While I was in Kansas I purchased a weekly newspaper--the _Claybank
Thundergust of Reform_. This paper had never paid its expenses; it had
ruined four consecutive publishers; but my brother-in-law, Mr. Jefferson
Scandril, of Weedhaven, was going to run for the Legislature, and I
naturally desired his defeat; so it became necessary to have an organ in
Claybank to assist in his political extinction. When the establishment
came into my hands, the editor was a fellow who had "opinions," and him
I at once discharged with an admonition. I had some difficulty in
procuring a successor; every man in the county applied for the place. I
could not appoint one without having to fight a majority of the others,
and was eventually compelled to write to a friend at Warm Springs, in
the adjoining State of Missouri, to send me an editor from abroad whose
instalment at the helm of manifest destiny could have no local
significance.

The man he sent me was a frowsy, seedy fellow, named Masthead--not
larger, apparently, than a boy of sixteen years, though it was difficult
to say from the outside how much of him was editor and how much cast-off
clothing; for in the matter of apparel he had acted upon his favorite
professional maxim, and "sunk the individual;" his attire--eminently
eclectic, and in a sense international--quite overcame him at all
points. However, as my friend had assured me he was "a graduate of one
of the largest institutions in his native State," I took him in and
bought a pen for him. My instructions to him were brief and simple.

"Mr. Masthead," said I, "it is the policy of the _Thundergust_ first,
last, and all the time, in this world and the next, to resent the
intrusion of Mr. Jefferson Scandril into politics."

The first thing the little rascal did was to write a withering leader