Your proposition takes my breath away.  If I had my new lecture completed I wouldn’t hesitate a moment, but really isn’t “Cussed Be Canaan” too old?  You know that lemon, our African brother, juicy as he was in his day, has been squeezed dry.  Why howl about his wrongs after said wrongs have been redressed?  Why screech about the “damnable spirit of Cahst” when the victim thereof sits at the first table, and his oppressor mildly takes, in hash, what he leaves?  You see, friend Twain, the Fifteenth Amendment busted “Cussed Be Canaan.”  I howled feelingly on the subject while it was a living issue, for I felt all that I said and a great deal more; but now that we have won our fight why dance frantically on the dead corpse of our enemy?  The Reliable Contraband is contraband no more, but a citizen of the United States, and I speak of him no more.

Give me a week to think of your proposition.  If I can jerk a lecture in time I will go with you.  The Lord knows I would like to. —­[Nasby’s lecture, “Cussed Be Canaan,” opened, “We are all descended from grandfathers!” He had a powerful voice, and always just on the stroke of eight he rose and vigorously delivered this sentence.  Once, after lecturing an entire season—­two hundred and twenty-five nights—­he went home to rest.  That evening he sat, musingly drowsing by the fire, when the clock struck eight.  Without a moment’s thought Nasby sprang to his feet and thundered out, “We are all descended from grandfathers!”]

Nasby did not go, and Clemens’s enthusiasm cooled at the prospect of setting out alone on that long tour.  Furthermore, Jervis Langdon promptly insisted on advancing the money required to complete the purchase of the Express, and the trade was closed.—­[Mr. Langdon is just as good for $25,000 for me, and has already advanced half of it in cash.  I wrote and asked whether I had better send him my note, or a due bill, or how he would prefer to have the indebtedness made of record, and he answered every other topic in the letter pleasantly, but never replied to that at all.  Still, I shall give my note into a hands of his business agent here, and pay him the interest as it falls due.—­S.  L. C. to his mother.]

The Buffalo Express was at this time in the hands of three men—­Col.  George F. Selkirk, J. L. Lamed, and Thomas A. Kennett.  Colonel Selkirk was business manager, Lamed was political editor.  With the purchase of Kennett’s share Clemens became a sort of general and contributing editor, with a more or less “roving commission”—­his hours and duties not very clearly defined.  It was believed by his associates, and by Clemens himself, that his known connection with the paper would give it prestige and circulation, as Nasby’s connection had popularized the Toledo Blade.  The new editor entered upon his duties August 14 (1869).  The members of the Buffalo press gave him a dinner that evening, and after the manner of newspaper men the world over, were handsomely cordial to the “new enemy in their midst.”