l we go away
for the Summer, 3 or 6 weeks hence. So I am writing to you not because
I have anything to say, but because you don't have to answer and I need
something to do this afternoon.....

I have a letter from a Congressman this morning, and he says Congress
couldn't be persuaded to bother about Canadian pirates at a time
like this when all legislation must have a political and Presidential
bearing, else Congress won't look at it. So have changed my mind and my
course; I go north, to kill a pirate. I must procure repose some way,
else I cannot get down to work again.

Pray offer my most sincere and respectful approval to the President--is
approval the proper word? I find it is the one I most value here in the
household and seldomest get.

With our affection to you both.

Yrs ever
MARK.

It was always dangerous to send strangers with letters of
introduction to Mark Twain. They were so apt to arrive at the wrong
time, or to find him in the wrong mood. Howells was willing to risk
it, and that the result was only amusing instead of tragic is the
best proof of their friendship.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Belmont, Mass.:

June 9, '80.

Well, old practical joker, the corpse of Mr. X----has been here, and
I have bedded it and fed it, and put down my work during 24 hours
and tried my level best to make it do something, or say something, or
appreciate something--but no, it was worse than Lazarus. A kind-hearted,
well-meaning corpse was the Boston young man, but lawsy bless me,
horribly dull company. Now, old man, unless you have great confidence in
Mr. X's judgment, you ought to make him submit his article to you before
he prints it. For only think how true I was to you: Every hour that he
was here I was saying, gloatingly, "O G-- d--- you, when you are in bed
and your light out, I will fix you" (meaning to kill him)...., but then
the thought would follow--"No, Howells sent him--he shall be spared, he
shall be respected he shall travel hell-wards by his own route."

Breakfast is frozen by this time, and Mrs. Clemens correspondingly hot.
Good bye.

Yrs ever,
MARK.

"I did not expect you to ask that man to live with you," Howells
answered. "What I was afraid of was that you would t