urn him out of
doors, on sight, and so I tried to put in a good word for him.
After this when I want you to board people, I'll ask you. I am
sorry for your suffering. I suppose I have mostly lost my smell for
bores; but yours is preternaturally keen. I shall begin to be
afraid I bore you. (How does that make you feel?)"

In a letter to Twichell--a remarkable letter--when baby Jean Clemens
was about a month old, we get a happy hint of conditions at Quarry
Farm, and in the background a glimpse of Mark Twain's unfailing
tragic reflection.

*****

To Rev. Twichell, in Hartford:

QUARRY FARM, Aug. 29 ['80].

DEAR OLD JOE,--Concerning Jean Clemens, if anybody said he "didn't see
no pints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog," I
should think he was convicting himself of being a pretty poor sort of
observer.... I will not go into details; it is not necessary; you will
soon be in Hartford, where I have already hired a hall; the admission
fee will be but a trifle.

It is curious to note the change in the stock-quotation of the Affection
Board brought about by throwing this new security on the market. Four
weeks ago the children still put Mamma at the head of the list right
along, where she had always been. But now:

Jean
Mamma
Motley [a cat]
Fraulein [another]
Papa

That is the way it stands, now Mamma is become No. 2; I have dropped
from No. 4., and am become No. 5. Some time ago it used to be nip and
tuck between me and the cats, but after the cats "developed" I didn't
stand any more show.

I've got a swollen ear; so I take advantage of it to lie abed most of
the day, and read and smoke and scribble and have a good time. Last
evening Livy said with deep concern, "O dear, I believe an abscess is
forming in your ear."

I responded as the poet would have done if he had had a cold in the
head--

"Tis said that abscess conquers love,
But O believe it not."

This made a coolness.

Been reading Daniel Webster's Private Correspondence. Have read a
hundred of his diffuse, conceited, "eloquent," bathotic (or bathostic)
letters written in that dim (no, vanished) Past when he was a student;
and Lord, to think that this boy who is so real to me now, and so
booming with fresh young blood and