would liven up the circulation. He had never done any writing--not for
print--but he had the courage of his inclinations. His local items were
of a kind known as "spicy"; his personals brought prompt demand for
satisfaction. The editor of a rival paper had been in love, and was said
to have gone to the river one night to drown himself. Sam gave a
picturesque account of this, with all the names connected with the
affair. Then he took a couple of big wooden block letters, turned them
upside down, and engraved illustrations for it, showing the victim wading
out into the river with a stick to test the depth of the water. When
this issue of the paper came out the demand for it was very large. The
press had to be kept running steadily to supply copies. The satirized
editor at first swore that he would thrash the whole journal office, then
he left town and did not come back any more. The embryo Mark Twain also
wrote a poem. It was addressed "To Mary in Hannibal," but the title was
too long to be set in one column, so he left out all the letters in
Hannibal, except the first and the last, and supplied their place with a
dash, with a startling result. Such were the early flickerings of a
smoldering genius. Orion returned, remonstrated, and apologized. He
reduced Sam to the ranks. In later years he saw his mistake.

"I could have distanced all competitors even then," he said, "if I had
recognized Sam's ability and let him go ahead, merely keeping him from
offending worthy persons."

Sam was subdued, but not done for. He never would be, now. He had got
his first taste of print, and he liked it. He promptly wrote two
anecdotes which he thought humorous and sent them to the Philadelphia
Saturday Evening Post. They were accepted--without payment, of course,
in those days; and when the papers containing them appeared he felt
suddenly lifted to a lofty plane of literature. This was in 1851.