evening, so I had a good opportunity to make a great many new
acquaintances.

Livy is willing to come here with me next April and stay several months
--so I am going home next Tuesday. I would sail on Saturday, but that is
the day of the Lord Mayor's annual grand state dinner, when they say 900
of the great men of the city sit down to table, a great many of them in
their fine official and court paraphernalia, so I must not miss it.
However, I may yet change my mind and sail Saturday. I am looking at a
fine Magic lantern which will cost a deal of money, and if I buy it Sammy
may come and learn to make the gas and work the machinery, and paint
pictures for it on glass. I mean to give exhibitions for charitable
purposes in Hartford, and charge a dollar a head.
In a hurry,
Ys affly
SAM.


He sailed November 12th on the Batavia, arriving in New York two
weeks later. There had been a presidential election in his absence.
General Grant had defeated Horace Greeley, a result, in some measure
at least, attributed to the amusing and powerful pictures of the
cartoonist, Thomas Nast. Mark Twain admired Greeley's talents, but
he regarded him as poorly qualified for the nation's chief
executive. He wrote:


To Th. Nast, in Morristown, N. J.:

HARTFORD, Nov. 1872.