>From Richard O'Connor's bio of Bierce:
        The first time he [Bierce] met Twain, as he would frequently recall
fotr
   his intimates, wqas in the offices of the News-Letter.  The lank
red-haired
Twain stroled in and looked around the outer office with disdain.
        "Young man," Twain drawled. himself in his early thirties, " this
room
is so nude I shoould think you and the owner would be ashamed of
yourselves."
        Bierce kept on working.
        "Young man," Twain said, "where is the owner?"
        "Somewhere around town,"Bierce replied. "He'll be back shortly."
        "Young man," said Twain glowering at Bierce, "are you sure he is not
in
the next room drunk?"
        Bierce insisted that he wasn't covering up for his employer, the
publisher Marriott would return soon, and asked if there was anythioing he
could
    do to help the caller.
        "I've come to repay Marriott a loan,"Twain explained.
        "You could leave the money with me."
        "Young man," Twain demanded, staring intently at Bierce, "look me in
the eyes and speak as though you were talking to your God. If I gave you
that money, are you sure your employer would ever see it?"
        That broke the ice, and Twain chatted amiably until Marriott
returned.

Twain included several fables of Bierce's in his Mark Twain's Library of
Humor
edition.

Alan C. Reese