s of the "Inquirer,"
setting ten thousand ems a day, and receiving pay accordingly. When
there was no vacancy for him to fill, he put in the time visiting the
Philadelphia libraries, art galleries, and historic landmarks. After
all, his chief business was sight-seeing. Work was only a means to this
end. Chilly evenings, when he returned to his boarding-house, his
room-mate, an Englishman named Sumner, grilled a herring over their small
open fire, and this was a great feast. He tried writing--obituary poetry,
for the "Philadelphia Ledger"--but it was not accepted.

"My efforts were not received with approval" was his comment long after.

In the "Inquirer" office there was a printer named Frog, and sometimes,
when he went out, the office "devils" would hang over his case a line
with a hook on it baited with a piece of red flannel. They never got
tired of this joke, and Frog never failed to get fighting mad when he saw
that dangling string with the bit of red flannel at the end. No doubt
Sam Clemens had his share in this mischief.

Sam found that he liked Philadelphia. He could save a little money and
send something to his mother--small amounts, but welcome. Once he
inclosed a gold dollar, "to serve as a specimen of the kind of stuff we
are paid with in Philadelphia." Better than doubtful "wild-cat,"
certainly. Of his work he writes:

"One man has engaged me to work for him every Sunday till the first
of next April, when I shall return home to take Ma to Ky . . . .
If I want to, I can get subbing every night of the week. I go to
work at seven in the evening and work till three the next morning.
. . . The type is mostly agate and minion, with some bourgeois,
and when one gets a good agate 'take,' he is sure to make money. I
made $2.50 last Sunday."

There is a long description of a trip on the Fairmount stage in this
letter, well-written and interesting, but too long to have place here.
In the same letter he speaks of the graves of Benjamin Franklin and his
wife, which he had looked at through the iron railing of the locked
inclosure. Probably it did not occur to him that there might be points
of similarity between Franklin's career and his own. Yet in time these
would be rather striking: each learned the printer's trade; each worked
in his brother's office and wrote for the paper; each left quietly and
went to New York, and from New York to Philadelphia, as a journeyman
printer; each in due season