with plans for
furthering the sale of the great military Memoir to follow literary
ventures of his own. At one time he was impelled to dictate an
autobiography--Grant's difficulties in his dying hour suggesting
this--and he arranged with Redpath, who was no longer a lecture agent
and understood stenography, to co-operate with him in the work. He
dictated a few chapters, but he was otherwise too much occupied to
continue. Also, he was unused to dictation, and found it hard and the
result unsatisfactory.

Two open communications from Mark Twain that year deserve to be
remembered. One of these; unsigned, was published in the Century
Magazine, and expressed the need for a "universal tinker," the man who
can accept a job in a large household or in a community as master of
all trades, with sufficient knowledge of each to be ready to undertake
whatever repairs are likely to be required in the ordinary household,
such as--"to put in windowpanes, mend gas leaks, jack-plane the edges of
doors that won't shut, keep the waste-pipe and other water-pipe joints,
glue and otherwise repair havoc done in furniture, etc." The letter was
signed X. Y. Z., and it brought replies from various parts of the world.
None of the applicants seemed universally qualified, but in Kansas City
a business was founded on the idea, adopting "The Universal Tinker" as
its firm name.

The other letter mentioned was written to the 'Christian Union',
inspired by a tale entitled, "What Ought We to Have Done?" It was a
tale concerning the government of children; especially concerning the
government of one child--John Junior--a child who, as it would appear
from the tale, had a habit of running things pretty much to his own
notion. The performance of John junior, and of his parents in trying to
manage him, stirred Mark Twain considerably--it being "enough to make
a body's blood boil," as he confesses--and it impelled him to set down
surreptitiously his impressions of what would have happened to John
Junior as a member of the Clemens household. He did not dare to show the
communication to Mrs. Clemens before he sent it, for he knew pretty well
what its fate would be in that case. So he took chances and printed it
without her knowledge. The letter was published July 16, 1885. It is too
long to be included entire, but it is too illuminating to be altogether
omitted. After relating, in considerable detail, Mrs. Clemens's method
of dealing with an unruly child--the