d the remark
about the sum being a little more than the present number of males on
the planet--that is wrong, of course; it represents really one and a
half the existing males.

Now and then one of Mark Twain's old comrades still reached out to
him across the years. He always welcomed such letters--they came as
from a lost land of romance, recalled always with tenderness. He
sent light, chaffing replies, but they were never without an
undercurrent of affection.

*****

To Major "Jack" Downing, in Middleport, Ohio:

HOTEL KRANTZ, WEIN, I, NEUER MART 6,
Feb. 26, 1899.

DEAR MAJOR,--No: it was to Bixby that I was apprenticed. He was to teach
me the river for a certain specified sum. I have forgotten what it was,
but I paid it. I steered a trip for Bart Bowen, of Keokuk, on the A.
T. Lacy, and I was partner with Will Bowen on the A. B. Chambers (one
trip), and with Sam Bowen a whole summer on a small Memphis packet.

The newspaper report you sent me is incorrect. Bixby is not 67: he is
97. I am 63 myself, and I couldn't talk plain and had just begun to walk
when I apprenticed myself to Bixby who was then passing himself off for
57 and successfully too, for he always looked 60 or 70 years younger
than he really was. At that time he was piloting the Mississippi on a
Potomac commission granted him by George Washington who was a personal
friend of his before the Revolution. He has piloted every important
river in America, on that commission, he has also used it as a passport
in Russia. I have never revealed these facts before. I notice, too, that
you are deceiving the people concerning your age. The printed portrait
which you have enclosed is not a portrait of you, but a portrait of me
when I was 19. I remember very well when it was common for people
to mistake Bixby for your grandson. Is it spreading, I wonder--this
disposition of pilots to renew their youth by doubtful methods? Beck
Jolly and Joe Bryan--they probably go to Sunday school now--but it will
not deceive.

Yes, it is as you say. All of the procession but a fraction has passed.
It is time for us all to fall in.

Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in New York:

HOTEL KRANTZ, WIEN I. NEUER MARKT 6