Mark Twain's Novels and Ned Buntline's Wildcat Literature

[...]the sketch shows the inflated sense of self importance that Jul'us Caesar has; his self-conceit projects a larger-than-self image, an image that in its inflation is reckless and distorted - one diat if popularized among a great mass will lead to grandiose titles of rank - Colonel, for example - if not even fuel the cause of a war. According to Pond, Chauncey Hathorn, who had "long been familiar" with Bundine, recalled that "after completing a long serial story or fulfilling a literary engagement, he would often indulge in a period of dissipation - though he would strive vigorously to conquer the besetting weakness, and finally succeeded in doing so, I believe, and became a strong temperance advocate" (Pond 57, 59). [...]Solonois demands wine to wash down the "half-cooked" meager fare of Lobos, but when Huck suggests breakfast, Jim tosses it back to the white boy, "You got a gun - hain't you?" and the rhetorical question implies, you get our breakfast for us. First published as "Will Cody, The Pony Express Rider; or, Buffalo Bill's first Trail" in Beadle's Weekly, 1885. _____ .