we have neither snow nor cold weather; fires are never lighted, and yet

summer clothes are never worn--you wear spring clothing the year round.

Steve Gillis, who has been my comrade for two years, and who came down

here with me, is to be married, in a week or two, to a very pretty girl

worth $130,000 in her own right--and then I shall be alone again, until

they build a house, which they will do shortly.

We have been here only four months, yet we have changed our lodgings

five times, and our hotel twice. We are very comfortably fixed where

we are, now, and have no fault to find with the rooms or with the

people--we are the only lodgers in a well-to-do private family, with one

grown daughter and a piano in the parlor adjoining our room. But I

need a change, and must move again. I have taken rooms further down the

street. I shall stay in this little quiet street, because it is full of

gardens and shrubbery, and there are none but dwelling houses in it.

I am taking life easy, now, and I mean to keep it up for awhile. I don't

work at night any more. I told the "Call" folks to pay me $25 a week and

let me work only in daylight. So I get up at ten every morning, and quit

work at five or six in the afternoon. You ask if I work for greenbacks?

Hardly. What do you suppose I could do with greenbacks here?

I have engaged to write for the new literary paper--the

Californian"--same pay I used to receive on the "Golden Era"--one

article a week, fifty dollars a month. I quit the "Era," long ago. It

The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete