talents to the world, this government would have discarded him when his
time was up.

There are more pitiful intellects in this Congress! Oh, geeminy! There
are few of them that I find pleasant enough company to visit.

I am most infernally tired of Wash. and its "attractions." To be busy
is a man's only happiness--and I am--otherwise I should die
Yrs. aff
SAM.


The secretarial position with Senator Stewart was short-lived. One
cannot imagine Mark Twain as anybody's secretary, and doubtless
there was little to be gained on either side by the arrangement.
They parted without friction, though in later years, when Stewart
had become old and irascible, he used to recount a list of
grievances and declare that he had been obliged to threaten violence
in order to bring Mark to terms; but this was because the author of
Roughing It had in that book taken liberties with the Senator, to
the extent of an anecdote and portrait which, though certainly
harmless enough, had for some reason given deep offense.

Mark Twain really had no time for secretary work. For one thing he
was associated with John Swinton in supplying a Washington letter to
a list of newspapers, and then he was busy collecting his Quaker
City letters, and preparing the copy for his book. Matters were
going well enough, when trouble developed from an unexpected
quarter. The Alta-California had copyrighted the letters and
proposed to issue them in book form. There had been no contract