Finally the joker chiefs of Carson City and Virginia City conspired together to see if their combined talent couldn't win a victory, for the jokers were getting into a very uncomfortable place: the people were laughing at them, instead of at their proposed victim.
They banded themselves together to the number of ten and invited the Governor to what was a most extraordinary attention in those days--pickled oyster stew and champagne--luxuries very seldom seen in that region, and existing rather as fabrics of the imagination than as facts.
The Governor took me with him.

He said disparagingly, "It's a poor invention.

It doesn't deceive.

Their idea is to get me drunk and leave me under the table, and from their standpoint this will be very funny.

But they don't know me.