g, as if still cub pilot on the "John J. Roe:"

"Had an old horse whose name was Methusalem,
Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem,
A long time ago."

Pretending to be surprised and startled at the burst of applause, he
sprang up and began to talk. How the audience enjoyed it!

Mark Twain continued his lecture tour into December, and then, on the
15th of that month, sailed by way of the Isthmus of Panama for New York.
He had made some money, and was going home to see his people. He had
planned to make a trip around the world later, contributing a series of
letters to the "Alta California," lecturing where opportunity afforded.
He had been on the Coast five and a half years, and to his professions of
printing and piloting had added three others--mining, journalism, and
lecturing. Also, he had acquired a measure of fame. He could come back
to his people with a good account of his absence and a good heart for the
future.

But it seems now only a chance that he arrived at all. Crossing the
Isthmus, he embarked for New York on what proved to be a cholera ship.
For a time there were one or more funerals daily. An entry in his diary
says:

"Since the last two hours all laughter, all levity, has ceased on the
ship--a settled gloom is upon the faces of the passengers.

"But the winter air of the North checked the contagion, and there
were no new cases when New York City was reached."

Clemens remained but a short time in New York, and was presently in St.
Louis with his mother and sister. They thought he looked old, but he had
not changed in manner, and the gay banter between mother and son was soon
as lively as ever. He was thirty-one now, and she sixty-four, but the
years had made little difference. She petted him, joked with him, and
scolded him. In turn, he petted and comforted and teased her. She
decided he was the same Sam and always would be--a true prophecy.

He visited Hannibal and lectured there, receiving an ovation that would
have satisfied even Tom Sawyer. In Keokuk he lectured again, then
returned to St. Louis to plan his trip around the world.

He was not to make a trip around the world, however--not then. In St.
Louis he saw the notice of the great "Quaker City" Holy Land excursion
--the first excursion of the kind ever planned--and was greatly taken with
the idea. Impulsive as always, he wrote at once to the "Alta
California," proposing that they send him as their cor