“Sam was ever making notes in his memorandum-book, just as he always did,” said Bixby to the writer, recalling the time.  “I was sorry I had to stay at the wheel so much.  I wanted to have more time with Sam without thinking of the river at all.  Sam was sorry, too, from what he wrote after he got home.”

Bixby produced a letter in the familiar handwriting.  It was a tender, heart-spoken letter: 

I didn’t see half enough of you.  It was a sore disappointment.  Osgood could have told you, if he would—­discreet old dog—­I expected to have you with me all the time.  Altogether, the most pleasant part of my visit with you was after we arrived in St. Louis, and you were your old natural self again.  Twenty years have not added a month to your age or taken a fraction from your loveliness.

Said Bixby:  “When we arrived in St. Louis we came to the Planters’ Hotel; to this very table where you and I are sitting now, and we had a couple of hot Scotches between us, just as we have now, and we had a good last talk over old times and old acquaintances.  After he returned to New York he sent for my picture.  He wanted to use it in his book.”

At St. Louis the travelers changed boats, and proceeded up the Mississippi toward St. Paul.  Clemens laid off three days at Hannibal.

Delightful days [he wrote home].  Loitering around all day long, examining the old localities, and talking with the gray heads who were boys and girls with me thirty or forty years ago.  I spent my nights with John and Helen Garth, three miles from town, in their spacious and beautiful house.  They were children with me, and afterward schoolmates.  That world which I knew in its blooming youth is old and bowed and melancholy now; its soft cheeks are leathery and withered, the fire has gone out of its eyes, the spring from its step.  It will be dust and ashes when I come again.

He had never seen the far upper river, and he found it very satisfying.  His note-book says: 

The bluffs all along up above St. Paul are exquisitely beautiful where the rough and broken turreted rocks stand up against the sky above the steep, verdant slopes.  They are inexpressibly rich and mellow in color; soft dark browns mingled with dull greens—­the very tints to make an artist worship.

In a final entry he wrote: 

The romance of boating is gone now.  In Hannibal the steamboat man is no longer the god.

CXLI

LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY

Clemens took a further step toward becoming a publisher on his own account.  Not only did he contract to supply funds for the Mississippi book, but, as kaolatype, the chalk-engraving process, which had been lingeringly and expensively dying, was now become merely something to swear at, he had his niece’s husband, Webster, installed as Osgood’s New York subscription manager, with charge of the general agencies.  There was no delay in this move.  Webster must get well familiarized with the work before the Mississippi book’s publication.