-shoe Club, Montreal:

DETROIT, February 12, 1885.

Midnight, P.S.

MY DEAR ILES,--I got your other telegram a while ago, and answered it,
explaining that I get only a couple of hours in the middle of the day
for social life. I know it doesn't seem rational that a man should have
to lie abed all day in order to be rested and equipped for talking an
hour at night, and yet in my case and Cable's it is so. Unless I get
a great deal of rest, a ghastly dulness settles down upon me on the
platform, and turns my performance into work, and hard work, whereas it
ought always to be pastime, recreation, solid enjoyment. Usually it is
just this latter, but that is because I take my rest faithfully, and
prepare myself to do my duty by my audience.

I am the obliged and appreciative servant of my brethren of the
Snow-shoe Club, and nothing in the world would delight me more than to
come to their house without naming time or terms on my own part--but
you see how it is. My cast iron duty is to my audience--it leaves me no
liberty and no option.

With kindest regards to the Club, and to you,

I am Sincerely yours

S. L. CLEMENS.

In the next letter we reach the end of the Clemens-Cable venture and
get a characteristic summing up of Mark Twain's general attitude
toward the companion of his travels. It must be read only in the
clear realization of Mark Twain's attitude toward orthodoxy, and his
habit of humor. Cable was as rigidly orthodox as Mark Twain was
revolutionary. The two were never anything but the best of friends.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

PHILADA. Feb. 27, '85.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--To-night in Baltimore, to-morrow afternoon and night
in Washington, and my four-months platform campaign is ended at last.
It has been a curious experience. It has taught me that Cable's gifts of
mind are greater and higher than I had suspected. But--

That "But" is pointing toward his religion. You will never, never
know, never divine, guess, imagine, how loathsome a thing the Christian
religion can be made until you come to know and study Cable daily and
hourly. Mind you, I like him; he is pleasant company; I rage and swear
at him sometimes, but we do not quarrel; we get along mighty happily
together; but in him and his person I have