We seldom printed what people actually said, anyhow, and so we can get up the interviews just as well in the office as elsewhere. Try your hand at it—I think you will like it. Journalism, my son, is a great business—a very great business—and I feel that I do not flatter myself when I say that I have made of the New York Sun an entirely unique paper—nothing like it ever existed before, out of perdition. It is a wonderful newspaper. And I could have made just such a one out of that Chicago Republican if they had let me stay, but that story they got up there about my having an improper intimacy with the aged chief of police angered me to such a degree that I would not remain. The whole city regretted my departure, and so did the newspaper men. The papers published kindly and appreciative farewells, and some of them were very touching. One paper published a long and flattering biography of me, and said in conclusion: ‘We deeply regret the departure of this gifted writer from our midst. We have seen meaner men than him—we have seen much meaner men than Charles A. Dana—though we cannot recall an instance just now.’ For the first time in many years I shed tears when I read that article.”
[Enter a Reporter.]
“Mr. D., Mark Twain is dead—at least it is so reported.”
“Is that so? Well, we have nothing against him—he never did any good. Publish an apparently friendly obituary of him—and say at the end that we are pained to have to state that for many years he gained his livelihood by the nefarious practice of robbing graveyards. That will be sufficient—I have already dished him up in a column editorial about his imbecile article upon the ‘Cuban Patriot.’”
I said: “Mr. D., I beg pardon for mentioning it, but I am that Mark Twain to whose remains you propose to give a unique and pleasant interest, and I am not dead.”
“Oh, you are the person, are you?—and you are not dead? Well, I am sorry, but I cannot help the matter. The obituary must be published. We are not responsible for your eccentricities. You could have been dead if you had chosen—nobody hindered you. The obituary is fair game, for whatever is Rumor to another paper is Fact to the Sun. And now that you are here handy, I will interview you. Please to give me the details of any aggravated or unnatural crimes you may have committed.”
Sunday morning, Sept. 11, 1887, in Elmira, N.Y., I got the largest and gratefulest compliment that was ever paid me. I walked down to State street at 9. 30, with the idea of getting shaved. I was strolling along in the middle of Church street, musing, dreaming; I was in a silent Sabbath solitude. Just as I turned into State, I looked up and saw a mighty fire-boy ten or twelve steps in front of me, creeping warily in my direction, with intent eye, and fingering the lock of a gun which was concealed behind him, all but the end of the barrel, which stuck up into view back of his shoulder. My instant thought was, “he is a lunatic out gunning for men, and I cannot escape.” He stopped, bent his body a little, and brought his gun to the front, cocked. There was no time to consider impulses; I acted upon the first one that offered. I walked straight to him, with a beating heart, and asked him to let me look at his weapon. To my joy, he handed it to me without a word. I turned it about, this way and that, praising, examining, asking question after question, to keep his attention diverted from murderous ideas until somebody should come by.
1 comment