27 August 1864
Albert Bigelow Paine's account of the howling dog that disturbed Clemens and Steve Gillis on Minna Street was presumably gleaned from conversation with Gillis himself. It establishes, at any rate, Clemens' authorship of “How to Cure Him of It,” which was published in the San Francisco Morning Call for 27 August 1864.
Paine describes Clemens' initial delight with their quarters: “ ‘Just look at it, Steve,’ he said, ‘What a nice, quiet place. Not a thing to disturb us.’ ” The next morning, however, “a dog began to howl. Gillis woke this time, to find his room-mate standing in the door that opened out into a back garden, holding a big revolver, his hand shaking with cold and excitement.” Unable to hit the animal with the gun, “Mark Twain then let go such a scorching, singeing blast that the brute's owner sold him next day for a Mexican hairless dog.”1 “How to Cure Him of It” must have been still further relief.
Two years later, also in the Call, Clemens published “ ‘Mark Twain’ on the Dog Question” (no. 197), which returned to the subject of canine “medication.” Advising citizens on how to keep the city policemen from shooting their pet dogs, he wrote: “The presence of the dog is often betrayed to the Policeman by his bark. Remove the bark from his system and your dog is safe. This may be done by mixing a spoonful of the soother called strychnine in his rations. It will be next to impossible to ever get that dog to bark any more.”2 Both sketches exploit the same device used in “Those Blasted Children” (no. 72), which speaks of permanent “cures” for childhood diseases.
In a court in Minna street, between First and Second, they keep a puppy tied up which is insignificant as to size, but formidable as to yelp. We are unable to sleep after nine o'clock in the morning on account of it. Sometimes the subjectⒶemendation of these remarks begins at three in the morning and yowls straight ahead for a week. We have lain awake many mornings out of pure distress on account of that puppy—because we know that if he does not break himselfⒶemendation of that habit it will kill him; it is bound to do it—we have known thousands and thousands of cases like it. But it is easily cured. Give the creature a double handful of strychnine, dissolved in a quart of Prussic acid, and it will soo—oothe him down and make him as quiet and docile as a dried herring. The remedy is not expensive, and is at least worthy of a trial, even for the novelty of the thing.
The first printing in the San Francisco Morning Call for 27 August 1864 (p. 3) is copy-text. Copies: clipping in Scrapbook 4, p. 7, MTP; PH from Bancroft. There are no textual notes.