s--its literature. I have
arguments with me, also a barrel, with liquid in it.

Give me a chance. Get me the thanks of Congress. Don't wait for
others; there isn't time. I have stayed away and let Congress alone
for seventy-one years and I am entitled to thanks. Congress knows it
perfectly well and I have long felt hurt that this quite proper and
earned expression of gratitude has been merely felt by the House and
never publicly uttered. Send me an order on the Sergeant-at-Arms quick.
When shall I come? With love and a benediction.

MARK TWAIN.

This was mainly a joke. Mark Twain did not expect any "thanks," but
he did hope for access to the floor, which once, in an earlier day,
had been accorded him. We drove to the Capitol and he delivered his
letter to "Uncle Joe" by hand. "Uncle Joe" could not give him the
privilege of the floor; the rules had become more stringent. He
declared they would hang him if he did such a thing. He added that
he had a private room down-stairs, where Mark Twain might establish
headquarters, and that he would assign his colored servant, Neal, of
long acquaintanceship with many of the members, to pass the word
that Mark Twain was receiving.

The result was a great success. All that afternoon members of
Congress poured into the Speaker's room and, in an atmosphere blue
with tobacco smoke, Mark Twain talked the gospel of copyright to his
heart's content.

The bill did not come up for passage that session, but Mark Twain
lived to see his afternoon's lobbying bring a return. In 1909,
Champ Clark, and those others who had gathered around him that
afternoon, passed a measure that added fourteen years to the
copyright term.

The next letter refers to a proposed lobby of quite a different
sort.

*****

To Helen Keller, in Wrentham, Mass.:

21 FIFTH AVENUE,
Dec. 23, '06.

DEAR HELEN KELLER,--... You say, "As a reformer, you know that ideas
must be driven home again and again."

Yes, I know it; and by old experience I know that speeches and documents
and public meetings are a pretty poor and lame way of accomplishing it.
Last year I proposed a sane way--one which I had practiced with success
for a quarter of a century--but I wasn't exp