gorous old seafarer; so in the "Rambling Notes" Wakeman
appears as Captain Hurricane Jones, probably a step in the evolution of
the later name of Stormfield. The best feature of the series (there were
four papers in all) is a story of a rescue in mid-ocean; but surely the
brightest ripple of humor is the reference to Bermuda's mahogany-tree:

There was exactly one mahogany-tree on the island. I know this to
be reliable because I saw a man who said he had counted it many a
time and could not be mistaken. He was a man with a haze lip and a
pure heart, and everybody said he was as true as steel. Such men
are all too few.

Clemens cared less for these papers than did Howells. He had serious
doubts about the first two and suggested their destruction, but with
Howells's appreciation his own confidence in them returned and he let
them all go in. They did not especially advance his reputation, but
perhaps they did it no harm.

CXII

A NEW PLAY AND A NEW TALE

He wrote a short story that year which is notable mainly for the fact
that in it the telephone becomes a literary property, probably for the
first time. "The Loves of Alonzo Fitz-Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton"
employed in the consummation what was then a prospect, rather than a
reality--long-distance communication.

His work that summer consisted mainly of two extensive undertakings, one
of which he completed without delay. He still had the dramatic ambition,
and he believed that he was capable now of constructing a play entirely
from his own resources.

To Howells, in June, he wrote:

To-day I am deep in a comedy which I began this morning--principal
character an old detective. I skeletoned the first act and wrote the
second to-day, and am dog-tired now. Fifty-four pages of MS. in seven
hours.

Seven days later, the Fourth of July, he said:

I have piled up one hundred and fifty-one pages on my comedy. The first,
second and fourth acts are done, and done to my satisfaction, too.
To-morrow and next day will finish the third act, and the play. Never
had so much fun over anything in my life never such consuming interest
and delight. And just think! I had Sol Smith Russell in my mind's eye
for the old detective's part, and bang it! he has gone off pottering with
Oliver Optic, or else the papers lie.

He was working with enthusiasm, you see, believing in it with a faith
which, alas, was no warrant for its quality. Even Howells caught hi