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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
the sea horses, and also to listen to the roar of the surf, and watch
the ships drifting about, here, and there, and far away at sea. When I
stood on the beach and let the surf wet my feet, I recollected doing
the same thing on the shores of the Atlantic--and then I had a proper
appreciation of the vastness of this country--for I had traveled from
ocean to ocean across it.
(Remainder missing.)
Not far from Virginia City there are some warm springs that
constantly send up jets of steam through fissures in the
mountainside. The place was a health resort, and Clemens, always
subject to bronchial colds, now and again retired there for a cure.
A letter written in the late summer--a gay, youthful document
--belongs to one of these periods of convalescence.
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