didn't come to time! A telegram from his physician stated that he
had been knocked down by a runaway team, and his leg broken in two
places--sufferer lying in great agony, and so forth, and so forth,
and a lot more bosh of the same sort. And the Independents tried
hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge, and pretend that they did
not know what was the real reason of the absence of the abandoned
creature whom they denominate their standard-bearer. A certain man
was seen to reel into Mr. Twain's hotel last night in a state of
beastly intoxication. It is the imperative duty of the Independents
to prove that this besotted brute was not Mark Twain himself. We
have them at last! This is a case that admits of no shirking. The
voice of the people demands in thunder tones, "WHO WAS THAT MAN?"

It was incredible, absolutely incredible, for a moment, that it was
really my name that was coupled with this disgraceful suspicion. Three
long years had passed over my head since I had tasted ale, beer, wine or
liquor or any kind.

[It shows what effect the times were having on me when I say that I saw
myself, confidently dubbed "Mr. Delirium Tremens Twain" in the next issue
of that journal without a pang--notwithstanding I knew that with
monotonous fidelity the paper would go on calling me so to the very end.]

By this time anonymous letters were getting to be an important part of my
mail matter. This form was common:

How about that old woman you kiked of your premises which
was beging. POL. PRY.

And this:

There is things which you Have done which is unbeknowens to anybody
but me. You better trot out a few dots, to yours truly, or you'll
hear through the papers from
HANDY ANDY.

This is about the idea. I could continue them till the reader was
surfeited, if desirable.

Shortly the principal Republican journal "convicted" me of wholesale
bribery, and the leading Democratic paper "nailed" an aggravated case of
blackmailing to me.

[In this way I acquired two additional names: "Twain the Filthy
Corruptionist" and "Twain the Loathsome Embracer."]

By this time there had grown to be such a clamor for an "answer" to all
the dreadful charges that were laid to me that the editors and leaders of
my party said it would be political ruin for me to remain silent any