8 November 1865
The text of Clemens' obituary of the dog Bummer is found in the Californian of 11 November 1865, where Bret Harte introduced it as follows:
As we have devoted but little space to an event which has filled our local contemporaries with as much sorrow (judging from the columns of lamentation it has called forth) as would the decease of the best biped in the city, we give “Mark Twain's” view of the occurrence, as recorded in the Enterprise of the 8th. Strangely enough, Mark, who can't stand the “ballad infliction,” seems to think there has not been quite enough “Bummer.”1
For almost two years in the early 1860s the masterless dog Bummer and his faithful protégé Lazarus were the town's pets, as well known to San Franciscans as Emperor Norton and Freddy Coombs, the eccentric phrenologist who was called Washington II. Famous as rat catchers and well versed in the art of cadging food, both dogs were given the freedom of the city by special ordinance. Lazarus had died, evidently by poison, on 3 October 1863, and was much mourned. He was eventually replaced, as Clemens indicates, by another “obsequious vassal,” a fact that Clemens had reported for the San Francisco Morning Call in July 1864.2
A few days after Bummer's death on November 2 Clemens also reported on Edward Jump's lithograph showing the deceased Bummer lying in state amidst funeral candles, feasting with the spirit of Lazarus at a [begin page 324] free lunch table in the background, and a brigade of rats approaching to view “the dead king, and rejoice over his downfall.”3
The Ⓐemendation old vagrant “Bummer”Ⓐemendation is really dead at last; and although he was always more respected than his obsequious vassal, the dog “Lazarus”Ⓐemendation, his exit has not made half as much stir in the newspaper world as signalised the departure of the latter. I think it is because he died a natural death: died with friends around him to smooth his pillow and wipe the death-damps from his brow, and receive his last words of love and resignation; because he died full of years, and honor, and disease, and fleas. He was permitted to die a natural death, as I have said, but poor Lazarus “died with his boots on”Ⓐemendation—which is to say, he lost his life by violence; he gave up the ghost mysteriously, at dead of night, with none to cheer his last moments or soothe his dying pains. So the murdered dog was canonized in the newspapers, his shortcomings excused, and his virtues heralded to the world; but his superior, parting with his life in the fullness of time, and in the due course of nature, sinks as quietly as might the mangiest cur among us. Well, let him go. In earlier days he was courted and caressed; but latterly he had lost his comeliness—his dignity had given place to a want of self-respect, which allowed him to practice mean deceptions to regain for a moment that sympathy and notice which had become necessary to his very existence, and it was evident to all that the dog had had his day: his great popularity was gone forever. In fact, Bummer should have died sooner: there was a time when his death would have left a lasting legacy of fame to his name. Now, however, he will be forgotten in a few days. Bummer's skin is to be stuffed andⒶemendation placed with that of LazarusⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐemendation
The first printing in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise for 8 November 1865 is not extant. The sketch is preserved in the only known contemporary reprinting of the Enterprise, the Californian 3 (11 November 1865): 12, which is copy-text. Copies: Bancroft; PH from Yale. There are no textual notes.