Such liberty, however, was too rare for Mark Twain, and he lost interest.  He confessed afterward that he became indifferent and lazy, and that George E. Barnes, one of the publishers of the Call, at last allowed him an assistant.  He selected from the counting-room a big, hulking youth by the name of McGlooral, with the acquired prefix of “Smiggy.”  Clemens had taken a fancy to Smiggy McGlooral—­on account of his name and size perhaps—­and Smiggy, devoted to his patron, worked like a slave gathering news nights—­daytimes, too, if necessary—­all of which was demoralizing to a man who had small appetite for his place anyway.  It was only a question of time when Smiggy alone would be sufficient for the job.

There were other and pleasanter things in San Francisco.  The personal and literary associations were worth while.  At his right hand in the Call office sat Frank Soule—­a gentle spirit—­a graceful versifier who believed himself a poet.  Mark Twain deferred to Frank Soule in those days.  He thought his verses exquisite in their workmanship; a word of praise from Soule gave him happiness.  In a luxurious office up-stairs was another congenial spirit—­a gifted, handsome fellow of twenty-four, who was secretary of the Mint, and who presently became editor of a new literary weekly, the Californian, which Charles Henry Webb had founded.  This young man’s name was Francis Bret Harte, originally from Albany, later a miner and school-teacher on the Stanislaus, still later a compositor, finally a contributor, on the Golden Era.  His fame scarcely reached beyond San Francisco as yet; but among the little coterie of writing folk that clustered about the Era office his rank was high.  Mark Twain fraternized with Bret Harte and the Era group generally.  He felt that he had reached the land—­or at least the borderland—­of Bohemia, that Ultima Thule of every young literary dream.

San Francisco did, in fact, have a very definite literary atmosphere and a literature of its own.  Its coterie of writers had drifted from here and there, but they had merged themselves into a California body-poetic, quite as individual as that of Cambridge, even if less famous, less fortunate in emoluments than the Boston group.  Joseph E. Lawrence, familiarly known as “Joe” Lawrence, was editor of the Golden Era,—­[The Golden Era, California’s first literary publication, was founded by Rollin M. Daggett and J. McDonough Foard in 1852.]—­and his kindness and hospitality were accounted sufficient rewards even when his pecuniary acknowledgments were modest enough.  He had a handsome office, and the literati, local and visiting, used to gather there.  Names that would be well known later were included in that little band.  Joaquin Miller recalls from an old diary, kept by him then, having seen Adah Isaacs Menken, Prentice Mulford, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Fitzhugh Ludlow, Mark Twain, Orpheus C. Kerr, Artemus Ward, Gilbert Densmore, W. S. Kendall, and Mrs. Hitchcock assembled there at one time.  The Era office would seem to have been a sort of Mount Olympus, or Parnassus, perhaps; for these were mainly poets, who had scarcely yet attained to the dignity of gods.  Miller was hardly more than a youth then, and this grand assemblage impressed him, as did the imposing appointments of the place.