"How much do you think it ought to be, Mark?" asked one of the
proprietors.
Clemens said: "Oh, I'm a modest man; I don't want the whole 'Union'
office; call it a hundred dollars a column."
There was a general laugh. The bill was made out at that figure, and he
took it to the office for payment.
"The cashier didn't faint," he wrote many years later, "but he came
rather near it. He sent for the proprietors, and they only laughed in
their jolly fashion, and said it was robbery, but `no matter, pay it.
It's all right.' The best men that ever owned a paper." [6]
[6] "My Debut as a Literary Person."
XXVI.
MARK TWAIN, LECTURER
In spite of the success of his Sandwich Island letters, Samuel Clemens
felt, on his return to San Francisco, that his future was not bright. He
was not a good, all-round newspaper man--he was special correspondent and
sketch-writer, out of a job.
He had a number of plans, but they did not promise much. One idea was to
make a book from his Hawaiian material. Another was to write magazine
articles, beginning with one on the Hornet disaster. He did, in fact,
write the Hornet article, and its prompt acceptance by "Harper's
Magazine" delighted him, for it seemed a start in the right direction.
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