CONFRONTED BY AN ANGRY EDITOR brandishing a double-barreled shotgun, Sam Clemens had his first taste of literary criticism. As Twain recalled the incident in “My First Literary Venture” (1871), having been left in charge of his brother Orion's newspaper, young Sam Clemens edited the Hannibal Journal in a way to “make the paper lively” (615). Twain recounted how he had published an article with his own woodcut illustrations lampooning J. T. Hinton, the editor of a rival paper, who was rumored to have left a suicide note in his room after being jilted, headed down to the river, but then changed his mind. Clemens's article “‘Local’ Resolves to Commit Suicide” (1852) made the event ludicrous, rather than potentially tragic, with the editor resolving to “‘extinguish his chunk’ by feeding his carcass to the fishes of Bear Creek” (75). In the 1800s, the word “chunk” was frequently used to refer to a small piece of burning wood, or a “blazing chunk of fire” (DAE 1: 502). Twain used it in that way years later in several scenes in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Figuratively, one's “chunk going out” could mean giving up, losing, or dying, while “putting the chunk out” or extinguishing it meant to kill oneself. The woodcut illustration shows Hinton carefully using his walking stick to check the depth of the water in Bear Creek, carrying what appears to be a lantern with a “chunk” in it. Making fun of Hinton's indecisiveness about going through with his plan, Clemens said Hinton was so careful because he feared “he may get out of his depth” (75). In “My First Literary Venture,” the adult writer clearly understood why the article provoked outrage, but at the time he found it “desperately funny, and was densely unconscious that there was any moral obliquity about such a publication” (615).