15 July 1864 • San Francisco, Calif. (MS, damage emended: CU-BANC, UCCL 00084)
Tell Dawson2explanatory note to stir his old stumps & send me that money now if he possibly can. I have almost got that old debt of mine cleared up, & with his assistance & my wages, I can finish the job now. Don’t you fail to tell him.
Steve & I have moved our lodgings. The Steve did not tell his folks he had moved, & the other day his father3explanatory note went to our room, & finding it locked, he hunted up the old landlady (FrenchwomanⒶemendation,) & asked her where those young men were. She in bottom margin: (over didn’t know who he was, & she got her gun off without mincing matters. Said she—“They are gone, thank God—& I hope I may never see them again. I did not know anything about them, or they never should have entered this house. Do you know, Sir, (dropper Ⓐemendationher voice to a ghastly confidential tone,) they were a couple of desperate Ⓐemendationcharacters from Washoe—gamblers & murderers of the very worst description! I never saw such a countenance as the smallest one4explanatory note had on him. They just took the premises, & lorded it over everything—they didn’t care a snap for the rules of the house. One night when they were carrying on in their room with some more roughs, my husband went up to remonstrate with them, & that small man told him to take his head out of the door (pointing a revolver,) because he wanted to shoot in that direction. O, I never saw such creatures. Their room was never vacant long enough to be cleaned up—one of them always went to bed at dark & got up at sunrise, & the other went to bed at sunrise Ⓐemendation& got up at dark—& if the chamber-man disturbed them they would just set up in bed & level a pistol at him & tell him to get scarce! They used to bring loads of beer bottles up at midnight, & get drunk, & shout & fire off their pistols in the room, & thei throw Ⓐemendationtheir empty bottles out of the window at the Chinamen below. You’d hear them count ‘One—two—three—fire!’ & then you’d hear Ⓐemendationthe bottles Ⓐemendationcrash on the China roofs & see the poor Chinamen scatter like flies. O, it was dreadful! They kept a nasty foreign sword & any number of revolvers & bowie knives Ⓐemendationin their room, & I know that small one must have murdered los lots Ⓐemendationof people. They always had women running to their room—sometimes in broad daylight—bless you, they didn’t care. They had no respect for God, man, or the devil. Yes, Sir, they are gone, & the good g God Ⓐemendationwas kind to me when He sent them away!”
There, now—what in the hell is the use of wearing away a lifetime Ⓐemendationin building up a good name, if it is to be blown away at a breath by an ignorant foreigner who is ignorant of the pleasant little customs that adorn & beautify a state of high s civilizationⒶemendation?
The old man told Steve all about it in his dry, unsmiling way, & Steve laughed himself sick over it.
Walter Leman sails for the Sandwich Islands tomorrow—just going for recreation.5explanatory note
Give my great love to Joe & Put6explanatory note & all the boys—& write, you bilk.
But don’t I want to go to Asia, or somewhere—Oh no, I guess not. I have got the “Gypsy” only in a mild form. It will kill me yet, though.
It is clear from the contents of this letter that Clemens was no longer at the Occidental Hotel, but since he and Gillis changed lodgings frequently during this period it is likely that he was receiving his mail there.
George F. Dawson, an Englishman, was an editorial writer and assistant editor on the Territorial Enterprise and later librarian of the United States Senate (Daggett, 15; William Wright 1893, 13). According to Dan De Quille, Dawson boxed as a hobby and “particularly prided himself upon being a hard hitter.” De Quille described a painful encounter Clemens had with him, probably in late April 1864, at a Virginia City gymnasium:
One day some imp induced Mark Twain to put on a pair of boxing gloves, and with them all the airs of a knight of the prize ring. He had no thought of boxing with any one. Having seen more or less sparring on the stage, a good deal of amateur boxing, and probably one or two prize fights, Mark had got some of the motions. No sooner had he the gloves on than he began capering about the hall. Dawson observed his antics with astonishment not unmixed with awe. He evidently considered that they were made for his special benefit and intimidation. Perhaps he may have thought that he detected Mark regarding him interrogatively from beneath his bushy brows at the end of each series of cabezal rotations. At all events, in view of Mark’s movements of a supposed warlike import, Dawson kept a wary eye on him; never once suspecting that the ex-Mississippi pilot was merely making a bid for his admiration.
Presently Mark squared off directly in front of Dawson and began working his right like the piston of a steam engine, at the same time stretching out his neck and gyrating his curly pate in a very astonishing manner.
Dawson took this to be a direct act of defiance—a challenge to a trial of skill that could not be ignored. Desperately, therefore—and probably not without a secret chill of fear at his heart—Dawson drew off and with full force planted a heavy blow squarely upon Mark’s offered nose, the latter not making the least movement toward a guard.
The result was a “plentiful flow of claret” and a nose “like an egg-plant,” which supposedly so embarrassed Clemens that he accepted a reportorial assignment outside Virginia City just “to get his nose out of town” (William Wright 1893, 13–14). See also ET&S1 , 357–58.
Angus Gillis (see 25 Sept 64 to JLC and PAMclick to open letter, n. 3).
Steve Gillis.
Walter M. Leman, a popular San Francisco actor, had played for several weeks in April and May 1864 at Maguire’s Opera House in Virginia City, where he “made a great many friends” (“Theatrical Record,” San Francisco Morning Call, 15 May 64, 1). Leman sailed for the Sandwich Islands on 16 July aboard the bark Onward, arriving in Honolulu on 1 August. He lectured on “The Drama” and twice gave readings from Shakespeare and other dramatists before departing for San Francisco on 21 September (“Marine Intelligence,” San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 16 July 64, 5; Honolulu Pacific Commercial Advertiser: “Passengers” and “To the Public of Honolulu—A Card!” 6 Aug 64, 2; “The Lecture on the Drama,” 13 Aug 64, 2; “Mr. W. M. Leman,” 17 Sept 64, 2; “Passengers,” 24 Sept 64, 2).
Joseph T. Goodman and Charles A. V. Putnam.
MS, William Wright Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-BANC). Repeated foldings have worn holes in the MS where the creases intersect, affecting some characters, which have been emended. A photographic facsimile of the MS is on pp. 433–38. The MS consists of three half sheets of poor-quality off-white wove paper, 7⅜ by 9 7/16 inches (18.8 by 24 cm), each inscribed on both sides in black ink, now faded to brown. The paper, soiled and much folded, was formerly stitched together roughly where it had separated along the folds; some of the holes through which the thread passed are visible in the facsimile.
L1 , 302–305; Fender, 752, excerpts.
see the previous commentary.