ished to turn the tract into great vineyards, and Orion
had a prohibition seizure at the moment, so the trade was not made.
Orion further argued that the prospective purchaser would necessarily be
obliged to import horticultural labor from Europe, and that those people
might be homesick, badly treated, and consequently unhappy in those far
eastern Tennessee mountains. Such was Orion's way.

XLVIII

THE REFUGE OF THE HILLS

Those who remember Mark Twain's Enterprise letters (they are no longer
obtainable)--[Many of these are indeed now obtainable by a simple Web
search. D.W.]--declare them to have been the greatest series of daily
philippics ever written. However this may be, it is certain that they
made a stir. Goodman permitted him to say absolutely what he pleased
upon any subject. San Francisco was fairly weltering in corruption,
official and private. He assailed whatever came first to hand with all
the fierceness of a flaming indignation long restrained.

Quite naturally he attacked the police, and with such ferocity and
penetration that as soon as copies of the Enterprise came from Virginia
the City Hall began to boil and smoke and threaten trouble. Martin G.
Burke, then chief of police, entered libel suit against the Enterprise,
prodigiously advertising that paper, copies of which were snatched as
soon as the stage brought them.

Mark Twain really let himself go then. He wrote a letter that on the
outside was marked, "Be sure and let Joe see this before it goes in." He
even doubted himself whether Goodman would dare to print it, after
reading. It was a letter describing the city's corrupt morals under the
existing police government. It began, "The air is full of lechery, and
rumors of lechery," and continued in a strain which made even the
Enterprise printers aghast.

"You can never afford to publish that," the foreman said to, Goodman.

"Let it all go in, every word," Goodman answered. "If Mark can stand it,
I can!"

It seemed unfortunate (at the time) that Steve Gillis should select this
particular moment to stir up trouble that would involve both himself and
Clemens with the very officials which the latter had undertaken to
punish. Passing a saloon one night alone, Gillis heard an altercation
going on inside, and very naturally stepped in to enjoy it. Including
the barkeeper, there were three against two. Steve ranged himself on the
weaker side, and selected the barkeeper, a big bruiser, who, whe