**

To Professor William Lyon Phelps;

YALE UNIVERSITY,
NEW YORK, April 24, 1901.

MY DEAR SIR,--I was not aware that old Sir Thomas had anticipated that
story, and I am much obliged to you for furnishing me the paragraph.
It is curious that the same idea should leave entered two heads so unlike
as the head of that wise old philosopher and that of Captain Ned
Wakeman, a splendidly uncultured old sailor, but in his own opinion a
thinker by divine right. He was an old friend of mine of many years'
standing; I made two or three voyages with him, and found him a darling
in many ways. The petroleum story was not told to me; he told it to Joe
Twichell, who ran across him by accident on a sea voyage where I think
the two were the only passengers. A delicious pair, and admirably mated,
they took to each other at once and became as thick as thieves. Joe was
passing under a fictitious name, and old Wakeman didn't suspect that he
was a parson; so he gave his profanity full swing, and he was a master
of that great art. You probably know Twichell, and will know that that
is a kind of refreshment which he is very capable of enjoying.

Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

For the summer Clemens and his family found a comfortable lodge in
the Adirondacks--a log cabin called "The Lair"--on Saranac Lake.
Soon after his arrival there he received an invitation to attend the
celebration of Missouri's eightieth anniversary. He sent the
following letter:

*****

To Edward L. Dimmitt, in St. Louis:

AMONG THE ADIRONDACK LAKES, July 19, 1901.

DEAR MR. DIMMITT,--By an error in the plans, things go wrong end first
in this world, and much precious time is lost and matters of urgent
importance are fatally retarded. Invitations which a brisk young fellow
should get, and which would transport him with joy, are delayed and
impeded and obstructed until they are fifty years overdue when they
reach him.

It has happened again in this case.

When I was a boy in Missouri I was always on the lookout for invitations
but they always miscarried and went wandering through the aisles of
time; and now they are arriving when I am old and rheumatic and can't
travel and must lose my chance.

I have lost a world of delight through this matter of dela