[Life On The Mississippi<br> Part 9. by Mark Twain]@TWC D-Link book
Life On The Mississippi
Part 9.

CHAPTER 52 A Burning Brand
12/19

Mr.Page was so full of enthusiasm over the letter that he said he would not rest until he made pilgrimage to that prison, and had speech with the man who had been able to inspire a fellow-unfortunate to write so priceless a tract.
Ah, that unlucky Page!--and another man.

If they had only been in Jericho, that letter would have rung through the world and stirred all the hearts of all the nations for a thousand years to come, and nobody might ever have found out that it was the confoundedest, brazenest, ingeniousest piece of fraud and humbuggery that was ever concocted to fool poor confiding mortals with! The letter was a pure swindle, and that is the truth.

And take it by and large, it was without a compeer among swindles.

It was perfect, it was rounded, symmetrical, complete, colossal! The reader learns it at this point; but we didn't learn it till some miles and weeks beyond this stage of the affair.

My friend came back from the woods, and he and other clergymen and lay missionaries began once more to inundate audiences with their tears and the tears of said audiences; I begged hard for permission to print the letter in a magazine and tell the watery story of its triumphs; numbers of people got copies of the letter, with permission to circulate them in writing, but not in print; copies were sent to the Sandwich Islands and other far regions.
Charles Dudley Warner was at church, one day, when the worn letter was read and wept over.


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