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, when the fight was over, was ready for the hospital.  It turned out that he was one of Chief Burke’s minions, and Gillis was presently indicted on a charge of assault with intent to kill.  He knew some of the officials in a friendly way, and was advised to give a straw bond and go into temporary retirement.  Clemens, of course, went his bail, and Steve set out for Virginia City, until the storm blew over.

This was Burke’s opportunity.  When the case was called and Gillis did not appear, Burke promptly instituted an action against his bondsman, with an execution against his loose property.  The watch that had been given him as Governor of the Third House came near being thus sacrificed in the cause of friendship, and was only saved by skilful manipulation.

Now, it was down in the chain of circumstances that Steve Gillis’s brother, James N. Gillis, a gentle-hearted hermit, a pocket-miner of the halcyon Tuolumne district—­the Truthful James of Bret Harte—­happened to be in San Francisco at this time, and invited Clemens to return with him to the far seclusion of his cabin on Jackass Hill.  In that peaceful retreat were always rest and refreshment for the wayfarer, and more than one weary writer besides Bret Harte had found shelter there.  James Gillis himself had fine literary instincts, but he remained a pocket-miner because he loved that quiet pursuit of gold, the Arcadian life, the companionship of his books, the occasional Bohemian pilgrim who found refuge in his retreat.