te a number
of sketches, made an occasional business trip to New York and Hartford;
prospected the latter place for a new home. The shadow which had hung
over the sojourn in Buffalo seemed to have lifted.

He had promised Bliss some contributions for his new paper, and in June
he sent three sketches. In an accompanying letter he says:

Here are three articles which you may have if you will pay $125 for
the lot. If you don't want them I'll sell them to the Galaxy, but
not for a cent less than three times the money.... If you take them
pay one-tenth of the $125 in weekly instalments to Orion till he has
received it all.

He reconsidered his resolution not to lecture again, and closed with
Redpath for the coming season. He found himself in a lecture-writing
fever. He wrote three of them in succession: one on Artemus Ward,
another on "Reminiscences of Some Pleasant Characters I Have Met," and
a third one based on chapters from the new book. Of the "Reminiscence"
lecture he wrote Redpath:

"It covers my whole acquaintance; kings, lunatics, idiots, and all."
Immediately afterward he wrote that he had prepared still another
lecture, "title to be announced later."

"During July I'll decide which one I like best," he said. He instructed
Redpath not to make engagements for him to lecture in churches. "I never
made a success of a lecture in a church yet. People are afraid to laugh
in a church."

Redpath was having difficulties in arranging a circuit to suit him.
Clemens had prejudices against certain towns and localities, prejudices
that were likely to change overnight. In August he wrote:

DEAR RED,--I am different from other women; my mind changes oftener.
People who have no mind can easily be stead fast and firm, but when
a man is loaded down to the guards with it, as I am, every heavy sea
of foreboding or inclination, maybe of indolence, shifts the cargo.
See? Therefore, if you will notice, one week I am likely to give
rigid instructions to confine me to New England; the next week send
me to Arizona; the next week withdraw my name; the next week give
you full, untrammeled swing; and the week following modify it. You
must try to keep the run of my mind, Redpath that is your business,
being the agent, and it always was too many for me.... Now about
the West this week, I am willing that you shall retain all the
Western engagements. But what I shall want n