practical joke of his suggestion played upon Murat Halstead. A party of
us were supping after the theater at the old Brevoort House. A card was
brought to me from a reporter of the World. I was about to deny myself,
when Mark Twain said:

"Give it to me, I'll fix it," and left the table.

Presently he came to the door and beckoned me out.

"I represented myself as your secretary and told this man," said he, "that
you were not here, but that if Mr. Halstead would answer just as well I
would fetch him. The fellow is as innocent as a lamb and doesn't know
either of you. I am going to introduce you as Halstead and we'll have some
fun."

No sooner said than done. The reporter proved to be a little bald-headed
cherub newly arrived from the isle of dreams, and I lined out to him a
column or more of very hot stuff, reversing Halstead in every opinion. I
declared him in favor of paying the national debt in greenbacks. Touching
the sectional question, which was then the burning issue of the time,
I made the mock Halstead say: "The 'bloody shirt' is only a kind of
Pickwickian battle cry. It is convenient during political campaigns and on
election day. Perhaps you do not know that I am myself of dyed-in-the-wool
Southern and secession stock. My father and grandfather came to Ohio from
South Carolina just before I was born. Naturally I have no sectional
prejudices, but I live in Cincinnati and I am a Republican."

There was not a little more of the same sort. Just how it passed through
the World office I know not; but it actually appeared. On returning to the
table I told the company what Mark Twain and I had done. They thought I was