about pilots and piloting--therefore let's get the word Piloting into

the heading. There's a sort of freshness about that, too.

Ys ever,

MARK.

But Howells thought the title satisfactory, and indeed it was the

best that could have been selected for the series. He wrote every

few days of his delight in the papers, and cautioned the author not

to make an attempt to please any "supposed Atlantic audience,"

adding, "Yarn it off into my sympathetic ear." Clemens replied:

****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

H't'f'd. Dec. 8, 1874.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It isn't the Atlantic audience that distresses me; for

it is the only audience that I sit down before in perfect serenity (for

the simple reason that it doesn't require a "humorist" to paint himself

striped and stand on his head every fifteen minutes.) The trouble was,

328

The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete