emens gave orders to Lewis to "kill and eat that
guinea-hen," which Lewis did. Clemens himself had then never eaten a
guinea, but some years later, in Paris, when the delicious breast of one
of those fowls was served him, he remembered and said:

"And to think, after chasing that creature all night, John Lewis got to
eat him instead of me."

The interest in Tom and Huck, or the inspiration for their adventures,
gave out at last, or was superseded by a more immediate demand. As early
as May, Goodman, in San Francisco, had seen a play announced there,
presenting the character of Colonel Sellers, dramatized by Gilbert
S. Densmore and played by John T. Raymond. Goodman immediately wrote
Clemens; also a letter came from Warner, in Hartford, who had noticed in
San Francisco papers announcements of the play. Of course Clemens would
take action immediately; he telegraphed, enjoining the performance.
Then began a correspondence with the dramatist and actor. This in time
resulted in an amicable arrangement, by which the dramatist agreed
to dispose of his version to Clemens. Clemens did not wait for it to
arrive, but began immediately a version of his own. Just how much or
how little of Densmore's work found its way into the completed play,
as presented by Raymond later, cannot be known now. Howells conveys
the impression that Clemens had no hand in its authorship beyond the
character of Sellers as taken from the book. But in a letter still
extant, which Clemens wrote to Howells at the time, he says:

I worked a month on my play, and launched it in New York last
Wednesday. I believe it will go. The newspapers have been
complimentary. It is simply a setting for one character, Colonel
Sellers. As a play I guess it will not bear critical assault in
force.

The Warners are as charming as ever. They go shortly to the devil for a
year--that is, to Egypt.

Raymond, in a letter which he wrote to the Sun, November 3, 1874,
declared that "not one line" of Densmore's dramatization was used,
"except that which was taken bodily from The Gilded Age." During the
newspaper discussion of the matter, Clemens himself prepared a letter
for the Hartford Post. This letter was suppressed, but it still exists.
In it he says:

I entirely rewrote the play three separate and distinct times. I
had expected to use little of his [Densmore's] language and but
little of his plot. I do not think there are now twenty sentence