“We have made thirty-five miles in less than five days.  This shows
   the thing can be done.  Shall finish now by rail.  Did you have any
   bets on us?”

He also telegraphed Howells that they were about to arrive in Boston, and they did, in fact, reach the Howells home about nine o’clock, and found excellent company—­the Cambridge set—­and a most welcome supper waiting.  Clemens and Twichell were ravenous.  Clemens demanded food immediately.  Howells writes: 

“I can see him now as he stood up in the midst of our friends, with his head thrown back, and in his hands a dish of those scalloped oysters without which no party in Cambridge was really a party, exulting in the tale of his adventure, which had abounded in the most original characters and amusing incidents at every mile of their progress.”

The pedestrians returned to Hartford a day or two later—­by train.  It was during another, though less extended, tour which Twichell and Clemens made that fall, that the latter got his idea for a Mississippi book.  Howells had been pleading for something for the January “Atlantic,” of which he was now chief editor, but thus far Mark Twain’s inspiration had failed.  He wrote at last, “My head won’t go,” but later, the same day, he sent another hasty line.

“I take back the remark that I can’t write for the January number, for Twichell and I have had a long walk in the woods, and I got to telling him about old Mississippi days of steam-boating glory and grandeur as I saw them (during four years) from the pilot-house.  He said, ‘What a virgin subject to hurl into a magazine!’ I hadn’t thought of that before.  Would you like a series of papers to run through three months, or six, or nine—­or about four months, say?”

Howells wrote at once, welcoming the idea.  Clemens forthwith sent the first instalment of that marvelous series of river chapters which rank to-day among the very best of his work.  As pictures of the vanished Mississippi life they are so real, so convincing, so full of charm that they can never grow old.  As long as any one reads of the Mississippi they will look up those chapters of Mark Twain’s piloting days.  When the first number appeared, John Hay wrote: 

   “It is perfect; no more, no less.  I don’t see how you do it.”

The “Old Times” chapter ran through seven numbers of the “Atlantic,” and show Mark Twain at his very best.  They form now most of the early chapters of “Life on the Mississippi.”  The remainder of that book was added about seven years later.

Those were busy literary days for Mark Twain.  Writing the river chapters carried him back, and hardly had he finished them when he took up the neglected story of “Tom and Huck,” and finished that under full steam.  He at first thought of publishing it in the “Atlantic”, but decided against this plan.  He sent Howells the manuscript to read, and received the fullest praise.  Howells wrote: