hear again.  The “Sandwich Island book,” as may be imagined, was made up of his letters to the Sacramento Union.  Nothing came of the venture, except some chapters in ‘Roughing It’, rewritten from the material.  “Zeb and John Leavenworth” were pilots whom he had known on the river.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family in St. Louis: 

New York, June 7th, 1867.  Dear folks, I suppose we shall be many a league at sea tomorrow night, and goodness knows I shall be unspeakably glad of it.

I haven’t got anything to write, else I would write it.  I have just written myself clear out in letters to the Alta, and I think they are the stupidest letters that were ever written from New York.  Corresponding has been a perfect drag ever since I got to the states.  If it continues abroad, I don’t know what the Tribune and Alta folks will think.  I have withdrawn the Sandwich Island book—­it would be useless to publish it in these dull publishing times.  As for the Frog book, I don’t believe that will ever pay anything worth a cent.  I published it simply to advertise myself—­not with the hope of making anything out of it.

Well, I haven’t anything to write, except that I am tired of staying in one place—­that I am in a fever to get away.  Read my Alta letters—­they contain everything I could possibly write to you.  Tell Zeb and John Leavenworth to write me.  They can get plenty of gossip from the pilots.

An importing house sent two cases of exquisite champagne aboard the ship for me today—­Veuve Clicquot and Lac d’Or.  I and my room-mate have set apart every Saturday as a solemn fast day, wherein we will entertain no light matters of frivolous conversation, but only get drunk. (That is a joke.) His mother and sisters are the best and most homelike people I have yet found in a brown stone front.  There is no style about them, except in house and furniture.

I wish Orion were going on this voyage, for I believe he could not help but be cheerful and jolly.  I often wonder if his law business is going satisfactorily to him, but knowing that the dull season is setting in now (it looked like it had already set in before) I have felt as if I could almost answer the question myself—­which is to say in plain words, I was afraid to ask.  I wish I had gone to Washington in the winter instead of going West.  I could have gouged an office out of Bill Stewart for him, and that would atone for the loss of my home visit.  But I am so worthless that it seems to me I never do anything or accomplish anything that lingers in my mind as a pleasant memory.  My mind is stored full of unworthy conduct toward Orion and towards you all, and an accusing conscience gives me peace only in excitement and restless moving from place to place.  If I could say I had done one thing for any of you that entitled me to your good opinion, (I say nothing of your love, for I am sure of that,