And in bed, last night, I invented a way to play it indoors—­in a far more voluminous way, as to multiplicity of dates and events—­on a cribbage board.

Hello, supper’s ready. 
          Love to all. 
                    Good bye. 
                         SAML.

Onion Clemens would naturally get excited over the idea of the game and its commercial possibilities.  Not more so than his brother, however, who presently employed him to arrange a quantity of historical data which the game was to teach.  For a season, indeed, interest in the game became a sort of midsummer madness which pervaded the two households, at Keokuk and at Quarry Farm.  Howells wrote his approval of the idea of “learning history by the running foot,” which was a pun, even if unintentional, for in its out-door form it was a game of speed as well as knowledge.

Howells adds that he has noticed that the newspapers are exploiting
Mark Twain’s new invention of a history game, and we shall presently
see how this happened.

Also, in this letter, Howells speaks of an English nobleman to whom he has given a letter of introduction.  “He seemed a simple, quiet, gentlemanly man, with a good taste in literature, which he evinced by going about with my books in his pockets, and talking of yours.”

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

My dear Howells,—­How odd it seems, to sit down to write a letter with the feeling that you’ve got time to do it.  But I’m done work, for this season, and so have got time.  I’ve done two seasons’ work in one, and haven’t anything left to do, now, but revise.  I’ve written eight or nine hundred Ms pages in such a brief space of time that I mustn’t name the number of days; I shouldn’t believe it myself, and of course couldn’t expect you to.  I used to restrict myself to 4 or 5 hours a day and 5 days in the week, but this time I’ve wrought from breakfast till 5.15 p.m. six days in the week; and once or twice I smouched a Sunday when the boss wasn’t looking.  Nothing is half so good as literature hooked on Sunday, on the sly.

I wrote you and Twichell on the same night, about the game, and was appalled to get a note from him saying he was going to print part of my letter, and was going to do it before I could get a chance to forbid it.  I telegraphed him, but was of course too late.

If you haven’t ever tried to invent an indoor historical game, don’t.  I’ve got the thing at last so it will work, I guess, but I don’t want any more tasks of that kind.  When I wrote you, I thought I had it; whereas I was only merely entering upon the initiatory difficulties of it.  I might have known it wouldn’t be an easy job, or somebody would have invented a decent historical game long ago—­a thing which nobody had done.  I think I’ve got it in pretty fair shape—­so I have caveated it.

Earl of Onston—­is that it?  All right, we shall be very glad to receive them and get acquainted with them.  And much obliged to you, too.  There’s plenty of worse people than the nobilities.  I went up and spent a week with the Marquis and the Princess Louise, and had as good a time as I want.