e, and my credit
was always good at the bank for $2,000 or $3,000, and I never gamble
in any shape or manner, and never drink anything stronger than
claret and lager beer, which conduct is regarded as miraculously
temperate in this place. As for company, I went in the very best
company to be found in San Francisco. I always move in the best
society in Virginia and have a reputation to preserve.

He closes by assuring her that he will be more careful in future and
that she need never fear but that he will keep her expenses paid. Then
he cannot refrain from adding one more item of his lavish life:

"Put in my washing, and it costs me one hundred dollars a month to
live."

De Quille had not missed the opportunity of his comrade's absence
to payoff some old scores. At the end of the editorial column of the
Enterprise on the day following his departure he denounced the absent
one and his "protege," The Unreliable, after the intemperate fashion of
the day.

It is to be regretted that such scrubs are ever permitted to visit
the bay, as the inevitable effect will be to destroy that exalted
opinion of the manners and morality of our people which was inspired
by the conduct of our senior editor--[which is to say, Dan
himself]--.

The diatribe closed with a really graceful poem, and the whole was no
doubt highly regarded by the Enterprise readers.

What revenge Mark Twain took on his return has not been recorded, but
it was probably prompt and adequate; or he may have left it to The
Unreliable. It was clearly a mistake, however, to leave his own local
work in the hands of that properly named person a little later. Clemens
was laid up with a cold, and Rice assured him on his sacred honor that
he would attend faithfully to the Enterprise locals, along with his own
Union items. He did this, but he had been nursing old injuries too long.
What was Mark Twain's amazement on looking over the Enterprise next
morning to find under the heading "Apologetic" a statement over his own
nom de plume, purporting to be an apology for all the sins of ridicule
to the various injured ones.

To Mayor Arick, Hon. Wm. Stewart, Marshal Perry, Hon. J. B. Winters,
Mr. Olin, and Samuel Wetherill, besides a host of others whom we
have ridiculed from behind the shelter of our reportorial position,
we say to these gentlemen we acknowledge our faults, and, in all
weakness and humility upon