SHINGTON--A PUBLISHING PROPOSITION

Clemens remained but one day in New York. Senator Stewart had written,
about the time of the departure of the Quaker City, offering him the
position of private secretary--a position which was to give him leisure
for literary work, with a supporting salary as well. Stewart no doubt
thought it would be considerably to his advantage to have the brilliant
writer and lecturer attached to his political establishment, and Clemens
likewise saw possibilities in the arrangement. From Naples, in August,
he had written accepting Stewart's offer; he lost no time now in
discussing the matter in person.--[In a letter home, August 9th, he
referred to the arrangement: "I wrote to Bill Stewart to-day accepting
his private secretaryship in Washington, next winter."]

There seems to have been little difficulty in concluding the
arrangement. When Clemens had been in Washington a week we find him
writing:

DEAR FOLKS, Tired and sleepy--been in Congress all day and making
newspaper acquaintances. Stewart is to look up a clerkship in the
Patent Office for Orion. Things necessarily move slowly where there
is so much business and such armies of office-seekers to be attended
to. I guess it will be all right. I intend it shall be all right.

I have 18 invitations to lecture, at $100 each, in various parts
of the Union--have declined them all. I am for business now.

Belong on the Tribune Staff, and shall write occasionally. Am
offered the same berth to-day on the Herald by letter. Shall write
Mr. Bennett and accept, as soon as I hear from Tribune that it will
not interfere. Am pretty well known now--intend to be better known.
Am hobnobbing with these old Generals and Senators and other humbugs
for no good purpose. Don't have any more trouble making friends
than I did in California. All serene. Good-by. Shall continue on
the Alta.
Yours affectionately,
SAM.

P.S.--I room with Bill Stewart and board at Willard's Hotel.

But the secretary arrangement was a brief matter. It is impossible
to conceive of Mark Twain as anybody's secretary, especially as the
secretary of Senator Stewart. --[In Senator Stewart's memoirs he refers
unpleasantly to Mark Twain, and after relating several incidents that
bear only strained relations to the truth, states that when the writer
returned from the Holy Land