Chapter 47 - Page 2

bearers of them turned up, and were
a good deal hurt at having attention directed to themselves
and their affairs in so excessively public a manner.

Mr. Warner and I had an experience of the same sort when we wrote the book
called 'The Gilded Age.' There is a character in it called 'Sellers.'
I do not remember what his first name was, in the beginning;
but anyway, Mr. Warner did not like it, and wanted it improved.
He asked me if I was able to imagine a person named 'Eschol Sellers.'
Of course I said I could not, without stimulants. He said that away
out West, once, he had met, and contemplated, and actually shaken
hands with a man bearing that impossible name--'Eschol Sellers.'
He added--

'It was twenty years ago; his name has probably carried him off
before this; and if it hasn't, he will never see the book anyhow.
We will confiscate his name. The name you are using is common,
and therefore dangerous; there are probably a thousand Sellerses
bearing it, and the whole horde will come after us; but Eschol
Sellers is a safe name--it is a rock.'

So we borrowed that name; and when the book had been out about a week,
one of the stateliest and handsomest and most aristocratic looking
white men that ever lived, called around, with the most formidable
libel suit in his pocket that ever--well, in brief, we got his
permission to suppress an edition of ten milliontaken from memory, and probably incorrect. Think it was more.]>
copies of the book and change that name to 'Mulberry Sellers'
in future editions.