t interfere with friendship. Clemens and Rice
were constant associates, though continually firing squibs at each
other in their respective papers--a form of personal journalism much
in vogue on the Comstock.

In the next letter we find these two journalistic "blades" enjoying
themselves together in the coast metropolis. This letter is labeled
"No. 2," meaning, probably, the second from San Francisco, but No. 1
has disappeared, and even No, 2 is incomplete.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

No. 2--($20.00 Enclosed)

LICK HOUSE, S. F., June 1, '63.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--The Unreliable and myself are still here,
and still enjoying ourselves. I suppose I know at least a thousand
people here--a great many of them citizens of San Francisco, but the
majority belonging in Washoe--and when I go down Montgomery street,
shaking hands with Tom, Dick and Harry, it is just like being in Main
street in Hannibal and meeting the old familiar faces. I do hate to go
back to Washoe. We fag ourselves completely out every day, and go to
sleep without rocking, every night. We dine out and we lunch out, and we
eat, drink and are happy--as it were. After breakfast, I don't often
see the hotel again until midnight--or after. I am going to the Dickens
mighty fast. I know a regular village of families here in the house,
but I never have time to call on them. Thunder! we'll know a little more
about this town, before we leave, than some of the people who live in
it. We take trips across the Bay to Oakland, and down to San Leandro,
and Alameda, and those places; and we go out to the Willows, and Hayes
Park, and Fort Point, and up to Benicia; and yesterday we were invited
out on a yachting excursion, and had a sail in the fastest yacht on the
Pacific Coast. Rice says: "Oh, no--we are not having any fun, Mark--Oh,
no, I reckon not--it's somebody else--it's probably the 'gentleman in
the wagon'!" (popular slang phrase.) When I invite Rice to the Lick
House to dinner, the proprietors send us champagne and claret, and then
we do put on the most disgusting airs. Rice says our calibre is too
light--we can't stand it to be noticed!

I rode down with a gentleman to the Ocean House, the other day, to see
the sea horses, and also to listen to the roar of the surf, and watch
the ships drifting about, here, and there, and far away at sea. When I
stood