For a months I had not shaved without crying.  I’d spend 3/4 of an hour whetting away on my hand—­no use, couldn’t get an edge.  Tried a razor strop-same result.  So I sat down and put in an hour thinking out the mystery.  Then it seemed plain—­to wit:  my hand can’t give a razor an edge, it can only smooth and refine an edge that has already been given.  I judge that a razor fresh from the hone is this shape V—­the long point being the continuation of the edge—­and that after much use the shape is this V—­the attenuated edge all worn off and gone.  By George I knew that was the explanation.  And I knew that a freshly honed and freshly strapped razor won’t cut, but after strapping on the hand as a final operation, it will cut.—­So I sent out for an oil-stone; none to be had, but messenger brought back a little piece of rock the size of a Safety-match box—­(it was bought in a shoemaker’s shop) bad flaw in middle of it, too, but I put 4 drops of fine Olive oil on it, picked out the razor marked “Thursday” because it was never any account and would be no loss if I spoiled it—­gave it a brisk and reckless honing for 10 minutes, then tried it on a hair—­it wouldn’t cut.  Then I trotted it through a vigorous 20-minute course on a razor-strap and tried it on a hair-it wouldn’t cut—­tried it on my face—­it made me cry—­gave it a 5-minute stropping on my hand, and my land, what an edge she had!  We thought we knew what sharp razors were when we were tramping in Switzerland, but it was a mistake—­they were dull beside this old Thursday razor of mine—­which I mean to name Thursday October Christian, in gratitude.  I took my whetstone, and in 20 minutes I put two more of my razors in splendid condition—­but I leave them in the box—­I never use any but Thursday O. C., and shan’t till its edge is gone—­and then I’ll know how to restore it without any delay.

We all go to Paris next Thursday—­address, Monroe & Co., Bankers. 
                                   With love
                                             Ys Ever
          
                                             mark.

In Paris they found pleasant quarters at the Hotel Normandy, but it was a chilly, rainy spring, and the travelers gained a rather poor impression of the French capital.  Mark Twain’s work did not go well, at first, because of the noises of the street.  But then he found a quieter corner in the hotel and made better progress.  In a brief note to Aldrich he said:  “I sleep like a lamb and write like a lion—­I mean the kind of a lion that writes—­if any such.”  He expected to finish the book in six weeks; that is to say, before returning to America.  He was looking after its illustrations himself, and a letter to Frank Bliss, of The American Publishing Company, refers to the frontpiece, which, from time to time, has caused question as to its origin.  To Bliss he says:  “It is a thing which I manufactured by pasting a popular comic picture into the middle of a celebrated