cent profit
in the way of the several magazine articles which I could have written,
whereas I can now write only one or two and am therefore largely out of
pocket by your proud ways. Ponder these things. Lord, what a perfectly
bewitching excursion it was! I traveled under an assumed name and was
never molested with a polite attention from anybody.

Love to you all.
Yrs ever
MARK

Aldrich, meantime, had invited the Clemenses to Ponkapog during the
Bermuda absence, and Clemens hastened to send him a line expressing
regrets. At the close he said:

*****

To T. B. Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Mass.:

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, June 3, 1877.

Day after tomorrow we leave for the hills beyond Elmira, N. Y. for the
summer, when I shall hope to write a book of some sort or other to beat
the people with. A work similar to your new one in the Atlantic is what
I mean, though I have not heard what the nature of that one is. Immoral,
I suppose. Well, you are right. Such books sell best, Howells says.
Howells says he is going to make his next book indelicate. He says
he thinks there is money in it. He says there is a large class of the
young, in schools and seminaries who--But you let him tell you. He has
ciphered it all down to a demonstration.

With the warmest remembrances to the pair of you

Ever Yours
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.

Clemens would naturally write something about Bermuda, and began at
once, "Random Notes of an Idle Excursion," and presently completed
four papers, which Howells eagerly accepted for the Atlantic. Then
we find him plunging into another play, this time alone.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, June 27, 1877.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--If you should not like the first 2 chapters, send
them to me and begin with Chapter 3--or Part 3, I believe you call these
things in the magazine. I have finished No. 4., which closes the series,
and will mail it tomorrow if I think of it. I like this one, I liked the
preceding one (already mailed to you some time ago) but I had my doubts
about 1 and 2. Do not hesitate to squelch them, even with derision and
insult.

Today I am deep in a comedy which I beg