As city editor of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise in late 1862, Sam Clemens rehearsed a comic persona of a sometimes bumbling, sometimes wise-cracking reporter. While uncovering the facts to report the truth, this wise-cracking reporter also prospected the town to discover where its jokes lay. By elaborating his initially unnamed comic newspaper persona, Clemens created his earliest version of Mark Twain, what might be called Washoe Mark Twain. By combining would-be reporting with clowning and teasing, Washoe Mark Twain comi- cally reflected the manners of the mining community on the Comstock Lode: playful, boisterous, uncouth, and extravagant.