Dear Mollie—
Please send me 50 of my visiting cards.
Have Downey put up a bell in his house right away & carry the wire to our bedroom window—& another one to y wire to [your bedroom ] window, while the plumber is at it.1
I want Ed & Orion to borrow fire arms from Burton2 & watch for that man & lay a snare for him & kill him. And I want the police to hound him down. I will pay $100 for his ‸capture &‸ conviction.3
Ys affly
Sam
O. K. | At Clemens’s | Cor Forest & Hawthorne | Hartford | [Conn. ] [return address:] if not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to [postmarked:] new[ saybrook conn. jul 2 1872 ] [written in top margin of first page of letter, in MEC’s hand:]
30 | 25 | 25 | |
[ 12 13 ] | 35 | 35 | |
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20 | [ 30 35 ] | 40 | |
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[ 90 95 ] | 100 |
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
An unknown scallawag has bothered the police and frightened a good
many people, especially women, by going about all parts of the city
and spying through the window blinds of dwelling houses in the night
season. . . . In one locality a vigilance committee was organized,
the men in the neighborhood sitting up nights to catch him. . . .
Yet he has evaded capture, and has at last been discovered by an
accident. His name is William Jackson, and he is about twenty-two
years of age. He was arrested as a vagrant on Sunday. . . . The
police officers, who saw that he was half-witted, held some
conversation with him, and he said that he was a detective, and had
been sent here from Providence to find a woman who had left that
city. He then proceeded to detail his mode of operation, saying that
whenever he saw a light in a dwelling house, he always took the
precaution to look through the window, lest some crime should be
committed that it was his duty, as an officer, to ferret out. This
admission led the officers to a further investigation, and the
result proved that he was the man they had for three months been
looking after. He has gone to the workhouse for sixty days.
(“Arrested at Last,” 6 Aug 72, 2)
Source text(s):
Previous publication:
L5, 127–128.
Provenance:see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.
Emendations and textual notes:
your bedroom • your bed-|room
Conn. • Conn[] [torn]
saybrook conn. jul 2 1872 • saybroo [k] co [n] n [] jul 2[] 1[8]7[2] [badly inked]
12 13 • 123
30 35 • 305
90 95 • 905