Then I lampooned two prominent citizens outrageously--not because they
had done anything to deserve, 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.
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