intest idea of how to set about it; but I am one
of the possible 20 or 30 who possess the secret, and I could go and put
my hand on that hidden treasure with a most deadly precision.

And I've been a prospector, and know pay rock from poor when I find
it--just with a touch of the tongue. And I've been a silver miner and
know how to dig and shovel and drill and put in a blast. And so I know
the mines and the miners interiorly as well as Bret Harte knows them
exteriorly.

And I was a newspaper reporter four years in cities, and so saw the
inside of many things; and was reporter in a legislature two sessions
and the same in Congress one session, and thus learned to know
personally three sample bodies of the smallest minds and the selfishest
souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes.

And I was some years a Mississippi pilot, and familiarly knew all the
different kinds of steam-boatmen--a race apart, and not like other folk.

And I was for some years a traveling "jour" printer, and wandered from
city to city--and so I know that sect familiarly.

And I was a lecturer on the public platform a number of seasons and was
a responder to toasts at all the different kinds of banquets--and so I
know a great many secrets about audiences--secrets not to be got out of
books, but only acquirable by experience.

And I watched over one dear project of mine for years, spent a fortune
on it, and failed to make it go--and the history of that would make a
large book in which a million men would see themselves as in a mirror;
and they would testify and say, Verily, this is not imagination; this
fellow has been there--and after would cast dust upon their heads,
cursing and blaspheming.

And I am a publisher, and did pay to one author's widow (General
Grant's) the largest copyright checks this world has seen--aggregating
more than L80,000 in the first year.

And I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55.

Now then; as the most valuable capital or culture or education usable
in the building of novels is personal experience I ought to be well
equipped for that trade.

I surely have the equipment, a wide culture, and all of it real, none of
it artificial, for I don't know anything about books.

[No signature.]

Clemens for several years had been bothered by rheumatism in his
shoulder. The return now to the steady use of the pen aggravated
his trouble, and at times he was