“Still, we were bent on seeing the thing through.  After Sam’s speech was finished, he ordered expensive wines—­champagne and sparkling Moselle.  Then we went out to do the town, and kept things going until morning to drown our sorrow.

“Well, next day, of course, he started in to color the pipe.  It wouldn’t color any more than a piece of chalk, which was about all it was.  Sam would smoke and smoke, and complain that it didn’t seem to taste right, and that it wouldn’t color.  Finally Denis said to him one day: 

“’Oh, Sam, don’t you know that’s just a damned old egg-shell, and that the boys bought it for a dollar and a half and presented you with it for a joke?’

“Then Sam was furious, and we laid the whole thing on Dan de Quille.  He had a thunder-cloud on his face when he started up for the Local Room, where Dan was.  He went in and closed the door behind him, and locked it, and put the key in his pocket—­an awful sign.  Dan was there alone, writing at his table.

“Sam said, ’Dan, did you know, when you invited me to make that speech, that those fellows were going to give me a bogus pipe?’

“There was no way for Dan to escape, and he confessed.  Sam walked up and down the floor, as if trying to decide which way to slay Dan.  Finally he said: 

“’Oh, Dan, to think that you, my dearest friend, who knew how little money I had, and how hard I would work to prepare a speech that would show my gratitude to my friends, should be the traitor, the Judas, to betray me with a kiss!  Dan, I never want to look on your face again.  You knew I would spend every dollar I had on those pirates when I couldn’t afford to spend anything; and yet you let me do it; you aided and abetted their diabolical plan, and you even got me to get up that damned speech to make the thing still more ridiculous.’

“Of course Dan felt terribly, and tried to defend himself by saying that they were really going to present him with a fine pipe—­a genuine one, this time.  But Sam at first refused to be comforted; and when, a few days later, I went in with the pipe and said, ’Sam, here’s the pipe the boys meant to give you all the time,’ and tried to apologize, he looked around a little coldly, and said: 

“‘Is that another of those bogus old pipes?’

“He accepted it, though, and general peace was restored.  One day, soon after, he said to me: 

“’Steve, do you know that I think that that bogus pipe smokes about as well as the good one?’”

Many years later (this was in his home at Hartford, and Joe Goodman was present) Mark Twain one day came upon the old imitation pipe.

“Joe,” he said, “that was a cruel, cruel trick the boys played on me; but, for the feeling I had during the moment when they presented me with that pipe and when Charlie Pope was making his speech and I was making my reply to it—­for the memory of that feeling, now, that pipe is more precious to me than any pipe in the world!”