Alfred Doten's son gives the following account of a reporting trip made
by his father and Mark Twain, when the two were on Comstock papers:
My father and Mark Twain were once detailed to go over to Como and write
up some new mines that had been discovered over there. My father was on
the Gold Hill News. He and Mark had not met before, but became promptly
acquainted, and were soon calling each other by their first names.
They went to a little hotel at Carson, agreeing to do their work there
together next morning. When morning came they set out, and suddenly on a
corner Mark stopped and turned to my father, saying:
“By gracious, Alf! Isn't that a brewery?”
“It is, Mark. Let's go in.”
They did so, and remained there all day, swapping yarns, sipping beer,
and lunching, going back to the hotel that night.
The next morning precisely the same thing occurred. When they were on
the same corner, Mark stopped as if he had never been there before, and
sand:
“Good gracious, Alf! Isn't that a brewery?”
“It is, Mark. Let's go in.”
So again they went in, and again stayed all day.
This happened again the next morning, and the next. Then my father
became uneasy. A letter had come from Gold Hill, asking him where his
report of the mines was. They agreed that next morning they would
really begin the story; that they would climb to the top of a hill that
overlooked the mines, and write it from there.
But the next morning, as before, Mark was surprised to discover the
brewery, and once more they went in. A few moments later, however, a
man who knew all about the mines--a mining engineer connected with
them--came in. He was a godsend. My father set down a valuable,
informing story, while Mark got a lot of entertaining mining yarns out
of him.
Next day Virginia City and Gold Hill were gaining information from my
father's article, and entertainment from Mark's story of the mines.