ts authorship, characterizing it as a
feeble imitation of Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee." Clemens promptly
protested to Aldrich, then as promptly regretted having done so,
feeling that he was making too much of a small matter. Hurriedly he
sent a second brief note.

*****

To Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of "Every Saturday," Boston,
Massachusetts:

BUFFALO, Jan. 22, 1870.

DEAR SIR,--Please do not publish the note I sent you the other day about
"Hy. Slocum's" plagiarism entitled "Three Aces"--it is not important
enough for such a long paragraph. Webb writes me that he has put in a
paragraph about it, too--and I have requested him to suppress it. If you
would simply state, in a line and a half under "Literary Notes," that
you mistook one "Hy. Slocum" (no, it was one "Carl Byng," I perceive)
"Carl Byng" for Mark Twain, and that it was the former who wrote the
plagiarism entitled "Three Aces," I think that would do a fair
justice without any unseemly display. But it is hard to be accused of
plagiarism--a crime I never have committed in my life.

Yrs. Truly
MARK TWAIN.

But this came too late. Aldrich replied that he could not be
prevented from doing him justice, as forty-two thousand copies of
the first note, with the editor's apology duly appended, were
already in press. He would withdraw his apology in the next number
of Every Saturday, if Mark Twain said so. Mark Twain's response
this time assumed the proportions of a letter.

*****

To Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in Boston:

472 DELAWARE ST., BUFFALO, Jan. 28.

DEAR MR. ALDRICH,--No indeed, don't take back the apology! Hang it,
I don't want to abuse a man's civility merely because he gives me the
chance.

I hear a good deal about doing things on the "spur of the moment"--I
invariably regret the things I do on the spur of the moment. That
disclaimer of mine was a case in point. I am ashamed every time I think
of my bursting out before an unconcerned public with that bombastic
pow-wow about burning publishers' letters, and all that sort of
imbecility, and about my not being an imitator, etc. Who would find out
that I am a natural fool if I kept always cool and never let nature come
to the surface? Nobody.

But I did hate to be accused of plagiarizin