And there’s more politics—­the clash between Czech and Austrian.  I wish I could understand these quarrels, but of course I can’t.

With the abounding love of us all
          
                              mark.

In Following the Equator there was used an amusing picture showing Mark Twain on his trip around the world.  It was a trick photograph made from a picture of Mark Twain taken in a steamer-chair, cut out and combined with a dilapidated negro-cart drawn by a horse and an ox.  In it Clemens appears to be sitting luxuriously in the end of the disreputable cart.  His companions are two negroes.  To the creator of this ingenious effect Mark Twain sent a characteristic acknowledgment.

To T. S. Frisbie

Vienna, Oct. 25, ’97.  Mr. T. S. Frisbie,—­Dear Sir:  The picture has reached me, and has moved me deeply.  That was a steady, sympathetic and honorable team, and although it was not swift, and not showy, it pulled me around the globe successfully, and always attracted its proper share of attention, even in the midst of the most costly and fashionable turnouts.  Princes and dukes and other experts were always enthused by the harness and could hardly keep from trying to buy it.  The barouche does not look as fine, now, as it did earlier-but that was before the earthquake.

The portraits of myself and uncle and nephew are very good indeed, and your impressionist reproduction of the palace of the Governor General of India is accurate and full of tender feeling.

I consider that this picture is much more than a work of art.  How much more, one cannot say with exactness, but I should think two-thirds more.

                    Very truly yours
                                   mark twain.

Following the Equator was issued by subscription through Mark Twain’s old publishers, the Blisses, of Hartford.  The sale of it was large, not only on account of the value of the book itself, but also because of the sympathy of the American people with Mark Twain’s brave struggle to pay his debts.  When the newspapers began to print exaggerated stories of the vast profits that were piling up, Bliss became worried, for he thought it would modify the sympathy.  He cabled Clemens for a denial, with the following result: 

To Frank E. Bliss, in Hartford: 

Vienna, Nov. 4, 1897.  Dear bliss,—­Your cablegram informing me that a report is in circulation which purports to come from me and which says I have recently made $82,000 and paid all my debts has just reached me, and I have cabled back my regret to you that it is not true.  I wrote a letter—­a private letter—­a short time ago, in which I expressed the belief that I should be out of debt within the next twelvemonth.  If you make as much as usual for me out of the book, that belief will crystallize into a fact, and I shall be wholly out of debt.  I am encoring you now.