to learn, kind, and
truthful. Angels could hardly be more than that in a printing-office.
But when food was scarce, even an angel--a young printer-angel--could
hardly resist slipping down the cellar stairs at night, for raw potatoes,
onions, and apples, which they cooked in the office, where the boys slept
on a pallet on the floor. Wales had a wonderful way of cooking a potato
which his fellow apprentice never forgot.

How one wishes for a photograph of Sam Clemens at that period! But in
those days there were only daguerreotypes, and they were expensive
things. There is a letter, though, written long afterward, by Pet
McMurry to Mark Twain, which contains this paragraph:

"If your memory extends so far back, you will recall a little sandy-
haired boy of nearly a quarter of a century ago, in the printing-
office at Hannibal, over the Brittingham drug-store, mounted upon a
little box at the case, who used to love to sing so well the
expression of the poor drunken man who was supposed to have fallen
by the wayside, 'If ever I get up again, I'll stay up--if I kin.'"

And with this portrait we must be content--we cannot doubt its truth.

Sam was soon office favorite and in time became chief stand-by. When he
had been at work a year, he could set type accurately, run the job press
to the tune of "Annie Laurie," and he had charge of the circulation.
That is to say, he carried the papers--a mission of real importance, for
a long, sagging span of telegraph-wire had reached across the river to
Hannibal, and Mexican-war news delivered hot from the front gave the
messenger a fine prestige.

He even did editing, of a kind. That is to say, when Ament was not in
the office and copy was needed, Sam hunted him up, explained the
situation, and saw that the necessary matter was produced. He was not
ambitious to write--not then. He wanted to be a journeyman printer, like
Pet, and travel and see the world. Sometimes he thought he would like to
be a clown, or "end man" in a minstrel troupe. Once for a week he served
as subject for a traveling hypnotist-and was dazzled by his success.

But he stuck to printing, and rapidly became a neat, capable workman.
Ament gave him a daily task, after which he was free. By three in the
afternoon he was likely to finish his stint. Then he was off for the
river or the cave, joining his old comrades. Or perhaps he would go with
Laura Hawkins to gather wild columbine on the high cliff