When I said you and Aldrich had given me two new neck-ties, and that they were in a paper in my overcoat pocket, she was in a fever of happiness until she found I was going to frame them; then all the venom in her nature gathered itself together,—­insomuch that I, being near to a door, went without, perceiving danger.

Now I wear one of the new neck-ties, nothing being sacred in Mrs. Clemens’s eyes that can be perverted to a gaud that shall make the person of her husband more alluring than it was aforetime.

Jo Twichell was the delightedest old boy I ever saw, when he read the words you had written in that book.  He and I went to the Concert of the Yale students last night and had a good time.

Mrs. Clemens dreads our going to New Orleans, but I tell her she’ll have to give her consent this time.

With kindest regards unto ye both. 
                              Yrs ever,
                                        S. L. Clemens.

The reference to New Orleans at the end of this letter grew naturally out of the enthusiasm aroused by the Mississippi papers.  The more Clemens wrote about the river the more he wished to revisit it and take Howells with him.  Howells was willing enough to go and they eventually arranged to take their wives on the excursion.  This seemed all very well and possible, so long as the time was set for some date in the future still unfixed.  But Howells was a busy editor, and it was much more easy for him to promise good-naturedly than to agree on a definite time of departure.  He explained at length why he could not make the journey, and added:  “Forgive me having led you on to fix a time; I never thought it would come to that; I supposed you would die, or something.  I am really more sorry and ashamed than I can make it appear.”  So the beautiful plan was put aside, though it was not entirely abandoned for a long time.

We now come to the incident mentioned in Mark Twain’s letter to Aldrich, of December the 18th.  It had its beginning at the Atlantic dinner, where Aldrich had abused Clemens for never sending him any photographs of himself.  It was suggested by one or the other that his name be put down as a “regular subscriber” for all Mark Twain photographs as they “came out.”  Clemens returned home and hunted up fifty-two different specimens, put each into an envelope, and began mailing them to him, one each morning.  When a few of them had arrived Aldrich wrote, protesting.

     “The police,” he said, “have a way of swooping down on that kind of
     publication.  The other day they gobbled up an entire edition of
     ‘The Life in New York.’”

     Whereupon Clemens bundled up the remaining collection—­forty-five
     envelopes of photographs and prints-and mailed them together.