the unheard-of trouble of re-writing the letter and saying the
same harsh things softly, so as to sugarcoat the anguish and make it a
little more endurable and I asked him to write and thank me honestly
for doing him the best and kindliest favor that any friend ever had done
him--but he hasn't done it yet. Maybe he will, sometime. I am grateful
to God that I got that letter off before he was married (I get that news
from you) else he would just have slobbered all over me and drowned me
when that event happened.

I enclose photograph for the young ladies. I will remark that I do not
wear seal-skin for grandeur, but because I found, when I used to lecture
in the winter, that nothing else was able to keep a man warm sometimes,
in these high latitudes. I wish you had sent pictures of yourself and
family--I'll trade picture for picture with you, straight through, if
you are commercially inclined.

Your old friend,
SAML L. CLEMENS.

XVII. LETTERS, 1877. TO BERMUDA WITH TWICHELL. PROPOSITION TO TH. NAST.
THE WHITTIER DINNER.

Mark Twain must have been too busy to write letters that winter.
Those that have survived are few and unimportant. As a matter of
fact, he was writing the play, "Ah Sin," with Bret Harte, and
getting it ready for production. Harte was a guest in the Clemens
home while the play was being written, and not always a pleasant
one. He was full of requirements, critical as to the 'menage,' to
the point of sarcasm. The long friendship between Clemens and Harte
weakened under the strain of collaboration and intimate daily
intercourse, never to renew its old fiber. It was an unhappy
outcome of an enterprise which in itself was to prove of little
profit. The play, "Ah Sin," had many good features, and with
Charles T. Parsloe in an amusing Chinese part might have been made a
success, if the two authors could have harmoniously undertaken the
needed repairs. It opened in Washington in May, and a letter from
Parsloe, written at the moment, gives a hint of the situation.

*****

From Charles T. Parsloe to S. L. Clemens:

WASHINGTON, D. C. May 11th, 1877.

MR. CLEMENS,--I forgot whether I acknowledged receipt of check by
telegram. Harte has been here since Monday last and done little or
nothing yet, but promises to have something fixed b