Elmira, July 4,1877.  My dear Howells,—­It is splendid of you to say those pleasant things.  But I am still plagued with doubts about Parts 1 and 2.  If you have any, don’t print.  If otherwise, please make some cold villain like Lathrop read and pass sentence on them.  Mind, I thought they were good, at first—­it was the second reading that accomplished its hellish purpose on me.  Put them up for a new verdict.  Part 4 has lain in my pigeon-hole a good while, and when I put it there I had a Christian’s confidence in 4 aces in it; and you can be sure it will skip toward Connecticut tomorrow before any fatal fresh reading makes me draw my bet.

I’ve piled up 151 Ms pages on my comedy.  The first, second and fourth acts are done, and done to my satisfaction, too.  Tomorrow and next day will finish the 3rd act and the play.  I have not written less than 30 pages any day since I began.  Never had so much fun over anything in my life-never such consuming interest and delight. (But Lord bless you the second reading will fetch it!) And just think!—­I had Sol Smith Russell in my mind’s eye for the old detective’s part, and hang it he has gone off pottering with Oliver Optic, or else the papers lie.

I read everything about the President’s doings there with exultation.

I wish that old ass of a private secretary hadn’t taken me for George Francis Train.  If ignorance were a means of grace I wouldn’t trade that gorilla’s chances for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s.

I shall call on the President again, by and by.  I shall go in my war paint; and if I am obstructed the nation will have the unusual spectacle of a private secretary with a pen over one ear a tomahawk over the other.

I read the entire Atlantic this time.  Wonderful number.  Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke’s story was a ten-strike.  I wish she would write 12 old-time New England tales a year.

Good times to you all!  Mind if you don’t run here for a few days you will go to hence without having had a fore-glimpse of heaven.

Mark.

The play, “Ah Sin,” that had done little enough in Washington, was that summer given another trial by Augustin Daly, at the Fifth Avenue Theater, New York, with a fine company.  Clemens had undertaken to doctor the play, and it would seem to have had an enthusiastic reception on the opening night.  But it was a summer audience, unspoiled by many attractions.  “Ah Sin” was never a success in the New York season—­never a money-maker on the road.

     The reference in the first paragraph of the letter that follows is
     to the Bermuda chapters which Mark Twain was publishing
     simultaneously in England and America.

Elmira, Aug 3,1877.  My dear Howells,—­I have mailed one set of the slips to London, and told Bentley you would print Sept. 15, in October Atlantic, and he must not print earlier in Temple Bar.  Have I got the dates and things right?