the
book. I came across William Clinton, brother of the astronomer, and
together we invented a scheme for our mutual sustenance; we became the
fathers and originators of what is a common feature in the newspaper
world now--the syndicate. We became the old original first Newspaper
Syndicate on the planet; it was on a small scale, but that is usual with
untried new enterprises. We had twelve journals on our list; they were
all weeklies, all obscure and poor, and all scattered far away among the
back settlements. It was a proud thing for those little newspapers to
have a Washington correspondence, and a fortunate thing for us that they
felt in that way about it. Each of the twelve took two letters a week
from us, at a dollar per letter; each of us wrote one letter per week
and sent off six duplicates of it to these benefactors, thus acquiring
twenty-four dollars a week to live on--which was all we needed, in our
cheap and humble quarters.

Clinton was one of the dearest and loveliest human beings I have ever
known, and we led a charmed existence together, in a contentment which
knew no bounds. Clinton was refined by nature and breeding; he was a
gentleman by nature and breeding; he was highly educated; he was of a
beautiful spirit; he was pure in heart and speech. He was a Scotchman,
and a Presbyterian; a Presbyterian of the old and genuine school, being
honest and sincere in his religion, and loving it, and finding serenity
and peace in it. He hadn't a vice--unless a large and grateful sympathy
with Scotch whiskey may be called by that name. I didn't regard it as a
vice, because he was a Scotchman, and Scotch whiskey to a Scotchman is
as innocent as milk is to the rest of the human race. In Clinton's case
it was a virtue, and not an economical one. Twenty-four dollars a week
would really have been riches to us if we hadn't had to support that
jug; because of the jug we were always sailing pretty close to the wind,
and any tardiness in the arrival of any part of our income was sure to
cause us some inconvenience.

I remember a time when a shortage occurred; we had to have three
dollars, and we had to have it before the close of the day. I don't know
now how we happened to want all that money at one time; I only know we
had to have it. Clinton told me to go out and find it--and he said he
would also go out and see what he could do. He didn't seem to have any
doubt that we would succeed, but I knew that that was his religio