lind. But then we were so hard up.
I published that story, and it became widely known in America,
India, China, England, and the reputation it made for me has paid me
thousands and thousands of dollars since. Four or five months ago I
bought into the Express (I have ordered it sent to you as long as
you live, and if the bookkeeper sends you any bills you let me hear
of it). I went heavily in debt--never could have dared to do that,
Jim, if we hadn't heard the jumping Frog story that day.

And wouldn't I love to take old Stoker by the hand, and wouldn't I
love to see him in his great specialty, his wonderful rendition of
Rinalds in the "Burning Shame!" Where is Dick and what is he doing?
Give him my fervent love and warm old remembrances.

A week from to-day I shall be married-to a girl even better and
lovelier than the peerless "Chapparal Quails." You can't come so
far, Jim, but still I cordially invite you to come anyhow, and I
invite Dick too. And if you two boys were to land here on that
pleasant occasion we would make you right royally welcome.
Truly your friend,
SAML. L. CLEMENS.

P.S.---California plums are good. Jim, particularly when they are
stewed.

It had been only five years before--that day in Angel's Camp--but how
long ago and how far away it seemed to him now! So much had happened
since then, so much of which that was the beginning--so little compared
with the marvel of the years ahead, whose threshold he was now about to
cross, and not alone.

A day or two before the wedding he was asked to lecture on the night of
February 2d. He replied that he was sorry to disappoint the applicant,
but that he could not lecture on the night of February 2d, for the reason
that he was going to marry a young lady on that evening, and that he
would rather marry that young lady than deliver all the lectures in the
world.

And so came the wedding-day. It began pleasantly; the postman brought a
royalty check that morning of $4,000, the accumulation of three months'
sales, and the Rev. Joseph Twichell and Harmony, his wife, came from
Hartford--Twichell to join with the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher in
solemnizing the marriage. Pamela Moffett, a widow now, with her daughter
Annie, grown to a young lady, had come all the way from St. Louis, and
Mrs. Fairbanks from Cleveland.

Yet the guests were not nume