to
know personally three sample bodies of the smallest minds and the
selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes.

And I was some years a Mississippi pilot, and familiarly knew all
the different kinds of steamboatmen--a race apart, and not like
other folk.

And I was for some years a traveling "jour" printer, and wandered
from city to city--and so I know that sect familiarly.

And I was a lecturer on the public platform a number of seasons and
was a responder to toasts at all the different kinds of banquets
--and so I know a great many secrets about audiences--secrets not to
be got out of books, but only acquirable by experience.

And I watched over one dear project of mine for years, spent a
fortune on it, and failed to make it go--and the history of that
would make a large book in which a million men would see themselves
as in a mirror; and they would testify and say, Verily, this is not
imagination; this fellow has been there--and after would they cast
dust upon their heads, cursing and blaspheming.

And I am a publisher, and did pay to one author's widow (General
Grant's) the largest copyright checks this world has seen
--aggregating more than L80,000 in the first year.

And I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55.

Now then: as the most valuable capital or culture or education
usable in the building of novels is personal experience I ought to
be well equipped for that trade.

I surely have the equipment, a wide culture, and all of it real,
none of it artificial, for I don't know anything about books.

This generous bill of literary particulars was fully warranted. Mark
Twain's equipment was equal to his occasions. It is true that he was no
longer young, and that his health was not perfect, but his resolution and
his energy had not waned.

His need was imminent and he lost no time. He dug out from his
pigeonholes such materials as he had in stock, selecting a few completed
manuscripts for immediate disposal--among them his old article entitled,
"Mental Telegraphy," written in 1878, when he had hesitated to offer it,
in the fear that it would not be accepted by the public otherwise than as
a joke. He added to it now a supplement and sent it to Mr. Alden, of
Harper's Magazine.

Psychic interest had progressed in twelve years; also Mark Twain had come
to be rather more serious