commence writing about Livy, else I shall never
stop. There isn't such another little piece of perfection in the world
as she is.

My time is become so short, now, that I doubt if I get to California
this summer. If I manage to buy into a paper, I think I will visit you
a while and not go to Cal. at all. I shall know something about it
after my next trip to Hartford. We all go there on the 10th--the whole
family--to attend a wedding, on the 17th. I am offered an interest in a
Cleveland paper which would pay me $2,300 to $2,500 a year, and a salary
added of $3,000. The salary is fair enough, but the interest is not
large enough, and so I must look a little further. The Cleveland folks
say they can be induced to do a little better by me, and urge me to
come out and talk business. But it don't strike me--I feel little or no
inclination to go.

I believe I haven't anything else to write, and it is bed-time. I want
to write to Orion, but I keep putting it off--I keep putting everything
off. Day after day Livy and I are together all day long and until 10 at
night, and then I feel dreadfully sleepy. If Orion will bear with me and
forgive me I will square up with him yet. I will even let him kiss Livy.

My love to Mollie and Annie and Sammie and all. Good-bye.

Affectionately,
SAM.

It is curious, with his tendency to optimism and general expansion
of futures, that he says nothing of the possible sales of the new
book, or of his expectations in that line. It was issued in July,
and by June the publishers must have had promising advance orders
from their canvassers; but apparently he includes none of these
chickens in his financial forecast. Even when the book had been out
a full month, and was being shipped at the rate of several hundreds
a day, he makes no reference to it in a letter to his sister, other
than to ask if she has not received a copy. This, however, was a
Mark Twain peculiarity. Writing was his trade; the returns from it
seldom excited him. It was only when he drifted into strange and
untried fields that he began to chase rainbows, to blow iridescent
bubbles, and count unmined gold.

*****

To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

BUFFALO, Aug. 20, 1869.

MY DEAR SISTER,--I have only time to write a line. I got your