He was a simpering coxcomb of the first water, and the "loudest" dressed man in the state.

He was an inveterate woman-killer.

Every week he wrote lushy "poetry" for the journal, about his newest conquest.

His rhymes for my week were headed, "To MARY IN H--l," meaning to Mary in Hannibal, of course.

But while setting up the piece I was suddenly riven from head to heel by what I regarded as a perfect thunderbolt of humor, and I compressed it into a snappy footnote at the bottom--thus: "We will let this thing pass, just this once; but we wish Mr.J.Gordon Runnels to understand distinctly that we have a character to sustain, and from this time forth when he wants to commune with his friends in h--l, he must select some other medium than the columns of this journal!" The paper came out, and I never knew any little thing attract so much attention as those playful trifles of mine.
For once the Hannibal Journal was in demand--a novelty it had not experienced before.