s. They
are suited to all grades of intelligence, to every sphere of life
--to the field, to the nursery, to the guild. Especially should
no Board of Aldermen be without them.

'Venerable fossils! write again. Nothing improves one so much as
friendly correspondence. Write again--and if there is anything in
this memorial of yours that refers to anything in particular, do
not be backward about explaining it. We shall always be happy to
hear you chirp.
'Very truly, etc.,
"'MARK TWAIN,
'For James W. N-----, U. S. Senator.'

"That is an atrocious, a ruinous epistle! Distraction!"

"Well, sir, I am really sorry if there is anything wrong about it--but
--but it appears to me to dodge the water-lot question."

"Dodge the mischief! Oh!--but never mind. As long as destruction must
come now, let it be complete. Let it be complete--let this last of your
performances, which I am about to read, make a finality of it. I am a
ruined man. I had my misgivings when I gave you the letter from
Humboldt, asking that the post route from Indian Gulch to Shakespeare Gap
and intermediate points be changed partly to the old Mormon trail. But I
told you it was a delicate question, and warned you to deal with it
deftly--to answer it dubiously, and leave them a little in the dark.
And your fatal imbecility impelled you to make this disastrous reply.
I should think you would stop your ears, if you are not dead to all
shame:

"'WASHINGTON, Nov. 30.

"'Messes. Perkins, Wagner, et at.

"'GENTLEMEN: It is a delicate question about this Indian trail, but,
handled with proper deftness and dubiousness, I doubt not we shall
succeed in some measure or otherwise, because the place where the
route leaves the Lassen Meadows, over beyond where those two Shawnee
chiefs, Dilapidated Vengeance and Biter-of-the-Clouds, were scalped
last winter, this being the favorite direction to some, but others
preferring something else in consequence of things, the Mormon trail
leaving Mosby's at three in the morning, and passing through Jaw
bone Flat to Blucher, and then down by Jug-Handle, the road passing
to the right of it, and naturally leaving it on the right, too, and
Dawson's on the left of the trail where it passes to the left of