13–15 December 1865
This sketch, like “Christian Spectator” (no. 144), is taken from Clemens' “San Francisco Letter” written on 11 December 1865 and published a few days later in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. Rather slight in its overall dimensions, the sketch affords an interesting insight into Clemens' deeply ingrained habit of creating a miniature narrative from the facts. It is apparent that his story depends as much on his imaginative reconstruction of events as it does on hearsay, rumor, and contemporary witnesses. And his mock indignation at this case of wronged love, in which Vernon, “an ass of a lover from the wilds of Arizona,” confronts “French Mary” of the “Thunderboldt Saloon” and “very properly [tries] to blow her brains out,” manages to evoke a sardonic smile more than a hundred years later.
The pretty waiter girls are always getting people into trouble. But I beg pardon—I should say “ladies,” not “girls.” I learned this lesson “in the days when I went gypsying,” which was a long time agoⒺexplanatory note. I said to one of these self-important hags, “Mary, or Julia, or whatever your name may be, who is that old slab singing at the piano—the girl with the ‘bile’ on her nose?” Her eyes snapped. “You call her girl!—you shall find out yourself—she is a lady, if you pleaseⒶemendation!” They are all “ladies,” and they take it as an insult when they are called anything else. It was one of these charming ladies who got shot, by an ass of a lover from the wilds of Arizona, yesterday in the Thunderboldt Saloon, but unhappily not killed. The fellow had enjoyed so long the society of ill-favored squaws who have to be scraped before one can tell the color of their complexions, that he was easily carried away with the well seasoned charms of “French Mary” of the Thunderboldt Saloon, and got so “spooney” in his attentions that he hung around her night after night, and breathed her garlicky sighs with ecstasy. But no man can be honored with a beer girl's society without paying for it. French Mary made this man Vernon buy basket after basket of cheap champagne and got a heavy commission, which is usually their privilege; in the saloon her company always cost him five or ten dollars an hour, and she was doubtlessⒶemendation a still more expensive luxury out of it.
It is said that he was always insisting upon her marrying him, [begin page 398] and threatening to leave and go back to Arizona if she did not. She could not afford to let the goose go until he was completely plucked, and so she would consent, and set the day, and then the poor devil, in a burst of generosity, would celebrate the happy event with a heavy outlay of cash. This ruse was played until it was worn out, until Vernon's patience was worn out, until Vernon's purse was worn out also. Then there was no use in humbugging the poor numscull any longer, of course; and so French Mary deserted him, to wait on customers who had cash—the unfeeling practice always observed by lager beer ladies under similar circumstances. She told him she would not marry him or have anything more to do with him, and he very properly tried to blow her brains out. But he was awkward, and only wounded her dangerously. He killed himself, though, effectually, and let us hope that it was the wisest thing he could have done, and that he is better off now, poor fellow.
The first printing appeared in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, probably sometime between 13 and 15 December 1865. The only known copy of this printing, in a clipping in the Yale Scrapbook (p. 52), is copy-text. There are no textual notes.