anything going on anywhere; has this progressive nation gone to sleep?
Have I got to stand another month of this torpidity before I can begin to
browse among the lively capitals of Europe?

But never mind-things may revive while I am away. During the last two
months my next-door neighbor, Chas. Dudley Warner, has dropped his
"Back-Log Studies," and he and I have written a bulky novel in
partnership. He has worked up the fiction and I have hurled in the facts.
I consider it one of the most astonishing novels that ever was written.
Night after night I sit up reading it over and over again and crying. It
will be published early in the Fall, with plenty of pictures. Do you
consider this an advertisement?--and if so, do you charge for such things
when a man is your friend?
Yours truly,
SAML. L. CLEMENS,
"MARK TWAIN,"


An amusing, even if annoying, incident happened about the time of
Mark Twain's departure. A man named Chew related to Twichell a most
entertaining occurrence. Twichell saw great possibilities in it,
and suggested that Mark Twain be allowed to make a story of it,
sharing the profits with Chew. Chew agreed, and promised to send
the facts, carefully set down. Twichell, in the mean time, told the
story to Clemens, who was delighted with it and strongly tempted to
write it at once, while he was in the spirit, without waiting on
Chew. Fortunately, he did not do so, for when Chew's material came
it was in the form of a clipping, the story having been already
printed in some newspaper. Chew's knowledge of literary ethics
would seem to have been slight. He thought himself entitled to