medium he protested, but to no purpose.
Then he wrote a letter and sat down to wait. He reported his troubles to
Orion:

I have made a superb contract for a book, and have prepared the
first ten chapters of the sixty or eighty, but I will bet it never
sees the light. Don't you let the folks at home hear that. That
thieving Alta copyrighted the letters, and now shows no disposition
to let me use them. I have done all I can by telegraph, and now
await the final result by mail. I only charged them for 50 letters
what (even in) greenbacks would amount to less than two thousand
dollars, intending to write a good deal for high-priced Eastern
papers, and now they want to publish my letters in book form
themselves to get back that pitiful sum.

Orion was by this time back from Nevada, setting type in St. Louis. He
was full of schemes, as usual, and his brother counsels him freely. Then
he says:

We chase phantoms half the days of our lives. It is well if we
learn wisdom even then, and save the other half.

I am in for it. I must go on chasing them, until I marry, then I am
done with literature and all other bosh--that is, literature
wherewith to please the general public.

I shall write to please myself then.

He closes by saying that he rather expects to go with Anson Burlingame on
the Chinese embassy. Clearly he was pretty hopeless as to his book
prospects.

His first meeting with General Grant occurred just at this time. In one
of his home letters he mentions, rather airily, that he will drop in
someday on the General for an interview; and at last, through Mrs. Grant,
an appointment was made for a Sunday evening when the General would be at
home. He was elated with the prospect of an interview; but when he
looked into the imperturbable, square, smileless face of the soldier he
found himself, for the first time in his life, without anything
particular to say. Grant nodded slightly and waited. His caller wished
something would happen. It did. His inspiration returned.

"General," he said, "I seem to be a little embarrassed. Are you?"

That broke the ice. There were no further difficulties.--[Mark Twain has
variously related this incident. It is given here in accordance with the
letters of the period.]

LXVI

BACK TO SAN FRANCISCO

Reply came from the Alta, but it was not promising. It spoke rather
vaguely of prior arrangements and future poss