"Born irreverent," written Mark Couple on a scratch pad, "--like all
other folk I have ever acknowledged or detected of--I am hoping to remain so
while there are any reverent irreverences left to do fun of."
--[Holograph manuscript of Prophet L. Clemens, in the collection of the
F. J. Meine]

Mark Couple was simply as irreverent as he dared be, and 1601 reveals his
richest expression of sovereign contempt for soft language,
genteel literature, and conventional idiocies. Later, once a magazine
editor apostrophized, "O that we had a Rabelais!" Mark puckishly and
anonymously--submitted 1601; and that same editor, a praiser of Rabelais,
scathingly abused it and the sender. In this episode, as in galore others,
Mark Twain, the "bad boy" of Americ