I finished a story yesterday, myself.  I counted up and found it between sixty and eighty thousand words—­about the size of your book.  It is for boys and girls—­been at work at it several years, off and on.

I hope Howells is enjoying his journey to the Pacific.  He wrote me that you and Osgood were going, also, but I doubted it, believing he was in liquor when he wrote it.  In my opinion, this universal applause over his book is going to land that man in a Retreat inside of two months.  I notice the papers say mighty fine things about your book, too.  You ought to try to get into the same establishment with Howells.  But applause does not affect me—­I am always calm—­this is because I am used to it.

Well, good-bye, my boy, and good luck to you.  Mrs. Clemens asks me to
send her warmest regards to you and Mrs. Aldrich—­which I do, and add
those of
                    Yrs ever
                              Mark.

While Mark Twain was a journalist in San Francisco, there was a middle-aged man named Soule, who had a desk near him on the Morning Call.  Soule was in those days highly considered as a poet by his associates, most of whom were younger and less gracefully poetic.  But Soule’s gift had never been an important one.  Now, in his old age, he found his fame still local, and he yearned for wider recognition.  He wished to have a volume of poems issued by a publisher of recognized standing.  Because Mark Twain had been one of Soule’s admirers and a warm friend in the old days, it was natural that Soule should turn to him now, and equally natural that Clemens should turn to Howells.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

Sunday, Oct. 2 ’80.  My dear Howells,—­Here’s a letter which I wrote you to San Francisco the second time you didn’t go there....  I told Soule he needn’t write you, but simply send the Ms. to you.  O dear, dear, it is dreadful to be an unrecognized poet.  How wise it was in Charles Warren Stoddard to take in his sign and go for some other calling while still young.

I’m laying for that Encyclopedical Scotchman—­and he’ll need to lock the door behind him, when he comes in; otherwise when he hears my proposed tariff his skin will probably crawl away with him.  He is accustomed to seeing the publisher impoverish the author—­that spectacle must be getting stale to him—­if he contracts with the undersigned he will experience a change in that programme that will make the enamel peel off his teeth for very surprise—­and joy.  No, that last is what Mrs. Clemens thinks—­but it’s not so.  The proposed work is growing, mightily, in my estimation, day by day; and I’m not going to throw it away for any mere trifle.  If I make a contract with the canny Scot, I will then tell him the plan which you and I have devised (that of taking in the humor of all countries)—­otherwise I’ll keep it to myself, I think.  Why should we assist our fellowman for mere love of God? 
                                        Yrs ever
                                                  Mark.