cribes the picture in detail and with vast enthusiasm.

"I have seen it several times," he concludes, "but it is always a new
picture--totally new--you seem to see nothing the second time that you
saw the first."

Further along he tells of having taken his mother and the girls--his
cousin Ella Creel and another--for a trip down the river to New Orleans.

Ma was delighted with her trip, but she was disgusted with the girls
for allowing me to embrace and kiss them--and she was horrified at
the 'schottische' as performed by Miss Castle and myself. She was
perfectly willing for me to dance until 12 o'clock at the imminent
peril of my going to sleep on the after-watch--but then she would
top off with a very inconsistent sermon on dancing in general;
ending with a terrific broadside aimed at that heresy of heresies,
the 'schottische'.

I took Ma and the girls in a carriage round that portion of New
Orleans where the finest gardens and residences are to be seen, and,
although it was a blazing hot, dusty day, they seemed hugely
delighted. To use an expression which is commonly ignored in polite
society, they were "hell-bent" on stealing some of the luscious-
looking oranges from branches which overhung the fence, but I
restrained them.

In another letter of this period we get a hint of the future Mark Twain.
It was written to John T. Moore, a young clerk on the John J. Roe.

What a fool old Adam was. Had everything his own way; had succeeded
in gaining the love of the best-looking girl in the neighborhood,
but yet, unsatisfied with his conquest, he had to eat a miserable
little apple. Ah, John, if you had been in his place you would not
have eaten a mouthful of the apple--that is, if it had required any
exertion. I have noticed that you shun exertion. There comes in
the difference between us. I court exertion. I love work. Why,
sir, when I have a piece of work to perform, I go away to myself,
sit down in the shade, and muse over the coming enjoyment.
Sometimes I am so industrious that I muse too long.

There remains another letter of this period--a sufficiently curious
document. There was in those days a famous New Orleans clairvoyant known
as Madame Caprell. Some of the young pilot's friends had visited her
and obtained what seemed to be satisfying results. From time to time
they had urged him to visit the fortune-teller,