truction. It was an article written in a happy vein and is
profitable reading to-day. The description of Columbus as he appeared on
the deck of his flag-ship is particularly rich and flowing:

If the weather was chilly he came up clad from plumed helmet to
spurred heel in magnificent plate-armor inlaid with arabesques of
gold, having previously warmed it at the galley fire. If the
weather was warm he came up in the ordinary sailor toggery of the
time-great slouch hat of blue velvet, with a flowing brush of snowy
ostrich-plumes, fastened on with a flashing cluster of diamonds and
emeralds; gold-embroidered doublet of green velvet, with slashed
sleeves exposing undersleeves of crimson satin; deep collar and cuff
ruffles of rich, limp lace; trunk hose of pink velvet, with big
knee-knots of brocaded yellow ribbon; pearl-tinted silk stockings,
clocked and daintily embroidered; lemon-colored buskins of unborn
kid, funnel-topped, and drooping low to expose the pretty stockings;
deep gauntlets of finest white heretic skin, from the factory of the
Holy Inquisition, formerly part of the person of a lady of rank;
rapier with sheath crusted with jewels and hanging from a broad
baldric upholstered with rubies and sapphires.

CLXXXI. NAUHEIM AND THE PRINCE OF WALES

Clemens was able to write pretty steadily that summer in Nauheim and
turned off a quantity of copy. He completed several short articles
and stories, and began, or at least continued work on, two books--'Tom
Sawyer Abroad' and 'Those Extraordinary Twins'--the latter being the
original form of 'Pudd'nhead Wilson'. As early as August 4th he wrote
to Hall that he had finished forty thousand words of the "Tom Sawyer"
story, and that it was to be offered to some young people's magazine,
Harper's Young People or St. Nicholas; but then he suddenly decided that
his narrative method was altogether wrong. To Hall on the 10th he wrote:

I have dropped that novel I wrote you about because I saw a more
effective way of using the main episode--to wit, by telling it
through the lips of Huck Finn. So I have started Huck Finn & Tom
Sawyer (still 15 years old) & their friend the freed slave Jim
around the world in a stray balloon, with Huck as narrator, &
somewhere after the end of that great voyage he will work in that
original episode & then nobody will suspect that a whole book has
be