t, for we
wanted to show you how much "Megalopis" has grown (she is 7 now) and
what a fine creature her sister is, and how prettily they both speak
German. There are six persons in my party, and they are as difficult
to cart around as nearly any other menagerie would be. My wife and Miss
Spaulding are along, and you may imagine how they take to heart this
failure of our long promised Edinburgh trip. We never even wrote you,
because we were always so sure, from day to day, that our affairs
would finally so shape themselves as to let us get to Scotland. But
no,--everything went wrong we had only flying trips here and there in
place of the leisurely ones which we had planned.

We arrived in Liverpool an hour ago very tired, and have halted at
this hotel (by the advice of misguided friends)--and if my instinct
and experience are worth anything, it is the very worst hotel on earth,
without any exception. We shall move to another hotel early in the
morning to spend to-morrow. We sail for America next day in the
"Gallic."

We all join in the sincerest love to you, and in the kindest remembrance
to "Jock"--[Son of Doctor Brown.]--and your sister.

Truly yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

It was September 3, 1879, that Mark Twain returned to America by the
steamer Gallic. In the seventeen months of his absence he had taken
on a "traveled look" and had added gray hairs. A New York paper
said of his arrival that he looked older than when he went to
Germany, and that his hair had turned quite gray.

Mark Twain had not finished his book of travel in Paris--in fact,
it seemed to him far from complete--and he settled down rather
grimly to work on it at Quarry Farm. When, after a few days no word
of greeting came from Howells, Clemens wrote to ask if he were dead
or only sleeping. Howells hastily sent a line to say that he had
been sleeping "The sleep of a torpid conscience. I will feign that
I did not know where to write you; but I love you and all of yours,
and I am tremendously glad that you are home again. When and where
shall we meet? Have you come home with your pockets full of
Atlantic papers?" Clemens, toiling away at his book, was, as usual,
not without the prospect of other plans. Orion, as literary
material, never failed to excite him.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in