nt, is the immortal feature of this character, for a play;
and we will write that play. We should be fools else. That staccato
postscript reads as if some new and mighty business were imminent, for
it is slung on the paper telegraphically, all the small words left
out. I am afraid something newer and bigger than the electric light is
swinging across his orbit. Save this letter for an inspiration. I have
got a hundred more.

Cable has been here, creating worshipers on all hands. He is a marvelous
talker on a deep subject. I do not see how even Spencer could unwind
a thought more smoothly or orderly, and do it in a cleaner, clearer,
crisper English. He astounded Twichell with his faculty. You know
when it comes down to moral honesty, limpid innocence, and utterly
blemishless piety, the Apostles were mere policemen to Cable; so with
this in mind you must imagine him at a midnight dinner in Boston the
other night, where we gathered around the board of the Summerset Club;
Osgood, full, Boyle O'Reilly, full, Fairchild responsively loaded, and
Aldrich and myself possessing the floor, and properly fortified. Cable
told Mrs. Clemens when he returned here, that he seemed to have been
entertaining himself with horses, and had a dreamy idea that he must
have gone to Boston in a cattle-car. It was a very large time. He called
it an orgy. And no doubt it was, viewed from his standpoint.

I wish I were in Switzerland, and I wish we could go to Florence; but we
have to leave these delights to you; there is no helping it. We all join
in love to you and all the family.

Yours as ever
MARK.

XXIII. LETTERS, 1883, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. A GUEST OF THE MARQUIS OF
LORNE. THE HISTORY GAME. A PLAY BY HOWELLS AND MARK TWAIN.

Mark Twain, in due season, finished the Mississippi book and placed
it in Osgood's hands for publication. It was a sort of partnership
arrangement in which Clemens was to furnish the money to make the
book, and pay Osgood a percentage for handling it. It was, in fact,
the beginning of Mark Twain's adventures as a publisher.

Howells was not as happy in Florence as he had hoped to be. The
social life there overwhelmed him. In February he wrote: "Our two
months in Florence have been the most ridiculous time that ever even
half-witted people passed. We have spent them in chasing round