ter
resting we would come down the mountain a piece and board with a godly,
breech-clouted native, and eat poi and dirt, and give thanks to whom all
thanks belong for these privileges, and never housekeep any more.

They had acquired more ground. One morning in the spring Mark Twain had
looked out of his window just in time to see a man lift an ax to
cut down a tree on the lot which lay between his own and that of his
neighbor. He had heard that a house was to be built there; altogether
too close to him for comfort and privacy. Leaning out of the window he
called sonorously, "Woodman, spare that tree!" Then he hurried down,
obtained a stay of proceedings, and without delay purchased the lot from
the next-door neighbor who owned it, acquiring thereby one hundred feet
of extra ground and a greenhouse which occupied it. It was a costly
purchase; the owner knew he could demand his own price; he asked and
received twelve thousand dollars for the strip.

In November, Clemens found that he must make another trip to Canada.
'The Prince and the Pauper' was ready for issue, and to insure Canadian
copyright the author must cross the line in person. He did not enjoy the
prospect of a cold-weather trip to the north, and tried to tempt Howells
to go with him, but only succeeded in persuading Osgood, who would
do anything or go anywhere that offered the opportunity for pleasant
company and junket.

It was by no means an unhappy fortnight. Clemens took a note-book, and
there are plenty of items that give reality to that long-ago excursion.
He found the Canadian girls so pretty that he records it as a relief now
and then to see a plain one. On another page he tells how one night
in the hotel a mouse gnawed and kept him awake, and how he got up and
hunted for it, hoping to destroy it. He made a rebus picture for the
children of this incident in a letter home.

We get a glimpse just here of how he was constantly viewing himself as
literary material--human material--an example from which some literary
aspect or lesson may be drawn. Following the mouse adventure we find it
thus dramatized:

Trace Father Brebeuf all through this trip, and when I am in a rage
and can't endure the mouse be reading of Brebeuf's marvelous
endurances and be shamed.

And finally, after chasing the bright-eyed rascal several days, and
throwing things and trying to jump on him when in my overshoes, he
darts away with those same bright