10/02/2026 11:17

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It was that evening or the next, perhaps, that he said to her: Ben [one of his pet names for her], now that you are here to run theranch, Paine and I are going to Washington on a vacation. If he had ever heard of that sketch ofmine he did not manifest it in any way, and at twelve, midnight, I tookmy scalp home intact. So Samuel Clemens had reached the half-century mark; reached it in whatseemed the fullness of success from every viewpoint. After three days' labor we finally succeeded in sparring heroff with a capstan bar, and went on to Memphis.

ill keep that episode alive and important as literature when otherwiseit would have been merely embalmed, and dimly remembered, as history. He declared it wasthe first likeness he had ever seen of General Grant that approachedreality. Little Jean was probably too youthful yet to take part in that literaryarbitration. No poem had ever given me so much pleasure before, and none has given me so much pleasure since.