der the
delusion that he's a newspaper man.

The author of 'Roughing It' tells of a literary periodical called
the Occidental, started in Virginia City by a Mr. F. This was the
silver-tongued Tom Fitch, of the Union, an able speaker and writer,
vastly popular on the Coast. Fitch came to Clemens one day and said he
was thinking of starting such a periodical and asked him what he thought
of the venture. Clemens said:

"You would succeed if any one could, but start a flower-garden on the
desert of Sahara; set up hoisting-works on Mount Vesuvius for mining
sulphur; start a literary paper in Virginia City; h--l!"

Which was a correct estimate of the situation, and the paper perished
with the third issue. It was of no consequence except that it contained
what was probably the first attempt at that modern literary abortion,
the composite novel. Also, it died too soon to publish Mark Twain's
first verses of any pretension, though still of modest merit--"The Aged
Pilot Man"--which were thereby saved for 'Roughing It.'

Visiting Virginia now, it seems curious that any of these things could
have happened there. The Comstock has become little more than a memory;
Virginia and Gold Hill are so quiet, so voiceless, as to constitute
scarcely an echo of the past. The International Hotel, that once so
splendid edifice, through whose portals the tide of opulent life then
ebbed and flowed, is all but deserted now. One may wander at will
through its dingy corridors and among its faded fripperies, seeking in
vain for attendance or hospitality, the lavish welcome of a vanished
day. Those things were not lacking once, and the stream of wealth tossed
up and down the stair and billowed up C Street, an ebullient tide
of metals and men from which millionaires would be struck out, and
individuals known in national affairs. William M. Stewart who would one
day become a United States Senator, was there, an unnoticed unit;
and John Mackay and James G. Fair, one a senator by and by, and both
millionaires, but poor enough then--Fair with a pick on his shoulder and
Mackay, too, at first, though he presently became a mine superintendent.
Once in those days Mark Twain banteringly offered to trade businesses
with Mackay.

"No," Mackay said, "I can't trade. My business is not worth as much as
yours. I have never swindled anybody, and I don't intend to begin now."

Neither of those men could dream that within ten years their names
would be internat