The items under those headings all bear date yesterday, Apl. 16 (refer

to your own paper)--and I give you my word of honor that that string of

commonplace stuff was everything there was in the telegraphic columns

that a body could call news. Well, said I to myself this is getting

pretty dull; this is getting pretty dry; there don't appear to be

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

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The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete