It was plain that in these latter years
they had become familiar with all manner of shameful crimes. But at the
very moment that I was exalting my advantage and joying in it in secret,
there was a muddy undercurrent of discomfort "riling" the deeps of my
happiness, and that was--the having to hear my name bandied about in
familiar connection with those of such people. I grew more and more
disturbed. Finally I wrote my grandmother about it. Her answer came
quick and sharp. She said:
You have never done one single thing in all your life to be ashamed
of--not one. Look at the newspapers--look at them and comprehend
what sort of characters Messrs. Smith and Blank are, and then see
if you are willing to lower yourself to their level and enter a
public canvass with them.
It was my very thought! I did not sleep a single moment that night.
But, after all, I could not recede.
I was fully committed, and must go on with the fight. As I was looking
listlessly over the papers at breakfast I came across this paragraph,
and I may truly say I never was so confounded before.
PERJURY.--Perhaps, now that Mr. Mark Twain is before the people as a
candidate for Governor, he will condescend to explain how he came to
be convicted of perjury by thirty-four witnesses in Wakawak, Cochin
China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury being to rob a poor
native widow and her helpless family of a meager plantain-patch,
their only stay and support in their bereavement and desolation.
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