afternoon, on the advertisements, and they set up five pages and a half
--and I set up two pages and a quarter of the same matter after supper,
night before last, and I don't work fast on such things. They are either
excessively slow motioned or very lazy. I am not getting along well with
the job work. I can't work blindly--without system. I gave Dick a job
yesterday, which I calculated he would set in two hours and I could work
off in three, and therefore just finish it by supper time, but he was
transferred to the Directory, and the job, promised this morning, remains
untouched. Through all the great pressure of job work lately, I never
before failed in a promise of the kind.
Your Son
SAM
Excuse brevity this is my 3rd letter to-night.


Samuel Clemens was never celebrated for his patience; we may imagine
that the disorder of the office tried his nerves. He seems, on the
whole, however, to have been rather happy in Keokuk. There were
plenty of young people there, and he was a favorite among them. But
he had grown dissatisfied, and when one day some weeks later there
fell into His hands an account of the riches of the newly explored
regions of the upper Amazon, he promptly decided to find his fortune
at the headwaters of the great South-American river. The second
letter reports this momentous decision. It was written to Henry
Clemens, who was temporarily absent-probably in Hannibal.


To Henry Clemens:

KEOKUK, August 5th, '56.