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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Editorial Wild Oats, by Mark Twain
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Editorial Wild Oats
+
+Author: Mark Twain
+
+Release Date: October 6, 2006 [EBook #19484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDITORIAL WILD OATS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzan Flanagan and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Editorial Wild Oats
+
+BY
+
+Mark Twain
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+HARPER & BROTHERS
+PUBLISHERS--MCMV
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1875, 1899, 1903, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.
+
+Copyright, 1879, 1899, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.
+
+Copyright, 1905, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+Published September, 1905.
+
+[Illustration: See p. 57
+
+"I FANCIED HE WAS DISPLEASED"]
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+                                                   PAGE
+MY FIRST LITERARY VENTURE                             3
+
+JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE                              11
+
+NICODEMUS DODGE--PRINTER                             30
+
+MR. BLOKE'S ITEM                                     41
+
+HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL
+PAPER                                                52
+
+THE KILLING OF JULIUS CAESAR "LOCALIZED"              70
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+
+"I FANCIED HE WAS DISPLEASED"            _Frontispiece_
+
+"HE HAD CONCLUDED HE
+WOULDN'T"                              _Facing p._    4
+
+"GILLESPIE HAD CALLED"                 "             24
+
+"WHEEZING THE MUSIC OF 'CAMPTOWN
+RACES'"                                "             38
+
+"I HAVE READ THIS ABSURD ITEM
+OVER"                                  "             50
+
+"A LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE"           "             58
+
+"THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE
+POCKETS"                               "             82
+
+
++----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+|Transcriber's Note: The dialect in this book is transcribed exactly as|
+|in the original.                                                         |
++----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+Editorial Wild Oats
+
+
+
+
+My First Literary Venture
+
+
+I was a very smart child at the age of thirteen--an unusually
+smart child, I thought at the time. It was then that I did my first
+newspaper scribbling, and most unexpectedly to me it stirred up a
+fine sensation in the community. It did, indeed, and I was very
+proud of it, too. I was a printer's "devil," and a progressive and
+aspiring one. My uncle had me on his paper (the _Weekly Hannibal
+Journal_, two dollars a year, in advance--five hundred subscribers,
+and they paid in cord-wood, cabbages, and unmarketable turnips),
+and on a lucky summer's day he left town to be gone a week, and
+asked me if I thought I could edit one issue of the paper
+judiciously. Ah! didn't I want to try! Higgins was the editor on
+the rival paper. He had lately been jilted, and one night a friend
+found an open note on the poor fellow's bed, in which he stated
+that he could no longer endure life and had drowned himself in Bear
+Creek. The friend ran down there and discovered Higgins wading back
+to shore. He had concluded he wouldn't. The village was full of it
+for several days, but Higgins did not suspect it. I thought this
+was a fine opportunity. I wrote an elaborately wretched account of
+the whole matter, and then illustrated it with villanous cuts
+engraved on the bottoms of wooden type with a jack-knife--one of
+them a picture of Higgins wading out into the creek in his shirt,
+with a lantern, sounding the depth of the water with a walking-stick.
+I thought it was desperately funny, and was densely unconscious that
+there was any moral obliquity about such a publication. Being
+satisfied with this effort, I looked around for other worlds to
+conquer, and it struck me that it would make good, interesting matter
+to charge the editor of a neighboring country paper with a piece of
+gratuitous rascality and "see him squirm."
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAD CONCLUDED HE WOULDN'T"]
+
+I did it, putting the article into the form of a parody on the
+"Burial of Sir John Moore"--and a pretty crude parody it was, too.
+
+Then I lampooned two prominent citizens outrageously--not because
+they had done anything to deserve it, but merely because I thought
+it was my duty to make the paper lively.
+
+Next I gently touched up the newest stranger--the lion of the day,
+the gorgeous journeyman tailor from Quincy. He was a simpering
+coxcomb of the first water, and the "loudest" dressed man in the
+State. He was an inveterate woman-killer. Every week he wrote lushy
+"poetry" for the _Journal_, about his newest conquest. His rhymes
+for my week were headed, "TO MARY IN H--L," meaning to Mary in
+Hannibal, of course. But while setting up the piece I was suddenly
+riven from head to heel by what I regarded as a perfect thunderbolt
+of humor, and I compressed it into a snappy footnote at the
+bottom--thus:
+
+  "We will let this thing pass, just this once; but we wish Mr. J.
+  Gordon Runnels to understand distinctly that we have a character
+  to sustain, and from this time forth when he wants to commune
+  with his friends in h--l, he must select some other medium than
+  the columns of this journal!"
+
+The paper came out, and I never knew any little thing attract so
+much attention as those playful trifles of mine.
+
+For once the _Hannibal Journal_ was in demand--a novelty it had
+not experienced before. The whole town was stirred. Higgins dropped
+in with a double-barrelled shot-gun early in the forenoon. When he
+found that it was an infant (as he called me) that had done him the
+damage, he simply pulled my ears and went away; but he threw up his
+situation that night and left town for good. The tailor came with
+his goose and a pair of shears; but he despised me, too, and
+departed for the South that night. The two lampooned citizens came
+with threats of libel, and went away incensed at my insignificance.
+The country editor pranced in with a warwhoop next day, suffering
+for blood to drink; but he ended by forgiving me cordially and
+inviting me down to the drug-store to wash away all animosity in a
+friendly bumper of "Fahnestock's Vermifuge." It was his little
+joke. My uncle was very angry when he got back--unreasonably so, I
+thought, considering what an impetus I had given the paper, and
+considering also that gratitude for his preservation ought to have
+been uppermost in his mind, inasmuch as by his delay he had so
+wonderfully escaped dissection, tomahawking, libel, and getting his
+head shot off. But he softened when he looked at the accounts and
+saw that I had actually booked the unparalleled number of
+thirty-three new subscribers, and had the vegetables to show for
+it--cord-wood, cabbage, beans, and unsalable turnips enough to run
+the family for two years!
+
+
+
+
+Journalism in Tennessee
+
+    The editor of the Memphis _Avalanche_ swoops thus mildly down upon
+    a correspondent who posted him as a Radical: "While he was writing
+    the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and
+    punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was
+    saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood."--_Exchange_.
+
+
+I was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve
+my health, and so I went down to Tennessee and got a berth on the
+_Morning-Glory and Johnson County Warwhoop_ as associate editor.
+When I went on duty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in
+a three-legged chair with his feet on a pine table. There was
+another pine table in the room and another afflicted chair, and
+both were half buried under newspapers and scraps and sheets of
+manuscript. There was a wooden box of sand, sprinkled with
+cigar-stubs and "old soldiers," and a stove with a door hanging by
+its upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed black cloth
+frock-coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small and
+neatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal ring, a
+standing collar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief
+with the ends hanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He was
+smoking a cigar, and trying to think of a word, and in pawing his
+hair he had rumpled his locks a good deal. He was scowling
+fearfully, and I judged that he was concocting a particularly
+knotty editorial. He told me to take the exchanges and skim through
+them and write up the "Spirit of the Tennessee Press," condensing
+into the article all of their contents that seemed of interest.
+
+I wrote as follows:
+
+  "SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS
+
+  "The editors of the _Semi-Weekly Earthquake_ evidently labor
+  under a misapprehension with regard to the Ballyhack railroad. It
+  is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one
+  side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important
+  points along the line, and consequently can have no desire to
+  slight it. The gentlemen of the _Earthquake_ will, of course,
+  take pleasure in making the correction.
+
+  "John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville
+  _Thunderbolt and Battle-Cry of Freedom_, arrived in the city
+  yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House.
+
+  "We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs _Morning
+  Howl_ has fallen into the error of supposing that the election of
+  Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have
+  discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no
+  doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete election returns.
+
+  "It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is
+  endeavoring to contract with some New York gentlemen to pave its
+  wellnigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The
+  _Daily Hurrah_ urges the measure with ability, and seems
+  confident of ultimate success."
+
+I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance,
+alteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded.
+He ran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous.
+It was easy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up
+and said:
+
+"Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of
+those cattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to
+stand such gruel as that? Give me the pen!"
+
+I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or
+plough through another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly.
+While he was in the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through
+the open window, and marred the symmetry of my ear.
+
+"Ah," said he, "that is that scoundrel Smith, of the _Moral
+Volcano_--he was due yesterday." And he snatched a navy revolver
+from his belt and fired. Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot
+spoiled Smith's aim, who was just taking a second chance, and he
+crippled a stranger. It was me. Merely a finger shot off.
+
+Then the chief editor went on with his erasures and
+interlineations. Just as he finished them a hand-grenade came down
+the stove-pipe, and the explosion shivered the stove into a
+thousand fragments. However, it did no further damage, except that
+a vagrant piece knocked a couple of my teeth out.
+
+"That stove is utterly ruined," said the chief editor.
+
+I said I believed it was.
+
+"Well, no matter--don't want it this kind of weather. I know the
+man that did it. I'll get him. Now, _here_ is the way this stuff
+ought to be written."
+
+I took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and
+interlineations till its mother wouldn't have known it if it had
+had one. It now read as follows:
+
+  "SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS
+
+  "The inveterate liars of the _Semi-Weekly Earthquake_ are
+  evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous
+  people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard to
+  that most glorious conception of the nineteenth century, the
+  Ballyhack railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off
+  at one side originated in their own fulsome brains--or rather in
+  the settlings which _they_ regard as brains. They had better
+  swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile
+  carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve.
+
+  "That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville _Thunderbolt and
+  Battle-Cry of Freedom_, is down here again sponging at the Van
+  Buren.
+
+  "We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs
+  _Morning Howl_ is giving out, with his usual propensity for
+  lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of
+  journalism is to disseminate truth: to eradicate error; to
+  educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals and
+  manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more
+  charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier; and
+  yet this black-hearted scoundrel degrades his great office
+  persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny,
+  vituperation, and vulgarity.
+
+  "Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement--it wants a jail and a
+  poor-house more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town
+  composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith-shop, and that
+  mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the _Daily Hurrah_! The crawling
+  insect, Buckner, who edits the _Hurrah_, is braying about this
+  business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is
+  talking sense."
+
+"Now _that_ is the way to write--peppery and to the point.
+Mush-and-milk journalism gives me the fan-tods."
+
+About this time a brick came through the window with a splintering
+crash, and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved
+out of range--I began to feel in the way.
+
+The chief said: "That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting
+him for two days. He will be up now right away."
+
+He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment
+afterwards with a dragoon revolver in his hand.
+
+He said: "Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who
+edits this mangy sheet?"
+
+"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs
+is gone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar,
+Colonel Blatherskite Tecumseh?"
+
+"Right, sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are
+at leisure we will begin."
+
+"I have an article on the 'Encouraging Progress of Moral and
+Intellectual Development in America' to finish, but there is no
+hurry. Begin."
+
+Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The
+chief lost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its
+career in the fleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel's left shoulder
+was clipped a little. They fired again. Both missed their men this
+time, but I got my share, a shot in the arm. At the third fire both
+gentlemen were wounded slightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I
+then said I believed I would go out and take a walk, as this was a
+private matter, and I had a delicacy about participating in it
+further. But both gentlemen begged me to keep my seat, and assured
+me that I was not in the way.
+
+They then talked about the elections and the crops while they
+reloaded, and I fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they
+opened fire again with animation, and every shot took effect--but
+it is proper to remark that five out of the six fell to my share.
+The sixth one mortally wounded the Colonel, who remarked, with fine
+humor, that he would have to say good-morning now, as he had
+business up-town. He then inquired the way to the undertaker's and
+left.
+
+The chief turned to me and said: "I am expecting company to dinner,
+and shall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will
+read proof and attend to the customers."
+
+I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I
+was too bewildered by the fusillade that was still ringing in my
+ears to think of anything to say.
+
+He continued: "Jones will be here at three--cowhide him. Gillespie
+will call earlier, perhaps--throw him out of the window. Ferguson
+will be along about four--kill him. That is all for to-day, I
+believe. If you have any odd time, you may write a blistering
+article on the police--give the chief inspector rats. The cowhides
+are under the table; weapons in the drawer--ammunition there in the
+corner--lint and bandages up there in the pigeon-holes. In case of
+accident, go to Lancet, the surgeon, down-stairs. He advertises--we
+take it out in trade."
+
+[Illustration: "GILLESPIE HAD CALLED"]
+
+He was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours I
+had been through perils so awful that all peace of mind and all
+cheerfulness were gone from me. Gillespie had called and thrown
+_me_ out of the window. Jones arrived promptly, and when I got
+ready to do the cowhiding he took the job off my hands. In an
+encounter with a stranger, not in the bill of fare, I had lost my
+scalp. Another stranger, by the name of Thompson, left me a mere
+wreck and ruin of chaotic rags. And at last, at bay in the corner,
+and beset by an infuriated mob of editors, blacklegs, politicians,
+and desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished their weapons
+about my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes of
+steel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the
+chief arrived, and with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic
+friends. Then ensued a scene of riot and carnage such as no human
+pen, or steel one either, could describe. People were shot, probed,
+dismembered, blown up, thrown out of the window. There was a brief
+tornado of murky blasphemy, with a confused and frantic war-dance
+glimmering through it, and then all was over. In five minutes there
+was silence, and the gory chief and I sat alone and surveyed the
+sanguinary ruin that strewed the floor around us.
+
+He said: "You'll like this place when you get used to it."
+
+I said: "I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I
+might write to suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some
+practice and learned the language I am confident I could. But, to
+speak the plain truth, that sort of energy of expression has its
+inconveniences, and a man is liable to interruption. You see that
+yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the public, no
+doubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention as it
+calls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so
+much as I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I
+don't like to be left here to wait on the customers. The
+experiences are novel, I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a
+fashion, but they are not judiciously distributed. A gentleman
+shoots at you through the window and cripples _me_; a bomb-shell
+comes down the stove-pipe for your gratification and sends the
+stove-door down _my_ throat; a friend drops in to swap compliments
+with you, and freckles _me_ with bullet-holes till my skin won't
+hold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his
+cowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all
+my clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy
+freedom of an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all
+the blackguards in the country arrive in their war-paint, and
+proceed to scare the rest of me to death with their tomahawks. Take
+it altogether, I never had such a spirited time in all my life as I
+have had to-day. No; I like you, and I like your calm, unruffled
+way of explaining things to the customers, but you see I am not
+used to it. The Southern heart is too impulsive; Southern
+hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. The paragraphs which I
+have written to-day, and into whose cold sentences your masterly
+hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennessean journalism, will
+wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob of editors will
+come--and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for
+breakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present
+at these festivities. I came South for my health; I will go back on
+the same errand, and suddenly. Tennessean journalism is too
+stirring for me."
+
+After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at
+the hospital.
+
+
+
+
+Nicodemus Dodge--Printer
+
+
+When I was a boy in a printing-office in Missouri, a
+loose-jointed, long-legged, tow-headed, jeans-clad, countrified cub
+of about sixteen lounged in one day, and without removing his hands
+from the depths of his trousers pockets or taking off his faded
+ruin of a slouch hat, whose broken rim hung limp and ragged about
+his eyes and ears like a bug-eaten cabbage-leaf, stared
+indifferently around, then leaned his hip against the editors'
+table, crossed his mighty brogans, aimed at a distant fly from a
+crevice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and said, with composure:
+
+"Whar's the boss?"
+
+"I am the boss," said the editor, following this curious bit of
+architecture wonderingly along up to its clock-face with his eye.
+
+"Don't want anybody fur to learn the business, 'tain't likely?"
+
+"Well, I don't know. Would you like to learn it?"
+
+"Pap's so po' he cain't run me no mo', so I want to git a show
+somers if I kin, 'tain't no diffunce what--I'm strong and hearty,
+and I don't turn my back on no kind of work, hard nur soft."
+
+"Do you think you would like to learn the printing business?"
+
+"Well, I don't re'ly k'yer a durn what I _do_ learn, so's I git a
+chance fur to make my way. I'd jist as soon learn print'n' 's
+anything."
+
+"Can you read?"
+
+"Yes--middlin'."
+
+"Write?"
+
+"Well, I've seed people could lay over me thar."
+
+"Cipher?"
+
+"Not good enough to keep store, I don't reckon, but up as fur as
+twelve-times-twelve I ain't no slouch. 'Tother side of that is what
+gits me."
+
+"Where is your home?"
+
+"I'm f'm old Shelby."
+
+"What's your father's religious denomination?"
+
+"Him? Oh, he's a blacksmith."
+
+"No, no--I don't mean his trade. What's his _religious_
+denomination?"
+
+"_Oh_--I didn't understand you befo'. He's a Freemason."
+
+"No, no; you don't get my meaning yet. What I mean is, does he
+belong to any _church_?"
+
+"_Now_ you're talkin'! Gouldn't make out what you was
+a-tryin' to git through yo' head no way. B'long to a _church_! Why,
+boss, he's be'n the pizenest kind of a Free-will Babtis' for forty
+year. They ain't no pizener ones 'n' what _he_ is. Mighty good man,
+pap is. Everybody says that. If they said any diffrunt they
+wouldn't say it whar _I_ wuz--not _much_ they wouldn't."
+
+"What is your own religion?"
+
+"Well, boss, you've kind o' got me thar--and yit you hain't got me
+so mighty much, nuther. I think 't if a feller he'ps another feller
+when he's in trouble, and don't cuss, and don't do no mean things,
+nur noth'n' he ain' no business to do, and don't spell the
+Saviour's name with a little g, he ain't runnin' no resks--he's
+about as saift as if he b'longed to a church."
+
+"But suppose he did spell it with a little g--what then?"
+
+"Well, if he done it a-purpose, I reckon he wouldn't stand no
+chance,--he _oughtn't_ to have no chance, anyway, I'm most rotten
+certain 'bout that."
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Nicodemus Dodge."
+
+"I think maybe you'll do, Nicodemus. We'll give you a trial,
+anyway."
+
+"All right."
+
+"When would you like to begin?"
+
+"Now."
+
+So, within ten minutes after we had first glimpsed this nondescript
+he was one of us, and with his coat off and hard at it.
+
+Beyond that end of our establishment which was farthest from the
+street was a deserted garden, pathless, and thickly grown with the
+bloomy and villanous "jimpson" weed and its common friend the
+stately sunflower. In the midst of this mournful spot was a decayed
+and aged little "frame" house with but one room, one window, and no
+ceiling--it had been a smoke-house a generation before. Nicodemus
+was given this lonely and ghostly den as a bedchamber.
+
+The village smarties recognized a treasure in Nicodemus right
+away--a butt to play jokes on. It was easy to see that he was
+inconceivably green and confiding. George Jones had the glory of
+perpetrating the first joke on him; he gave him a cigar with a
+fire-cracker in it and winked to the crowd to come; the thing
+exploded presently and swept away the bulk of Nicodemus's eyebrows
+and eyelashes. He simply said:
+
+"I consider them kind of seeg'yars dangersome"--and seemed to
+suspect nothing. The next evening Nicodemus waylaid George and
+poured a bucket of ice-water over him.
+
+One day, while Nicodemus was in swimming, Tom McElroy "tied" his
+clothes. Nicodemus made a bonfire of Tom's by way of retaliation.
+
+A third joke was played upon Nicodemus a day or two later--he
+walked up the middle aisle of the village church, Sunday night,
+with a staring hand-bill pinned between his shoulders. The joker
+spent the remainder of the night, after church, in the cellar of a
+deserted house, and Nicodemus sat on the cellar door till towards
+breakfast-time to make sure that the prisoner remembered that if
+any noise was made some rough treatment would be the consequence.
+The cellar had two feet of stagnant water in it, and was bottomed
+with six inches of soft mud.
+
+But I wander from the point. It was the subject of skeletons that
+brought this boy back to my recollection. Before a very long time
+had elapsed, the village smarties began to feel an uncomfortable
+consciousness of not having made a very shining success out of
+their attempts on the simpleton from "old Shelby." Experimenters
+grew scarce and chary. Now the young doctor came to the rescue.
+There was delight and applause when he proposed to scare Nicodemus
+to death, and explained how he was going to do it. He had a noble
+new skeleton--the skeleton of the late and only local celebrity,
+Jimmy Finn, the village drunkard--a grisly piece of property which
+he had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at auction, for fifty dollars,
+under great competition, when Jimmy lay very sick in the tanyard a
+fortnight before his death. The fifty dollars had gone promptly for
+whiskey and had considerably hurried up the change of ownership in
+the skeleton. The doctor would put Jimmy Finn's skeleton in
+Nicodemus's bed!
+
+This was done--about half-past ten in the evening. About Nicodemus's
+usual bedtime--midnight--the village jokers came creeping stealthily
+through the jimpson weeds and sunflowers towards the lonely frame
+den. They reached the window and peeped in. There sat the long-legged
+pauper, on his bed, in a very short shirt, and nothing more; he was
+dangling his legs contentedly back and forth, and wheezing the music
+of "Camptown Races" out of a paper-overlaid comb which he was pressing
+against his mouth; by him lay a new jews-harp, a new top, a solid
+india-rubber ball, a handful of painted marbles, five pounds of
+"store" candy, and a well-knawed slab of gingerbread as big and as
+thick as a volume of sheet music. He had sold the skeleton to a
+travelling quack for three dollars and was enjoying the result!
+
+[Illustration: "WHEEZING THE MUSIC OF 'CAMPTOWN RACES'"]
+
+
+
+
+Mr. Bloke's Item
+
+
+Our esteemed friend, Mr. John William Bloke, of Virginia City,
+walked into the office where we are sub-editor at a late hour last
+night, with an expression of profound and heartfelt suffering upon
+his countenance, and, sighing heavily, laid the following item
+reverently upon the desk, and walked slowly out again. He paused a
+moment at the door, and seemed struggling to command his feelings
+sufficiently to enable him to speak, and then, nodding his head
+towards his manuscript, ejaculated in a broken voice, "Friend of
+mine--oh! how sad!" and burst into tears. We were so moved at his
+distress that we did not think to call him back and endeavor to
+comfort him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper had
+already gone to press, but knowing that our friend would consider
+the publication of this item important, and cherishing the hope
+that to print it would afford a melancholy satisfaction to his
+sorrowing heart, we stopped the press at once and inserted it in
+our columns:
+
+  DISTRESSING ACCIDENT.--Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr.
+  William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park,
+  was leaving his residence to go down-town, as has been his usual
+  custom for many years with the exception only of a short interval
+  in the spring of 1850, during which he was confined to his bed by
+  injuries received in attempting to stop a runaway horse by
+  thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing
+  up his hands and shouting, which, if he had done so even a single
+  moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still
+  more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to
+  himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing
+  by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and
+  saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely,
+  though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitring in
+  another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and
+  on the lookout, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her
+  own mother is said to have stated, who is no more, but died in
+  the full hope of a glorious resurrection, upward of three years
+  ago, aged eighty-six, being a Christian woman and without guile,
+  as it were, or property, in consequence of the fire of 1849,
+  which destroyed every single thing she had in the world. But such
+  is life. Let us all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and
+  let us endeavor so to conduct ourselves that when we come to die
+  we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our heart, and say with
+  earnestness and sincerity that from this day forth we will beware
+  of the intoxicating bowl.--_First edition of the Californian._
+
+The head editor has been in here raising the mischief, and tearing
+his hair and kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a
+pickpocket. He says that every time he leaves me in charge of the
+paper for half an hour, I get imposed upon by the first infant or
+the first idiot that comes along. And he says that that distressing
+item of Mr. Bloke's is nothing but a lot of distressing bosh, and
+has no point to it, and no sense in it, and no information in it,
+and that there was no sort of necessity for stopping the press to
+publish it.
+
+Now all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as
+unaccommodating and unsympathetic as some people, I would have told
+Mr. Bloke that I wouldn't receive his communication at such a late
+hour; but no, his snuffling distress touched my heart, and I jumped
+at the chance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read
+his item to see whether there was anything wrong about it, but
+hastily wrote the few lines which preceded it, and sent it to the
+printers. And what has my kindness done for me? It has done nothing
+but bring down upon me a storm of abuse and ornamental blasphemy.
+
+Now I will read that item myself, and see if there is any
+foundation for all this fuss. And if there is, the author of it
+shall hear from me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little
+mixed at a first glance. However, I will peruse it once more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more
+mixed than ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of
+it, I wish I may get my just deserts. It won't bear analysis. There
+are things about it which I cannot understand at all. It don't say
+what ever became of William Schuyler. It just says enough about him
+to get one interested in his career, and then drops him. Who is
+William Schuyler, anyhow, and what part of South Park did he live in,
+and if he started down-town at six o'clock, did he ever get there,
+and if he did, did anything happen to him? Is _he_ the individual
+that met with the "distressing accident"? Considering the elaborate
+circumstantiality of detail observable in the item, it seems to me
+that it ought to contain more information than it does. On the
+contrary, it is obscure--and not only obscure, but utterly
+incomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr. Schuyler's leg, fifteen
+years ago, the "distressing accident" that plunged Mr. Bloke into
+unspeakable grief, and caused him to come up here at dead of night
+and stop our press to acquaint the world with the circumstance? Or
+did the "distressing accident" consist in the destruction of
+Schuyler's mother-in-law's property in early times? Or did it consist
+in the death of that person herself three years ago (albeit it does
+not appear that she died by accident)? In a word, what _did_ that
+"distressing accident" consist in? What did that drivelling ass of a
+Schuyler stand _in the wake_ of a runaway horse for, with his
+shouting and gesticulating, if he wanted to stop him? And how the
+mischief could he get run over by a horse that had already passed
+beyond him? And what are we to take "warning" by? And how is this
+extraordinary chapter of incomprehensibilities going to be a "lesson"
+to us? And, above all, what has the intoxicating "bowl" got to do
+with it, anyhow? It is not stated that Schuyler drank, or that his
+wife drank, or that his mother-in-law drank, or that the horse
+drank--wherefore, then, the reference to the intoxicating bowl? It
+does seem to me that if Mr. Bloke had let the intoxicating bowl alone
+himself, he never would have got into so much trouble about this
+exasperating imaginary accident. I have read this absurd item over
+and over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head
+swims, but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly
+seems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it is
+impossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was the
+sufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to
+request that the next time anything happens to one of Mr. Bloke's
+friends, he will append such explanatory notes to his account of it
+as will enable me to find out what sort of an accident it was and whom
+it happened to. I had rather all his friends should die than that I
+should be driven to the verge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out
+the meaning of another such production as the above.
+
+[Illustration: "I HAVE READ THIS ABSURD ITEM OVER"]
+
+
+
+
+How I Edited an Agricultural Paper
+
+
+I did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper
+without misgivings. Neither would a landsman take command of a ship
+without misgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary
+an object. The regular editor of the paper was going off for a
+holiday, and I accepted the terms he offered, and took his place.
+
+The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought
+all the week with unflagging pleasure. We went to press, and I
+waited a day with some solicitude to see whether my effort was
+going to attract any notice. As I left the office, towards sundown,
+a group of men and boys at the foot of the stairs dispersed with
+one impulse, and gave me passageway, and I heard one or two of them
+say, "That's him!" I was naturally pleased by this incident. The
+next morning I found a similar group at the foot of the stairs, and
+scattering couples and individuals standing here and there in the
+street, and over the way, watching me with interest. The group
+separated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say,
+"Look at his eye!" I pretended not to observe the notice I was
+attracting, but secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing
+to write an account of it to my aunt. I went up the short flight of
+stairs, and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I drew near
+the door, which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young
+rural-looking men, whose faces blanched and lengthened when they
+saw me, and then they both plunged through the window with a great
+crash. I was surprised.
+
+In about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing beard and a
+fine but rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation.
+He seemed to have something on his mind. He took off his hat and set
+it on the floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy
+of our paper.
+
+He put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his spectacles
+with his handkerchief, he said, "Are you the new editor?"
+
+I said I was.
+
+"Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?"
+
+"No," I said; "this is my first attempt."
+
+"Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture
+practically?"
+
+"No; I believe I have not."
+
+"Some instinct told me so," said the old gentleman, putting on his
+spectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity, while he
+folded his paper into a convenient shape. "I wish to read you what
+must have made me have that instinct. It was this editorial.
+Listen, and see if it was you that wrote it:
+
+  "Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much
+  better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree."
+
+"Now, what do you think of that--for I really suppose you wrote
+it?"
+
+"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have
+no doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of
+turnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a
+half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the
+tree--"
+
+"Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!"
+
+"Oh, they don't, don't they! Well, who said they did? The language
+was intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that
+knows anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the
+vine."
+
+Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small
+shreds, and stamped on them, and broke several things with his
+cane, and said I did not know as much as a cow; and then went out
+and banged the door after him, and, in short, acted in such a way
+that I fancied he was displeased about something. But not knowing
+what the trouble was, I could not be any help to him.
+
+Pretty soon after this a long cadaverous creature, with lanky
+locks hanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling
+from the hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and
+halted, motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in
+listening attitude. No sound was heard. Still he listened. No
+sound. Then he turned the key in the door, and came elaborately
+tiptoeing towards me till he was within long reaching distance of
+me, when he stopped and, after scanning my face with intense
+interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his
+bosom, and said:
+
+"There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick! Relieve me. I
+suffer."
+
+[Illustration: "A LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE"]
+
+I read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see
+the relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety
+go out of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like
+the merciful moonlight over a desolate landscape:
+
+  "The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing
+  it. It should not be imported earlier than June or later than
+  September. In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where
+  it can hatch out its young.
+
+  "It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain.
+  Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his
+  corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat-cakes in July instead of
+  August.
+
+  "Concerning the pumpkin.--This berry is a favorite with the
+  natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the
+  gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it
+  the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more
+  filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent
+  of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the
+  gourd and one or two varieties of the squash. But the custom of
+  planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going
+  out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin
+  as a shade tree is a failure.
+
+  "Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to
+  spawn"--
+
+The excited listener sprang towards me to shake hands, and said:
+
+"There, there--that will do. I know I am all right now, because
+you have read it just as I did, word for word. But, stranger, when
+I first read it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never
+believed it before, notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch
+so strict, but now I believe I _am_ crazy; and with that I fetched
+a howl that you might have heard two miles, and started out to kill
+somebody--because, you know, I knew it would come to that sooner or
+later, and so I might as well begin. I read one of them paragraphs
+over again, so as to be certain, and then I burned my house down
+and started. I have crippled several people, and have got one
+fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want him. But I thought
+I would call in here as I passed along and make the thing perfectly
+certain; and now it _is_ certain, and I tell you it is lucky for
+the chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure, as I
+went back. Good-bye, sir, good-bye; you have taken a great load off
+my mind. My reason has stood the strain of one of your agricultural
+articles, and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now.
+_Good_-bye, sir."
+
+I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this
+person had been entertaining himself with, for I could not help
+feeling remotely accessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly
+banished, for the regular editor walked in! [I thought to myself,
+Now if you had gone to Egypt, as I recommended you to, I might have
+had a chance to get my hand in; but you wouldn't do it, and here
+you are. I sort of expected you.]
+
+The editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected.
+
+He surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and these two young
+farmers had made, and then said: "This is a sad business--a very
+sad business. There is the mucilage-bottle broken, and six panes of
+glass, and a spittoon, and two candlesticks. But that is not the
+worst. The reputation of the paper is injured--and permanently, I
+fear. True, there never was such a call for the paper before, and
+it never sold such a large edition or soared to such celebrity; but
+does one want to be famous for lunacy, and prosper upon the
+infirmities of his mind? My friend, as I am an honest man, the
+street out here is full of people, and others are roosting on the
+fences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they think you are
+crazy. And well they might after reading your editorials. They are
+a disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head that you
+could edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know the first
+rudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as being
+the same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and you
+recommend the domestication of the polecat on account of its
+playfulness and its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams
+will lie quiet if music be played to them was superfluous--entirely
+superfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams _always_ lie quiet. Clams
+care nothing whatever about music. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! if
+you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you
+could not have graduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I
+never saw anything like it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut
+as an article of commerce is steadily gaining in favor, is simply
+calculated to destroy this journal. I want you to throw up your
+situation and go. I want no more holiday--I could not enjoy it if I
+had it. Certainly not with you in my chair. I would always stand in
+dread of what you might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose
+all patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under
+the head of 'Landscape Gardening.' I want you to go. Nothing on earth
+could persuade me to take another holiday. Oh! why didn't you _tell_
+me you didn't know anything about agriculture?"
+
+"_Tell_ you, you cornstalk, you cabbage, you son of a
+cauliflower? It's the first time I ever heard such an unfeeling
+remark. I tell you I have been in the editorial business going on
+fourteen years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man's
+having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper. You turnip!
+Who write the dramatic critiques for the second-rate papers? Why, a
+parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice apothecaries, who know
+just as much about good acting as I do about good farming and no
+more. Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who do up
+the heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largest
+opportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticise the
+Indian campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a warwhoop from a
+wigwam, and who never have had to run a foot-race with a tomahawk,
+or pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to
+build the evening campfire with. Who write the temperance appeals,
+and clamor about the flowing bowl? Folks who will never draw
+another sober breath till they do it in the grave. Who edit the
+agricultural papers, you--yam? Men, as a general thing, who fail in
+the poetry line, yellow-colored novel line, sensation-drama line,
+city-editor line, and finally fall back on agriculture as a
+temporary reprieve from the poor-house. _You_ try to tell _me_
+anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it
+from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the
+bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.
+Heaven knows if I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and
+impudent instead of diffident, I could have made a name for myself
+in this cold selfish world. I take my leave, sir. Since I have been
+treated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I
+have done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract as far as I was
+permitted to do it. I said I could make your paper of interest to
+all classes--and I have. I said I could run your circulation up to
+twenty thousand copies, and if I had had two more weeks I'd have
+done it. And I'd have given you the best class of readers that ever
+an agricultural paper had--not a farmer in it, nor a solitary
+individual who could tell a watermelon-tree from a peach-vine to
+save his life. _You_ are the loser by this rupture, not me,
+Pie-plant. Adios."
+
+I then left.
+
+
+
+
+The Killing of Julius Caesar "Localized"
+
+    _Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from
+    the "Roman Daily Evening Fasces," of the date of that tremendous
+    occurrence._
+
+
+Nothing in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much
+satisfaction as gathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious
+murder, and writing them up with aggravating circumstantiality. He
+takes a living delight in this labor of love--for such it is to
+him, especially if he knows that all the other papers have gone to
+press, and his will be the only one that will contain the dreadful
+intelligence. A feeling of regret has often come over me that I was
+not reporting in Rome when Caesar was killed--reporting on an
+evening paper, and the only one in the city, and getting at least
+twelve hours ahead of the morning-paper boys with this most
+magnificent "item" that ever fell to the lot of the craft. Other
+events have happened as startling as this, but none that possessed
+so peculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite "item" of the
+present day, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high
+rank, fame, and social and political standing of the actors in it.
+
+However, as I was not permitted to report Caesar's assassination in
+the regular way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to
+translate the following able account of it from the original Latin
+of the _Roman Daily Evening Fasces_ of that date--second edition.
+
+  "Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild
+  excitement yesterday by the occurrence of one of those bloody
+  affrays which sicken the heart and fill the soul with fear, while
+  they inspire all thinking men with forebodings for the future of
+  a city where human life is held so cheaply, and the gravest laws
+  are so openly set at defiance. As the result of that affray, it
+  is our painful duty, as public journalists, to record the death
+  of one of our most esteemed citizens--a man whose name is known
+  wherever this paper circulates, and whose fame it has been our
+  pleasure and our privilege to extend, and also to protect from
+  the tongue of slander and falsehood, to the best of our poor
+  ability. We refer to Mr. J. Caesar, the Emperor-elect.
+
+  "The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could
+  determine them from the conflicting statements of eyewitnesses,
+  were about as follows:--The affair was an election row, of
+  course. Nine-tenths of the ghastly butcheries that disgrace the
+  city nowadays grow out of the bickerings and jealousies and
+  animosities engendered by these accursed elections. Rome would be
+  the gainer by it if her very constables were elected to serve a
+  century; for in our experience we have never even been able to
+  choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozen
+  knockdowns and a general cramming of the station-house with
+  drunken vagabonds overnight. It is said that when the immense
+  majority for Caesar at the polls in the market was declared the
+  other day, and the crown was offered to that gentleman, even his
+  amazing unselfishness in refusing it three times was not
+  sufficient to save him from the whispered insults of such men as
+  Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and other hirelings of the disappointed
+  candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenth and
+  other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically
+  and contemptuously of Mr. Caesar's conduct upon that occasion.
+
+  "We are further informed that there are many among us who think
+  they are justified in believing that the assassination of Julius
+  Caesar was a put-up thing--a cut-and-dried arrangement, hatched by
+  Marcus Brutus and a lot of his hired roughs, and carried out only
+  too faithfully according to the programme. Whether there be good
+  grounds for this suspicion or not, we leave to the people to
+  judge for themselves, only asking that they will read the
+  following account of the sad occurrence carefully and
+  dispassionately before they render that judgment.
+
+  "The Senate was already in session, and Caesar was coming down
+  the street towards the Capitol, conversing with some personal
+  friends, and followed, as usual, by a large number of citizens.
+  Just as he was passing in front of Demosthenes & Thucydides'
+  drug-store, he was observing casually to a gentleman, who, our
+  informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides of March
+  were come. The reply was, 'Yes, they are come, but not gone yet.'
+  At this moment Artemidorus stepped up and passed the time of day,
+  and asked Caesar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the
+  kind, which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus
+  also said something about an 'humble suit' which _he_ wanted
+  read. Artemidorus begged that attention might be paid to his
+  first, because it was of personal consequence to Caesar. The
+  latter replied that what concerned himself should be read last,
+  or words to that effect. Artemidorus begged and beseeched him to
+  read the paper instantly.[1] However, Caesar shook him off, and
+  refused to read any petition in the street. He then entered the
+  Capitol, and the crowd followed him.
+
+  "About this time the following conversation was overheard, and we
+  consider that, taken in connection with the events which
+  succeeded it, it bears an appalling significance: Mr. Papilius
+  Lena remarked to George W. Cassius (commonly known as the 'Nobby
+  Boy of the Third Ward'), a bruiser in the pay of the Opposition,
+  that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive; and when
+  Cassius asked, 'What enterprise?' he only closed his left eye
+  temporarily and said with simulated indifference, 'Fare you
+  well,' and sauntered towards Caesar. Marcus Brutus, who is
+  suspected of being the ringleader of the band that killed Caesar,
+  asked what it was that Lena had said. Cassius told him, and
+  added, in a low tone, '_I fear our purpose is discovered._'
+
+  "Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep an eye on Lena,
+  and a moment after Cassius urged that lean and hungry vagrant,
+  Casca, whose reputation here is none of the best, to be sudden
+  for _he feared prevention_. He then turned to Brutus, apparently
+  much excited, and asked what should be done, and swore that
+  either he or Caesar _should never turn back_--he would kill
+  himself first. At this time Caesar was talking to some of the
+  back-country members about the approaching fall elections, and
+  paying little attention to what was going on around him. Billy
+  Trebonius got into conversation with the people's friend and
+  Caesar's--Mark Antony--and under some pretence or other got him
+  away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and
+  others of the gang of infamous desperadoes that infest Rome at
+  present, closed around the doomed Caesar. Then Metellus Cimber
+  knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled from
+  banishment, but Caesar rebuked him for his fawning conduct, and
+  refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's request,
+  first Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return of the
+  banished Publius; but Caesar still refused. He said he could not
+  be moved; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and proceeded
+  to speak in the most complimentary terms of the firmness of that
+  star and its steady character. Then he said he was like it, and
+  he believed he was the only man in the country that was;
+  therefore, since he was 'constant' that Cimber should be
+  banished, he was also 'constant' that he should stay banished,
+  and he'd be hanged if he didn't keep him so!
+
+  "Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight,
+  Casca sprang at Caesar and struck him with a dirk. Caesar grabbing
+  him by the arm with his right hand, and launching a blow straight
+  from the shoulder with his left that sent the reptile bleeding to
+  the earth. He then backed up against Pompey's statue, and squared
+  himself to receive his assailants. Cassius and Cimber and Cinna
+  rushed upon him with their daggers drawn, and the former
+  succeeded in inflicting a wound upon his body; but before he
+  could strike again, and before either of the others could strike
+  at all, Caesar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as
+  many blows of his powerful fist. By this time the Senate was in
+  an indescribable uproar; the throng of citizens in the lobbies
+  had blockaded the doors in their frantic efforts to escape from
+  the building, the sergeant-at-arms and his assistants were
+  struggling with the assassins, venerable senators had cast aside
+  their encumbering robes, and were leaping over benches and flying
+  down the aisles in wild confusion towards the shelter of the
+  committee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting 'Po-lice!
+  Po-lice!' in discordant tones that rose above the frightful din
+  like shrieking winds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it
+  all, great Caesar stood with his back against the statue, like a
+  lion at bay, and fought his assailants weaponless and hand to
+  hand, with the defiant bearing and the unwavering courage which
+  he had shown before on many a bloody field. Billy Trebonius and
+  Caius Legarius struck him with their daggers and fell, as their
+  brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last, when
+  Caesar saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a
+  murderous knife, it is said he seemed utterly overpowered with
+  grief and amazement, and dropping his invincible left arm by his
+  side, he hid his face in the folds of his mantle and received the
+  treacherous blow without an effort to stay the hand that gave it.
+  He only said, '_Et tu, Brute?_' and fell lifeless on the marble
+  pavement.
+
+  "We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was
+  the same one he wore in his tent on the afternoon of the day he
+  overcame the Nervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse
+  it was found to be cut and gashed in no less than seven different
+  places. There was nothing in the pockets. It will be exhibited at
+  the coroner's inquest, and will be damning proof of the fact of
+  the killing. These latter facts may be relied on, as we get them
+  from Mark Antony, whose position enables him to learn every item
+  of news connected with the one subject of absorbing interest of
+  to-day.
+
+  [Illustration: "THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE POCKETS"]
+
+  "LATER.--While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and
+  other friends of the late Caesar got hold of the body, and lugged
+  it off to the Forum, and at last accounts Antony and Brutus were
+  making speeches over it and raising such a row among the people
+  that, as we go to press, the chief of police is satisfied there
+  is going to be a riot, and is taking measures accordingly."
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark that: It is hinted by William Shakespeare, who
+saw the beginning and the end of the unfortunate affray, that this
+"schedule" was simply a note discovering to Caesar that a plot was
+brewing to take his life.]
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Editorial Wild Oats, by Mark Twain
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDITORIAL WILD OATS ***
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