d lose
my appetite, you know. Dan attended Dr. Chorpenning's funeral yesterday,
and he felt as though he ought to wear a white shirt--and we had a jolly
good time finding such an article. We turned over all our traps, and he
found one at last--but I shall always think it was suffering from yellow
fever. He also found an old black coat, greasy, and wrinkled to that
degree that it appeared to have been quilted at some time or other. In
this gorgeous costume he attended the funeral. And when he returned,
his own dog drove him away from the cabin, not recognizing him. This is
true.

You would not like to live in a country where flour was $40 a barrel?
Very well; then, I suppose you would not like to live here, where flour
was $100 a barrel when I first came here. And shortly afterwards, it
couldn't be had at any price--and for one month the people lived on
barley, beans and beef--and nothing beside. Oh, no--we didn't luxuriate
then! Perhaps not. But we said wise and severe things about the vanity
and wickedness of high living. We preached our doctrine and practised
it. Which course I respectfully recommend to the clergymen of St. Louis.

Where is Beack Jolly?--[a pilot]--and Bixby?

Your Brother
SAM.

IV. LETTERS 1863-64. "MARK TWAIN." COMSTOCK JOURNALISM. ARTEMUS WARD

There is a long hiatus in the correspondence here. For a
space of many months there is but one letter to continue the
story. Others were written, of course, but for some reason
they have not survived. It was about the end of August
(1862) when the miner finally abandoned the struggle, and
with his pack on his shoulders walked the one and thirty
miles over the mountains to Virginia City, arriving dusty,
lame, and travel-stained to claim at last his rightful
inheritance. At the Enterprise office he was welcomed, and
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, Goodma