something under the agreement with Twichell. Mark Twain, by this
time in London, naturally had a different opinion.


To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

LONDON, June 9, '73.
DEAR OLD JOE,--I consider myself wholly at liberty to decline to pay Chew
anything, and at the same time strongly tempted to sue him into the
bargain for coming so near ruining me. If he hadn't happened to send me
that thing in print, I would have used the story (like an innocent fool)
and would straightway have been hounded to death as a plagiarist. It
would have absolutely destroyed me. I cannot conceive of a man being such
a hopeless ass (after serving as a legislative reporter, too) as to
imagine that I or any other literary man in his senses would consent to
chew over old stuff that had already been in print. If that man weren't
an infant in swaddling clothes, his only reply to our petition would have
been, "It has been in print." It makes me as mad as the very Old Harry
every time I think of Mr. Chew and the frightfully narrow escape I have
had at his hands. Confound Mr. Chew, with all my heart! I'm willing
that he should have ten dollars for his trouble of warming over his cold
victuals--cheerfully willing to that--but no more. If I had had him near
when his letter came, I would have got out my tomahawk and gone for him.
He didn't tell the story half as well as you did, anyhow.

I wish to goodness you were here this moment--nobody in our parlor but
Livy and me,--and a very good view of London to the fore. We have a
luxuriously ample suite of apartments in the Langham Hotel, 3rd floor,
our bedroom looking straight up Portland Place and our parlor having a
noble array of great windows looking out upon both streets (Portland