minature was not there.

Still there were compensations; inadequate, of course, but pleasant
enough to remember. It was Sunday evening and the party adjourned to
Plymouth Church. After services Mr. Beecher invited him to return home
with him for a quiet talk. Evidently they had a good time, for in the
letter telling of these things Samuel Clemens said: "Henry Ward Beecher
is a brick."

LXV

A CONTRACT WITH ELISHA BLISS, JR.

He returned to Washington without seeing Miss Langdon again, though he
would seem to have had permission to write--friendly letters. A little
later (it was on the evening of January 9th) he lectured in Washington
--on very brief notice indeed. The arrangement for his appearance had
been made by a friend during his absence--"a friend," Clemens declared
afterward, "not entirely sober at the time." To his mother he wrote:

I scared up a doorkeeper and was ready at the proper time, and by pure
good luck a tolerably good house assembled and I was saved. I hardly
knew what I was going to talk about, but it went off in splendid style.

The title of the lecture delivered was "The Frozen Truth"--"more truth in
the title than in the lecture," according to his own statement. What it
dealt with is not remembered now. It had to do with the Quaker City
trip, perhaps, and it seems to have brought a financial return which was
welcome enough. Subsequently he delivered it elsewhere; though just how
far the tour extended cannot be learned from the letters, and he had but
little memory of it in later years.

There was some further correspondence with Bliss, then about the 21st of
January (1868) Clemens made a trip to Hartford to settle the matter.
Bliss had been particularly anxious to meet him, personally and was a
trifle disappointed with his appearance. Mark Twain's traveling costume
was neither new nor neat, and he was smoking steadily a pipe of power.
His general make-up was hardly impressive.

Bliss's disturbance was momentary. Once he began to talk the rest did
not matter. He was the author of those letters, and Bliss decided that
personally he was even greater than they. The publisher, confined to his
home with illness, offered him the hospitality of his household. Also,
he made him two propositions: he would pay him ten thousand dollars cash
for his copyright, or he would pay five per cent. royalty, which was a
fourth more than Richardson had received. He advised the latter
arrangement.

Cleme