ness, and when
Tom suddenly sees a human hand bearing a light, and then finds that
the hand is the hand of Indian Joe, his one mortal enemy. I have
always thought that the vision of the hand in the cave in Tom Sawyer
was one of the very finest things in the literature of adventure
since Robinson Crusoe first saw a single footprint in the sand of
the sea-shore.

Mark Twain's invention was not always a reliable quantity, but with that
eccentricity which goes with any attribute of genius, it was likely at
any moment to rise supreme. If to the critical, hardened reader the
tale seems a shade overdone here and there, a trifle extravagant in its
delineations, let him go back to his first long-ago reading of it and
see if he recalls anything but his pure delight in it then. As a boy's
story it has not been equaled.

Tom Sawyer has ranked in popularity with Roughing It.

Its sales go steadily on from year to year, and are likely to continue
so long as boys and girls do not change, and men and women remember.
--[Col. Henry Watterson, when he finished Tom Sawyer, wrote: "I have
just laid down Tom Sawyer, and cannot resist the pressure. It is
immense! I read every word of it, didn't skip a line, and nearly
disgraced myself several times in the presence of a sleeping-car full
of honorable and pious people. Once I had to get to one side and have a
cry, and as for an internal compound of laughter and tears there was no
end to it.... The 'funeral' of the boys, the cave business, and the
hunt for the hidden treasure are as dramatic as anything I know of in
fiction, while the pathos--particularly everything relating to Huck
and Aunt Polly--makes a cross between Dickens's skill and Thackeray's
nature, which, resembling neither, is thoroughly impressive and
original."]

CX. MARK TWAIN AND BRET HARTE WRITE A PLAY

It was the fall and winter of '76 that Bret Harte came to Hartford and
collaborated with Mark Twain on the play "Ah Sin," a comedy-drama, or
melodrama, written for Charles T. Parsloe, the great impersonator
of Chinese character. Harte had written a successful play which
unfortunately he had sold outright for no great sum, and was eager
for another venture. Harte had the dramatic sense and constructive
invention. He also had humor, but he felt the need of the sort of humor
that Mark Twain could furnish. Furthermore, he believed that a play
backed by both their reputations must start with great a