in a brief time entered into his own. Goodman, the

proprietor, himself a man of great ability, had surrounded

himself with a group of gay-hearted fellows, whose fresh,

wild way of writing delighted the Comstock pioneers far more

than any sober presentation of mere news. Samuel Clemens

fitted exactly into this group. By the end of the year he

had become a leader of it. When he asked to be allowed to

report the coming Carson legislature, Goodman consented,

realizing that while Clemens knew nothing of parliamentary

procedure, he would at least make the letters picturesque.

It was in the midst of this work that he adopted the name

which he was to make famous throughout the world. The story

of its adoption has been fully told elsewhere and need not

be repeated here.--[See Mark Twain: A Biography, by the same

author; Chapter XL.]

"Mark Twain" was first signed to a Carson letter, February

2, 1863, and from that time was attached to all of Samuel

Clemens's work. The letters had already been widely copied,

and the name now which gave them personality quickly

obtained vogue. It was attached to himself as well as to

the letters; heretofore he had been called Sam or Clemens,

now he became almost universally Mark Twain and Mark.

This early period of Mark Twain's journalism is full of

The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete