e
knew nothing of such work and had small knowledge of parliamentary
proceedings. Formerly it had been done by a man named Gillespie,
but Gillespie was now clerk of the house. Goodman hesitated; then,
remembering that whether Clemens got the reports right or not, he would
at least make them readable, agreed to let him undertake the work.

XL. "MARK TWAIN"

The early Nevada legislature was an interesting assembly. All State
legislatures are that, and this was a mining frontier. No attempt can be
made to describe it. It was chiefly distinguished for a large ignorance
of procedure, a wide latitude of speech, a noble appreciation of humor,
and plenty of brains. How fortunate Mask Twain was in his schooling,
to be kept away from institutional training, to be placed in one after
another of those universities of life where the sole curriculum is the
study of the native inclinations and activities of mankind! Sometimes,
in after-years, he used to regret the lack of systematic training. Well
for him--and for us--that he escaped that blight.

For the study of human nature the Nevada assembly was a veritable
lecture-room. In it his understanding, his wit, his phrasing, his
self-assuredness grew like Jack's bean-stalk, which in time was ready to
break through into a land above the sky. He made some curious blunders
in his reports, in the beginning; but he was so frank in his ignorance
and in his confession of it that the very unsophistication of his early
letters became their chief charm. Gillespie coached him on parliamentary
matters, and in time the reports became technically as well as
artistically good. Clemens in return christened Gillespie "Young,
Jefferson's Manual," a title which he bore, rather proudly indeed, for
many years.

Another "entitlement" growing out of those early reports, and possibly
less satisfactory to its owner, was the one accorded to Clement T. Rice,
of the Virginia City Union. Rice knew the legislative work perfectly and
concluded to poke fun at the Enterprise letters.

But this was a mistake. Clemens in his next letter declared that Rice's
reports might be parliamentary enough, but that they covered with
glittering technicalities the most festering mass of misstatement, and
even crime. He avowed that they were wholly untrustworthy; dubbed the
author of them "The Unreliable," and in future letters never referred
to him by any other term. Carson and the Comstock and the papers of the
Coast del