use--a speech long remembered in Hartford as one of the great
efforts of his life.

A very warm friendship had grown up between Mark Twain and General Grant.
A year earlier, on the famous soldier's return from his trip around the
world, a great birthday banquet had been given him in Chicago, at which
Mark Twain's speech had been the event of the evening. The colonel who
long before had chased the young pilot-soldier through the Mississippi
bottoms had become his conquering hero, and Grant's admiration for
America's foremost humorist was most hearty. Now and again Clemens urged
General Grant to write his memoirs for publication, but the hero of many
battles was afraid to venture into the field of letters. He had no
confidence in his ability to write. He did not realize that the man who
had written "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,"
and, later, "Let us have peace," was capable of English as terse and
forceful as the Latin of Caesar's Commentaries.

XLII

MANY INVESTMENTS

The "Prince and the Pauper," delayed for one reason and another, did not
make its public appearance until the end of 1881. It was issued by
Osgood, of Boston, and was a different book in every way from any that
Mark Twain had published before. Mrs. Clemens, who loved the story, had
insisted that no expense should be spared in its making, and it was,
indeed, a handsome volume. It was filled with beautiful pen-and-ink
drawings, and the binding was rich. The dedication to its two earliest
critics read:

"To those good-mannered and agreeable
children, Susy and Clara Clemens."

The story itself was unlike anything in Mark Twain's former work. It was
pure romance, a beautiful, idyllic tale, though not without his touch of
humor and humanity on every page. And how breathlessly interesting it
is! We may imagine that first little audience--the "two good-mannered
and agreeable children," drawing up in their little chairs by the
fireside, hanging on every paragraph of the adventures of the wandering
prince and Tom Canty, the pauper king, eager always for more.

The story, at first, was not entirely understood by the reviewers. They
did not believe it could be serious. They expected a joke in it
somewhere. Some even thought they had found it. But it was not a joke,
it was just a simple tale--a beautiful picture of a long-vanished time.
One critic, wiser than the rest, said:

"The characters of those two boys