ort,
presently, seems assured.

By George, I shall be glad when the ship comes in!

My arm is so much better that I was able to make a speech last night to
250 Americans. But when they threw my portrait on the screen it was
a sorrowful reminder, for it was from a negative of 15 years ago, and
hadn't a gray hair in it. And now that my arm is better, I have stolen
a couple of days and finished up a couple of McClure letters that have
been lying a long time.

I shall mail one of them to you next Tuesday--registered. Lookout for
it.

I shall register and mail the other one (concerning the "Jungfrau") next
Friday look out for it also, and drop me a line to let me know they have
arrived.

I shall write the 6th and last letter by and by when I have studied
Berlin sufficiently.

Yours in a most cheerful frame of mind, and with my and all the family's
Thanksgiving greetings and best wishes,

S. L. CLEMENS.

Postscript by Mrs. Clemens written on Mr. Clemens's letter:

DEAR MR. HALL,--This is my birthday and your letter this morning was a
happy addition to the little gifts on the breakfast table. I thought of
going out and spending money for something unnecessary after it came,
but concluded perhaps I better wait a little longer.

Sincerely yours
O. L. CLEMENS.

"The German Chicago" was the last of the six McClure letters and was
finished that winter in Berlin. It is now included in the Uniform
Edition of Mark Twain's works, and is one of the best descriptive
articles of the German capital ever written. He made no use of the
Rhone notes further than to put them together in literary form.
They did not seem to him to contain enough substance to warrant
publication. A letter to Hall, written toward the end of December,
we find rather gloomy in tone, though he is still able to extract
comfort and even cheerfulness from one of Mr. Hall's reports.

Memorandum to Fred J. Hall, in New York:

Among the MSS I left with you are a few that have a recent look and
are written on rather stiff pale green paper. If you will have those
type-writered and keep the originals and send me the copies (one per
mail, not two.) I'll see if I can use them.

But tell Howells and other inquirers that my hopes of writing anything
are very slender--I