To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

No. 2--($20.00 Enclosed)
LICK HOUSE, S. F., June 1, '63.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--The Unreliable and myself are still here,
and still enjoying ourselves. I suppose I know at least a thousand
people here--a, great many of them citizens of San Francisco, but the
majority belonging in Washoe--and when I go down Montgomery street,
shaking hands with Tom, Dick and Harry, it is just like being in Main
street in Hannibal and meeting the old familiar faces. I do hate to go
back to Washoe. We fag ourselves completely out every day, and go to
sleep without rocking, every night. We dine out and we lunch out, and we
eat, drink and are happy--as it were. After breakfast, I don't often see
the hotel again until midnight--or after. I am going to the Dickens
mighty fast. I know a regular village of families here in the house, but
I never have time to call on them. Thunder! we'll know a little more
about this town, before we leave, than some of the people who live in it.
We take trips across the Bay to Oakland, and down to San Leandro, and
Alameda, and those places; and we go out to the Willows, and Hayes Park,
and Fort Point, and up to Benicia; and yesterday we were invited out on a
yachting excursion, and had a sail in the fastest yacht on the Pacific
Coast. Rice says: "Oh, no--we are not having any fun, Mark--Oh, no, I
reckon not--it's somebody else--it's probably the 'gentleman in the
wagon'!" (popular slang phrase.) When I invite Rice to the Lick House to
dinner, the proprietors send us champagne and claret, and then we do put
on the most disgusting airs. Rice says our calibre is too light--we
can't stand it to be noticed!

I rode down with a gentleman to the Ocean House, the other day, to see