o smoke wreaths to
the clear sky. Of Musquash itself lighted by the same mysterious agency,
flares of gas eight feet long, roaring day and night at the corners of
the grass-grown streets because it wasn't worth while to turn them out;
of fleets of coal-flats being hauled down the river on an interminable
journey to St. Louis; of factories nestling in woods where all the
axe-handles and shovels in the world seemed to be manufactured daily;
and last, of that quaint forgotten German community, the Brotherhood of
Perpetual Separation, who founded themselves when the State was yet
young and land cheap, and are now dying out because they will neither
marry nor give in marriage and their recruits are very few. The advance
in the value of land has almost smothered these poor old people in a
golden affluence that they never desired. They live in a little village
where the houses are built old Dutch fashion, with their front doors
away from the road, and cobbled paths all about. The cloistered peace of
Musquash is a metropolitan riot beside the hush of that village. And
there is, too, a love-tale tucked away among the flowers. It has taken
seventy years in the telling, for the brother and sister loved each
other well, but they loved their duty to the brotherhood more. So they
have lived and still do live, seeing each other daily, and separated for
all time. Any trouble that might have been is altogether wiped out of
their faces, which are as calm as those of very little children. To the
uninitiated those constant ones resemble extremely old people in
garments of absurd cut. But they love each other, and that seems to
bring one back quite naturally to the girls and the boys in Musquash.
The boys were nice boys--graduates of Yale of course; you mustn't
mention Harvard here--but none the less skilled in business, in stocks
and shares, the boring for oil, and the sale of everything that can be
sold by one sinner to another. Skilled, too, in baseball,
big-shouldered, with straight eyes and square chins--but not above
occasional diversion and mild orgies. They will make good citizens and
possess the earth, and eventually wed one of the nice white muslin
dresses. There are worse things in this world than being "one of the
boys" in Musquash.

No. XXXVII

AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK TWAIN.

You are a contemptible lot, over yonder. Some of you are Commissioners,
and some Lieutenant-Governors, and some have the V. C., and a few are
p