve Artemus lectured in Silver City and afterward came to the Enterprise office to give the boys a farewell dinner. The Enterprise always published a Christmas carol, and Goodman sat at his desk writing it. He was just finishing as Ward came in:
“Slave, slave,” said Artemus. “Come out and let me banish care from you.”
They got the boys and all went over to Chaumond's, where Ward commanded Goodman to order the dinner. When the cocktails came on, Artemus lifted his glass and said:
“I give you Upper Canada.”
The company rose, drank the toast in serious silence; then Goodman said:
“Of course, Artemus, it's all right, but why did you give us Upper Canada?”
“Because I don't want it myself,” said Ward, gravely.
Then began a rising tide of humor that could hardly be matched in the world to-day. Mark Twain had awakened to a fuller power; Artemus Ward was in his prime. They were giants of a race that became extinct when Mark Twain died. The youth, the wine, the whirl of lights and life, the tumult of the shouting street-it was as if an electric stream of inspiration poured into those two human dynamos and sent them into a dazzling, scintillating whirl. All gone—as evanescent, as forgotten, as the lightnings of that vanished time; out of that vast feasting and entertainment only a trifling morsel remains. Ward now and then asked Goodman why he did not join in the banter. Goodman said:
“I'm preparing a joke, Artemus, but I'm keeping it for the present.”
It was near daybreak when Ward at last called for the bill. It was two hundred and thirty-seven dollars.
“What”' exclaimed Artemus.
“That's my joke.” said Goodman.
“But I was only exclaiming because it was not twice as much,” returned Ward.
He paid it amid laughter, and they went out into the early morning air. It was fresh and fine outside, not yet light enough to see clearly. Artemus threw his face up to the sky and said:
“I feel glorious. I feel like walking on the roofs.”
Virginia was built on the steep hillside, and the eaves of some of the houses almost touched the ground behind them.
“There is your chance, Artemus,” Goodman said, pointing to a row of these houses all about of a height.
Artemus grabbed Mark Twain, and they stepped out upon the long string of roofs and walked their full length, arm in arm. Presently the others noticed a lonely policeman cocking his revolver and getting ready to aim in their direction. Goodman called to him:
“Wait a minute. What are you going to do?”
“I'm going to shoot those burglars,” he said.
“Don't for your life. Those are not burglars. That's Mark Twain and Artemus Ward.”
The roof-walkers returned, and the party went down the street to a corner across from the International Hotel. A saloon was there with a barrel lying in front, used, perhaps for a sort of sign. Artemus climbed astride the barrel, and somebody brought a beer-glass and put it in his hand. Virginia City looks out over the Eastward Desert. Morning was just breaking upon the distant range-the scene as beautiful as when the sunrise beams across the plain of Memnon. The city was not yet awake. The only living creatures in sight were the group of belated diners, with Artemus Ward, as King Gambrinus, pouring a libation to the sunrise.
That was the beginning of a week of glory. The farewell dinner became a series. At the close of one convivial session Artemus went to a concert-hall, the “Melodeon,” blacked his face, and delivered a speech. He got away from Virginia about the close of the year.
A day or two later he wrote from Austin, Nevada, to his new-found comrade as “My dearest Love,” recalling the happiness of his stay:
“I shall always remember Virginia as a bright spot in my existence, as all others must or rather cannot be, as it were.”
Then reflectively he adds:
“Some of the finest intellects in the world have been blunted by liquor.”
Rare Artemus Ward and rare Mark Twain! If there lies somewhere a place of meeting and remembrance, they have not failed to recall there those closing days of '63.
With Artemus Ward's encouragement, Clemens began to think of extending his audience eastward. The New York Sunday Mercury published literary matter. Ward had urged him to try this market, and promised to write a special letter to the editors, introducing Mark Twain and his work. Clemens prepared a sketch of the Comstock variety, scarcely refined in character and full of personal allusion, a humor not suited to the present-day reader. Its general subject was children; it contained some absurd remedies, supposedly sent to his old pilot friend Zeb Leavenworth, and was written as much for a joke on that good-natured soul as for profit or reputation.
“I wrote it especially for Beck Jolly's use,” the author declares, in a letter to his mother, “so he could pester Zeb with it.”
We cannot know to-day whether Zeb was pestered or not. A faded clipping is all that remains of the incident. As literature the article, properly enough, is lost to the world at large. It is only worth remembering as his metropolitan beginning. Yet he must have thought rather highly of it (his estimation of his own work was always unsafe), for in the letter above quoted he adds:
I cannot write regularly for the Mercury, of course, I sha'n't havetime. But sometimes I throw off a pearl (there is no self-conceitabout that, I beg you to observe) which ought for the eternalwelfare of my race to have a more extensive circulation than isafforded by a local daily paper.And if Fitzhugh Ludlow (author of the 'Hasheesh Eater') comes yourway, treat him well. He published a high encomium upon Mark Twain(the same being eminently just and truthful, I beseech you tobelieve) in a San Francisco paper. Artemus Ward said that when mygorgeous talents were publicly acknowledged by such high authority Iought to appreciate them myself, leave sage-brush obscurity, andjourney to New York with him, as he wanted me to do. But Ipreferred not to burst upon the New York public too suddenly andbrilliantly, so I concluded to remain here.
He was in Carson City when this was written, preparing for the opening of the next legislature. He was beyond question now the most conspicuous figure of the capital; also the most wholesomely respected, for his influence had become very large. It was said that he could control more votes than any legislative member, and with his friends, Simmons and Clagget, could pass or defeat any bill offered. The Enterprise was a powerful organ—to be courted and dreaded—and Mark Twain had become its chief tribune. That he was fearless, merciless, and incorruptible, without doubt had a salutary influence on that legislative session. He reveled in his power; but it is not recorded that he ever abused it. He got a bill passed, largely increasing Orion's official fees, but this was a crying need and was so recognized. He made no secret promises, none at all that he did not intend to fulfill. “Sam's word was as fixed as fate,” Orion records, and it may be added that he was morally as fearless.
The two Houses of the last territorial legislature of Nevada assembled January 12, 1864.—[Nevada became a State October 31, 1864.]—A few days later a “Third House” was organized—an institution quite in keeping with the happy atmosphere of that day and locality, for it was a burlesque organization, and Mark Twain was selected as its “Governor.”
The new House prepared to make a public occasion of this first session, and its Governor was required to furnish a message. Then it was decided to make it a church benefit. The letters exchanged concerning this proposition still exist; they explain themselves:
CARSON CITY, January 23, 1864.GOV. MARK TWAIN, Understanding from certain members of the ThirdHouse of the territorial Legislature that that body will haveeffected a permanent organization within a day or two, and be readyfor the reception of your Third Annual Message,—[ There had beenno former message. This was regarded as a great joke.]—we desireto ask your permission, and that of the Third House, to turn theaffair to the benefit of the Church by charging toll-roads,franchises, and other persons a dollar apiece for the privilege oflistening to your communication.S. PIXLEY,G. A. SEARS,Trustees.CARSON CITY, January 23, 1864.GENTLEMEN,—Certainly. If the public can find anything in a gravestate paper worth paying a dollar for, I am willing they should paythat amount, or any other; and although I am not a very dustyChristian myself, I take an absorbing interest in religious affairs,and would willingly inflict my annual message upon the Church itselfif it might derive benefit thereby. You can charge what you please;I promise the public no amusement, but I do promise a reasonableamount of instruction. I am responsible to the Third House only,and I hope to be permitted to make it exceedingly warm for thatbody, without caring whether the sympathies of the public and theChurch be enlisted in their favor, and against myself, or not.Respectfully,MARK TWAIN.
Mark Twain's reply is closely related to his later style in phrase and thought. It might have been written by him at almost any subsequent period. Perhaps his association with Artemus Ward had awakened a new perception of the humorous idea—a humor of repression, of understatement. He forgot this often enough, then and afterward, and gave his riotous fancy free rein; but on the whole the simpler, less florid form seemingly began to attract him more and more.
His address as Governor of the Third House has not been preserved, but those who attended always afterward referred to it as the “greatest effort of his life.” Perhaps for that audience and that time this verdict was justified.
It was his first great public opportunity. On the stage about him sat the membership of the Third House; the building itself was packed, the aisles full. He knew he could let himself go in burlesque and satire, and he did. He was unsparing in his ridicule of the Governor, the officials in general, the legislative members, and of individual citizens. From the beginning to the end of his address the audience was in a storm of laughter and applause. With the exception of the dinner speech made to the printers in Keokuk, it was his first public utterance—the beginning of a lifelong series of triumphs.
Only one thing marred his success. Little Carrie Pixley, daughter of one of the “trustees,” had promised to be present and sit in a box next the stage. It was like him to be fond of the child, and he had promised to send a carriage for her. Often during his address he glanced toward the box; but it remained empty. When the affair was ended, he drove home with her father to inquire the reason. They found the little girl, in all her finery, weeping on the bed. Then he remembered he had forgotten to send the carriage; and that was like him, too.
For his Third House address Judge A. W. (Sandy) Baldwin and Theodore Winters presented him with a gold watch inscribed to “Governor Mark Twain.” He was more in demand now than ever; no social occasion was regarded as complete without him. His doings were related daily and his sayings repeated on the streets. Most of these things have passed away now, but a few are still recalled with smiles. Once, when conundrums were being asked at a party, he was urged to make one.
“Well,” he sand, “why am I like the Pacific Ocean?”
Several guesses were made, but none satisfied him. Finally all gave it up.
“Tell us, Mark, why are you like the Pacific Ocean?”
“I don't know,” he drawled. “I was just asking for information.”
At another time, when a young man insisted on singing a song of eternal length, the chorus of which was, “I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm going home tomorrow,” Mark Twain put his head in the window and said, pleadingly:
“For God's sake go to-night.”
But he was also fond of quieter society. Sometimes, after the turmoil of a legislative morning, he would drop in to Miss Keziah Clapp's school and listen to the exercises, or would call on Colonel Curry—“old Curry, old Abe Curry”—and if the colonel happened to be away, he would talk with Mrs. Curry, a motherly soul (still alive at ninety-three, in 1910), and tell her of his Hannibal boyhood or his river and his mining adventures, and keep her laughing until the tears ran.
He was a great pedestrian in those days. Sometimes he walked from Virginia to Carson, stopping at Colonel Curry's as he came in for rest and refreshment.
“Mrs. Curry,” he said once, “I have seen tireder men than I am, and lazier men, but they were dead men.” He liked the home feeling there—the peace and motherly interest. Deep down, he was lonely and homesick; he was always so away from his own kindred.
Clemens returned now to Virginia City, and, like all other men who ever met her, became briefly fascinated by the charms of Adah Isaacs Menken, who was playing Mazeppa at the Virginia Opera House. All men—kings, poets, priests, prize-fighters—fell under Menken's spell. Dan de Quille and Mark Twain entered into a daily contest as to who could lavish the most fervid praise on her in the Enterprise. The latter carried her his literary work to criticize. He confesses this in one of his home letters, perhaps with a sort of pride.
I took it over to show to Miss Menken the actress, Orpheus C. Ken's wife. She is a literary cuss herself.
She has a beautiful white hand, but her handwriting is infamous; she writes fast and her chirography is of the door-plate order—her letters are immense. I gave her a conundrum, thus:
“My dear madam, why ought your hand to retain its present grace and beauty always? Because you fool away devilish little of it on your manuscript.”
But Menken was gone presently, and when he saw her again, somewhat later, in San Francisco, his “madness” would have seemed to have been allayed.
The success—such as it was—of his occasional contributions to the New York Sunday Mercury stirred Mark Twain's ambition for a wider field of labor. Circumstance, always ready to meet his wishes, offered assistance, though in an unexpected form.
Goodman, temporarily absent, had left Clemens in editorial charge. As in that earlier day, when Orion had visited Tennessee and returned to find his paper in a hot personal warfare with certain injured citizens, so the Enterprise, under the same management, had stirred up trouble. It was just at the time of the “Flour Sack Sanitary Fund,” the story of which is related at length in 'Roughing It'. In the general hilarity of this occasion, certain Enterprise paragraphs of criticism or ridicule had incurred the displeasure of various individuals whose cause naturally enough had been espoused by a rival paper, the Chronicle. Very soon the original grievance, whatever it was, was lost sight of in the fireworks and vitriol-throwing of personal recrimination between Mark Twain and the Chronicle editor, then a Mr. Laird.
A point had been reached at length when only a call for bloodshed—a challenge—could satisfy either the staff or the readers of the two papers. Men were killed every week for milder things than the editors had spoken each of the other. Joe Goodman himself, not so long before, had fought a duel with a Union editor—Tom Fitch—and shot him in the leg, so making of him a friend, and a lame man, for life. In Joe's absence the prestige of the paper must be maintained.
Mark Twain himself has told in burlesque the story of his duel, keeping somewhat nearer to the fact than was his custom in such writing, as may be seen by comparing it with the account of his abettor and second—of course, Steve Gillis. The account is from Mr. Gillis's own hand:
When Joe went away, he left Sam in editorial charge of the paper.That was a dangerous thing to do. Nobody could ever tell what Samwas going to write. Something he said stirred up Mr. Laird, of theChronicle, who wrote a reply of a very severe kind. He said somethings that we told Mark could only be wiped out with blood. Thosewere the days when almost every man in Virginia City had fought withpistols either impromptu or premeditated duels. I had been inseveral, but then mine didn't count. Most of them were of theimpromptu kind. Mark hadn't had any yet, and we thought it abouttime that his baptism took place.He was not eager for it; he was averse to violence, but we finallyprevailed upon him to send Laird a challenge, and when Laird did notsend a reply at once we insisted on Mark sending him anotherchallenge, by which time he had made himself believe that he reallywanted to fight, as much as we wanted him to do. Laird concluded tofight, at last. I helped Mark get up some of the letters, and a manwho would not fight after such letters did not belong in VirginiaCity—in those days.Laird's acceptance of Mark's challenge came along about midnight, Ithink, after the papers had gone to press. The meeting was to takeplace next morning at sunrise.Of course I was selected as Mark's second, and at daybreak I had himup and out for some lessons in pistol practice before meeting Laird.I didn't have to wake him. He had not been asleep. We had beentalking since midnight over the duel that was coming. I had beentelling him of the different duels in which I had taken part, eitheras principal or second, and how many men I had helped to kill andbury, and how it was a good plan to make a will, even if one had notmuch to leave. It always looked well, I told him, and seemed to bea proper thing to do before going into a duel. So Mark made a willwith a sort of gloomy satisfaction, and as soon as it was lightenough to see, we went out to a little ravine near the meeting-place, and I set up a board for him to shoot at. He would step out,raise that big pistol, and when I would count three he would shuthis eyes and pull the trigger. Of course he didn't hit anything; hedid not come anywhere near hitting anything. Just then we heardsomebody shooting over in the next ravine. Sam said:“What's that, Steve?”“Why,” I said, “that's Laud. His seconds are practising him overthere.”It didn't make my principal any more cheerful to hear that pistol gooff every few seconds over there. Just then I saw a little mud-henlight on some sage-brush about thirty yards away.“Mark,” I said, “let me have that pistol. I'll show you how toshoot.”He handed it to me, and I let go at the bird and shot its head off,clean. About that time Laird and his second came over the ridge tomeet us. I saw them coming and handed Mark back the pistol. Wewere looking at the bird when they came up.“Who did that?” asked Laird's second.“Sam,” I said.“How far off was it?”“Oh, about thirty yards.”“Can he do it again?”“Of course,” I said; “every time. He could do it twice that far.”Laud's second turned to his principal.“Laird,” he said, “you don't want to fight that man. It's just likesuicide. You'd better settle this thing, now.”So there was a settlement. Laird took back all he had said; Marksaid he really had nothing against Laird—the discussion had beenpurely journalistic and did not need to be settled in blood. Hesaid that both he and Laird were probably the victims of theirfriends. I remember one of the things Laird said when his secondtold him he had better not fight.“Fight! H—l, no! I am not going to be murdered by that d—ddesperado.”Sam had sent another challenge to a man named Cutler, who had beensomehow mixed up with the muss and had written Sam an insultingletter; but Cutler was out of town at the time, and before he gotback we had received word from Jerry Driscoll, foreman of the Grandjury, that the law just passed, making a duel a penitentiary offensefor both principal and second, was to be strictly enforced, andunless we got out of town in a limited number of hours we would bethe first examples to test the new law.
We concluded to go, and when the stage left next morning for San Francisco we were on the outside seat. Joe Goodman had returned by this time and agreed to accompany us as far as Henness Pass. We were all in good spirits and glad we were alive, so Joe did not stop when he got to Henness Pass, but kept on. Now and then he would say, “Well, I had better be going back pretty soon,” but he didn't go, and in the end he did not go back at all, but went with us clear to San Francisco, and we had a royal good time all the way. I never knew any series of duels to close so happily.
So ended Mark Twain's career on the Comstock. He had come to it a weary pilgrim, discouraged and unknown; he was leaving it with a new name and fame—elate, triumphant, even if a fugitive.
This was near the end of May, 1864. The intention of both Gillis and Clemens was to return to the States; but once in San Francisco both presently accepted places, Clemens as reporter and Gillis as compositor, on the 'Morning Call'.
From 'Roughing It' the reader gathers that Mark Twain now entered into a life of butterfly idleness on the strength of prospective riches to be derived from the “half a trunkful of mining stocks,” and that presently, when the mining bubble exploded, he was a pauper. But a good many liberties have been taken with the history of this period. Undoubtedly he expected opulent returns from his mining stocks, and was disappointed, particularly in an investment in Hale and Norcross shares, held too long for the large profit which could have been made by selling at the proper time.
The fact is, he spent not more than a few days—a fortnight at most—in “butterfly idleness,” at the Lick House before he was hard at work on the 'Call', living modestly with Steve Gillis in the quietest place they could find, never quiet enough, but as far as possible from dogs and cats and chickens and pianos, which seemed determined to make the mornings hideous, when a weary night reporter and compositor wanted to rest. They went out socially, on occasion, arrayed in considerable elegance; but their recreations were more likely to consist of private midnight orgies, after the paper had gone to press—mild dissipations in whatever they could find to eat at that hour, with a few glasses of beer, and perhaps a game of billiards or pool in some all-night resort. A printer by the name of Ward—“Little Ward,”—[L. P. Ward; well known as an athlete in San Francisco. He lost his mind and fatally shot himself in 1903.]—they called him—often went with them for these refreshments. Ward and Gillis were both bantam game-cocks, and sometimes would stir up trouble for the very joy of combat. Clemens never cared for that sort of thing and discouraged it, but Ward and Gillis were for war. “They never assisted each other. If one had offered to assist the other against some overgrown person, it would have been an affront, and a battle would have followed between that pair of little friends.”—[S. L. C., 1906.]—Steve Gillis in particular, was fond of incidental encounters, a characteristic which would prove an important factor somewhat later in shaping Mark Twain's career. Of course, the more strenuous nights were not frequent. Their home-going was usually tame enough and they were glad enough to get there.
Clemens, however, was never quite ready for sleep. Then, as ever, he would prop himself up in bed, light his pipe, and lose himself in English or French history until sleep conquered. His room-mate did not approve of this habit; it interfered with his own rest, and with his fiendish tendency to mischief he found reprisal in his own fashion. Knowing his companion's highly organized nervous system he devised means of torture which would induce him to put out the light. Once he tied a nail to a string; an arrangement which he kept on the floor behind the bed. Pretending to be asleep, he would hold the end of the string, and lift it gently up and down, making a slight ticking sound on the floor, maddening to a nervous man. Clemens would listen a moment and say:
“What in the nation is that noise”
Gillis's pretended sleep and the ticking would continue.
Clemens would sit up in bed, fling aside his book, and swear violently.
“Steve, what is that d—d noise?” he would say.
Steve would pretend to rouse sleepily.
“What's the matter, Sam? What noise? Oh, I guess that is one of those death-ticks; they don't like the light. Maybe it will stop in a minute.”
It usually did stop about that time, and the reading would be apt to continue. But no sooner was there stillness than it began again—tick, tick, tick. With a wild explosion of blasphemy, the book would go across the floor and the light would disappear. Sometimes, when he couldn't sleep, he would dress and walk out in the street for an hour, while the cruel Steve slept like the criminal that he was.
At last, one night, he overdid the thing and was caught. His tortured room-mate at first reviled him, then threatened to kill him, finally put him to shame. It was curious, but they always loved each other, those two; there was never anything resembling an estrangement, and to his last days Mark Twain never could speak of Steve Gillis without tenderness.
They moved a great many times in San Francisco. Their most satisfactory residence was on a bluff on California Street. Their windows looked down on a lot of Chinese houses—“tin-can houses,” they were called—small wooden shanties covered with beaten-out cans. Steve and Mark would look down on these houses, waiting until all the Chinamen were inside; then one of them would grab an empty beer-bottle, throw it down on those tin can roofs, and dodge behind the blinds. The Chinamen would swarm out and look up at the row of houses on the edge of the bluff, shake their fists, and pour out Chinese vituperation. By and by, when they had retired and everything was quiet again, their tormentors would throw another bottle. This was their Sunday amusement.
At a place on Minna Street they lived with a private family. At first Clemens was delighted.
“Just look at it, Steve,” he said. “What a nice, quiet place. Not a thing to disturb us.”
But next morning a dog began to howl. Gillis woke this time, to find his room-mate standing in the door that opened out into a back garden, holding a big revolver, his hand shaking with cold and excitement.
“Came here, Steve,” he said. “Come here and kill him. I'm so chilled through I can't get a bead on him.”
“Sam,” said Steve, “don't shoot him. Just swear at him. You can easily kill him at that range with your profanity.”
Steve Gillis declares that Mark Twain then let go such a scorching, singeing blast that the brute's owner sold him next day for a Mexican hairless dog.
We gather that they moved, on an average, about once a month. A home letter of September 25, 1864, says: