Hartford May 31/81.
Dear Madam—
I know you cannot have read the letter, else in charity you would have suppressed it. If you will read it now, you will understand how little flattered a person who has never served a term in the penitentiary must feel nor ‸in‸ the idiot asylum must feel to be blandly charged with the authorship of so base & brainless & brutal a piece of literary shoemaker-work as the notorious Diamond-King hoax. I have never told a “magnificent lie” that cost anybody pain or a postage stamp.
Copy of Answer.
[new page:]
P. S.
I marvel much at this curious thing, for the name of the authors of that hoax is as familiar as the name of Washington. Still, there may even be people who have not heard of Washington
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MicroML, reel 4.
Provenance:
See Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.
