The reporter concerned, a tweedy pipe smoker named James Gibbins, waslater found to have concocted a myriad similarly implausible stories. Amongthem: A survey conducted at New York’s Algonquin Hotel showing thatwatching half an hour of As the World Turns had the same narcoleptic effect asdowning three vodka-and-tonics. A bar in Laurel, Maryland, that kept a petmonkey, with free drinks given to the first customer on whom the creature sat.Pigeons in Cornwall seen sporting human heads. Mr. Gibbins was exposed as“The Faker of Fleet Street” in an article in the Washington Post, and he wasrelieved of his job as a Mail foreign correspondent.

The newspaper had commissioned an artist tocreate a drawing of Mr. Carter in a stovepipe hat and with his CivilWar predecessor’s characteristic Shenandoah beard.