Explanatory Notes
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Apparatus Notes
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CHAPTER 59
[begin page 405]

CHAPTER 59

For a time I wrote literary screeds for the Golden Era explanatory note. C. H. Webb had established a very excellent literary weekly called the Californian, but high merit was no guaranty of success; it languished, and he sold out to three printers, and Bret Harteexplanatory note became editor at twenty dollarsemendation a week, and I was employed to contribute an article a week at twelve dollarsexplanatory note emendation. But the journal still languished, and the printers sold out to Capt.emendation Ogden, a rich man and a pleasant gentlemanexplanatory note who chose to amuse himself with such an expensive luxury without much caring about the cost of it. When he grew tired of the novelty, he re-sold to the printers, the paper presently died a peaceful death, and I was out of work again. I would not mention these things but for the fact that they so aptly illustrate the ups and downs that characterize life on the Pacific coast. A man could hardly stumble into such a variety of queer vicissitudesexplanatory note in any other country.

slinking.

For two months my sole occupation was avoiding acquaintances; for during that time I did not earn a penny, or buy an article of any kind, or pay my board. I became a very adept at “slinking.”explanatory note I slunk from back street to back street, I slunk away from approaching faces that looked familiar, I slunk to my meals, ate them humbly and with a mute apology for every mouthful I robbed my generous landlady of, and at midnight, [begin page 406] after wanderings that were but slinkings away from cheerfulness and light, I slunk to my bed. I felt meaner, and lowlier and more despicable than the worms. During all this time I had but one piece of money—a silver ten-centemendation piece—and I held to it and would not spend it on any account, lest the consciousness coming strong upon me that I was entirely penniless, might suggest suicide. I had pawned everythingemendation but the clothes I had on; so I clung to my dime desperately, till it was smooth with handling.

However, I am forgetting. I did have one other occupation besidesemendation that of “slinking.” It was the entertaining of a collector (and being entertained by him,)explanatory note who had in his hands the Virginia banker’s bill for the forty-six dollars which I had loaned my schoolmate, the “Prodigal.”explanatory note This man used to call regularly once a week and dun me, and sometimes oftener. He did it from sheer force of habit, for he knew he could get nothing. He would get out his bill, calculate the interest for me, at five per cent a month, and show me clearly that there was no attempt at fraud in it and no mistakes; and then plead, and argue and dun with all his might for any sum—any little trifle—even a dollar—even half a dollar, on account. Then his duty was accomplished and his conscience free. He immediately dropped the subject there always; got out a couple of cigars and divided, put his feet in the window, and then we would have a long, luxurious talk about everything and everybody, and he would furnish me a world of curious dunning adventures out of the ample store in his memory. By and by he would clap his hat on his head, shake hands and say briskly:

“Well, business is business—can’t stay with you always!”—and was off in a second.

The idea of pining for a dun! And yet I used to long for him to come, and would get as uneasy as any mother if the day went by without his visit, when I was expecting him. But he never collected that bill, at last,emendation nor any part of it. I lived to pay it to the banker myself.

Misery loves company. Now and then at night, in out-of-the-wayemendation, dimly lighted places, I found myself happening on another child of misfortune. He looked so seedy and forlorn, so homeless and friendless and forsaken, that I yearned toward him as a brother. I wanted to claim kinship with him and go about and enjoy our [begin page 407] wretchedness together. The drawing toward each other must have been mutual; at any rate we got to falling together oftener, though still seemingly by accident; and although we did not speak or evince any recognition, I think the dull anxiety passed out of both of us when we saw each other, and then for several hours we would idle along contentedly, wide apart, and glancing furtively in at home lights and fireside gatherings, out of the night shadows, and very much enjoying our dumb companionship.

Finally we spoke, and were inseparable after that. For our woes were identical, almost. He had been a reporter too, and lost his berth, and this was his experience, as nearly as I can recollect it. After losing his berth, he had gone down, down, down, with never a halt: from a boarding house on Russian Hill to a boarding house in Kearnyemendation street; from thence to Dupont; from thence to a low sailor den; and from thence to lodgings in goods boxes and empty hogsheads near the wharves. Then, for a while, he had gained a meagre living by sewing up bursted sacks of grain on the piers; when that failed he had found food here and there as chance threw it in his way. He had ceased to show his face in daylight, now, for a reporter knows everybody, rich and poor, high and low, and cannot well avoid familiar faces in the broad light of day.

This mendicant Blucherexplanatory note—I call him that for convenience—was a splendid creature. He was full of hope, pluck and philosophy; he was well read and a man of cultivated taste; he had a bright wit and was a master of satire; his kindliness and his generous spirit made him royal in my eyes and changed his curb-stone seat to a throne and his damaged hat to a crown.

He had an adventure, once, which sticks fast in my memory as the most pleasantly grotesque that ever touched my sympathies. He had been without a penny for two months. He had shirked about obscure streets, among friendly dim lights, till the thing had become second nature to him. But at last he was driven abroad in daylight. The cause was sufficient; he had not tasted food for forty-eight hours, and he could not endure the misery of his hunger in idle hiding. He came along a back street, glowering at the loaves in bake-shop windows, and feeling that he could trade his life away for a morsel to eat. The sight of the bread doubled his hunger; but it was good to look at it, anyhowemendation, and imagine what one might do [begin page 408] if one only had it. Presently, in the middle of the street he saw a shining spot—looked again—did not, and could not, believe his eyes—turned away, to try them, then looked again. It was a verity—no vain, hunger-inspired delusion—it was a silver dime!

a prize.
He snatched it—gloated over it; doubted it—bit it—found it genuine—choked his heart down, and smothered a halleluiah. Then he looked around—saw that nobody was looking at him—threw the dime down where it was before—walked away a few steps, and approached again, pretending he did not know it was there, so that he could re-enjoy the luxury of finding it. He walked around it, viewing it from different points; then sauntered about with his hands in his pockets, looking up at the signs and now and then glancing at it and feeling the old thrill again. Finally he took it up, and went away, fondling it in his pocket. He idled through unfrequented streets, stopping in doorways and corners to take it out and look at it. By and by he went home to his lodgings—an empty queensware hogshead,—and employed himself till night trying to make up his mind what to buy with it. But it was hard to do. To get the most for it was the idea. He knew that at the Miners’emendation Restaurant he could get a plate of beans and a piece of bread for ten cents; or a fish-ball and some few trifles, but they gave “no bread with one fish-ball” there. At French Pete’s he could get a veal cutlet, plain, and some radishes and bread, for ten cents; or a cup of coffee—a pint at least—and a slice of bread; but the slice was not thick enough by the eighth of an inch, and sometimes they were still more criminal than that in the cutting of it. At seven o’clock his hunger was wolfish; and still his mind was not made up. He turned out and went up Merchant street, still ciphering; and chewing a bit of stick, as is the way of starving men. He passed before the lights of Martin’s [begin page 409] restaurantexplanatory note, the most aristocratic in the city, and stopped. It was a place where he had often dined, in better days, and Martin knew him well. Standing aside, just out of the range of the light, he worshippedemendation the quails and steaks in the show window, and imagined that maybeemendation the fairy times were not gone yet and some prince in disguise would come along presently and tell him to go in there and take whatever he wanted. He chewed his stick with a hungry interest as he warmed to his subject. Just at this juncture he was conscious of some one at his side, sure enough; and then a finger touched his arm. He looked up, over his shoulder, and saw an apparition—a very allegory of Hunger! It was a man six feet high, gaunt, unshaven, hung with rags; with a haggard face and sunken cheeks, and eyes that pleaded piteously. This phantom said:

“Come with me—please.”

a look in at the window.

He locked his arm in Blucher’s and walked up the street to where the passengers were few and the light not strong, and then facing about, put out his hands in a beseeching way, and said:

“Friend—stranger—look at me! Life is easy to you—you go about, placid and content, as I did once, in my day—you have been in there, and eaten your sumptuous supper, and picked your teeth, and hummed your tune, and thought your pleasant thoughts, and said to yourself it is a good world—but you’ve never suffered! emendation You don’t know what trouble is—you don’t know what misery is—nor hunger! Look at me! Stranger have pity on a poor friendless, homeless dog! As God is my judge, I have not tasted food for eight and forty hours!—look in my eyes and see if I lie! Give me the least trifle in the world to keep me from starving—anything—twenty-five cents! Do it, stranger—do it, please. It will be nothing to you, but [begin page 410] life to me. Do it, and I will go down on my knees and lick the dust before you! I will kiss your footprints—I will worship the very ground you walk on! Only twenty-five cents! I am famishing—perishing—starving by inches! For God’s sake don’t desert me!”

do it, stranger.”emendation

Blucher was bewildered—and touched, too—stirred to the depths. He reflected. Thought again. Then an idea struck him, and he said:

“Come with me.”

He took the outcast’s arm, walked him down to Martin’s restaurant, seated him at a marble table, placed the bill of fare before him, and said:

“Order what you want, friend. Charge it to me, Mr. Martin.”

“All right, Mr. Blucher,” said Martin.

Then Blucher stepped back and leaned against the counter and watched the man stow away cargo after cargo of buckwheat cakes [begin page 411] at seventy-five cents a plate; cup after cup of coffee, and porter house steaks worth two dollars apiece; and when six dollars and a half’s worth of destruction had been accomplished, and the stranger’s hunger appeased, Blucher went down to French Pete’s, bought a veal cutlet plain, a slice of bread, and three radishes, with his dime, and set to and feasted like a king!

Take the episode all aroundexplanatory note, it was as odd as any that can be culled from the myriad curiosities of Californian life, perhaps.

Editorial Emendations CHAPTER 59
  twenty dollars (C)  ●  $20 (A) 
  twelve dollars (C)  ●  $12 (A) 
  Capt. (C)  ●  Captain (A) 
  ten-cent (C)  ●  ten cent (A) 
  everything (C)  ●  every thing (A) 
  besides (C)  ●  beside (A) 
  last, (C)  ●  last  (A) 
  out-of-the-way (C)  ●  out-of-the way (A) 
  Kearny (C)  ●  Kearney (A) 
  anyhow (C)  ●  any how (A) 
  Miners’ (C)  ●  Miner’s (A) 
  worshipped (C)  ●  worshiped (A) 
  maybe (C)  ●  may be (A) 
  suffered!  (C)  ●  suffered! (A) 
  “do it, stranger.” (C)  ●  do it stranger.  (A) 
Explanatory Notes CHAPTER 59
 I wrote literary screeds for the Golden Era] The San Francisco Golden Era was founded on 19 December 1852 by Rollin M. Daggett [begin page 699] (see the note at 340.8–9) and J. Macdonough Foard, and purchased in 1860 by Joseph E. Lawrence and James Brooks. It quickly became the leading literary paper on the West Coast. Its luxurious office was the gathering place for local literary figures as well as distinguished visitors. The Era had already published (or reprinted) seven contributions by Mark Twain in 1863 and early 1864, and now—after his return to San Francisco in late May 1864—published three more (see SLC 1863d, 1863r–v, 1864f, 1864h–j). The Golden Era declined after the 1860s, finally ceasing publication in 1893.
 C. H. Webb had established . . . the Californian . . . the paper presently died a peaceful death, and I was out of work again . . . queer vicissitudes] The first issue of the Californian, founded by Charles Henry Webb (see the note at 340.20–21), appeared on 28 May 1864 and soon earned favorable reviews from both the California and the eastern press. Nevertheless, in September 1864 Webb sold out to Richard L. Ogden (see the note at 405.7–8), who in turn relinquished his interest two months later to “three printers”—P. J. Thomas, A. M. Kenaday, and A. A. Stickney—together constituting the Californian Printing and Publishing Company. In January 1866 Webb again became a coproprietor along with Stickney, J. P. Bogardus, and William J. Bingham. During its first two years, the Californian was edited alternately by Webb and Bret Harte: Harte replaced Webb from 10 September to 19 November 1864, from 15 or 22 April to 30 December 1865, and from Webb’s departure for New York on 18 April 1866 to 1 August 1866. In August 1866 Stickney and Bingham sold their interest to Bogardus, and James F. Bowman replaced Harte as editor; in October Bowman purchased Webb’s remaining interest in the paper. Bowman and Bogardus continued together until January 1868, when the latter became sole proprietor, with Tremenheere L. Johns listed as his co-editor. The Californian survived—under different owners and editors—for several months longer: contrary to the statement in Roughing It, its “peaceful death” came with the issue of 21 November 1868, almost two years after Clemens had left the West (Californian: 1 [6 Aug 64]: 9; 1 [3 Sept 64]: 8; 1 [26 Nov 64]: 8; 2 [15 Apr 65]: 8; 4 [6 Jan 66]: 8; 4 [13 Jan 66]: 8; 4 [21 Apr 66]: 8; 5 [18 Aug 66]: 8; 5 [20 Oct 66]: 8; 7 [11 Jan 68]: 8; 7 [18 Jan 68]: 8; “Opening Chorus,” 8 [21 Nov 68]: 2; L1 , 314 n. 5, 330 n. 4; ET&S2 , 144–45 n. 2; Harte to Webb, 18 Oct 66, CU-BANC).
 Bret Harte] Harte (born Francis Brett Harte, 1836–1902), a native of New York, went to California in 1854 and worked in a variety of occupations before settling in San Francisco in 1860. After setting type for the Golden Era he began publishing pieces of his own in that journal. In the fall of 1864, during his first stint as editor of the Californian, he presumably accepted the first nine of Mark Twain’s contributions (see the next note). In January 1866 he invited Clemens to collaborate [begin page 700] on a collection of sketches, which, however, they never produced (see L1 , 328). From July 1868 he served as the first editor of the Overland Monthly, for which he wrote some of his best work. After his departure for the East in February 1871, he contributed pieces to the Atlantic Monthly, but their quality was disappointing. From 1878 until his death he lived abroad, serving for a time as a consul in Prussia and then in Scotland. The work of his later years lacked the “vigor, color, and wit” of his early material, and “for the rest of his life he was little better than a hack writer” ( DAB , 4:362–65).
 

I was employed to contribute an article a week at twelve dollars] On 25 September 1864, almost three months after his final contribution to the Golden Era and six days before his first sketch appeared in the Californian, Clemens wrote to his family:

I have engaged to write for the new literary paper—the “Californian”—same pay I used to receive on the “Golden Era”—one article a week, fifty dollars a month. I quit the “Era,” long ago. It wasn’t high-toned enough. I thought that whether I was a literary “jackleg” or not, I wouldn’t class myself with that style of people, anyhow. The “Californian” circulates among the highest class of the community, & is the best weekly literary paper in the United States—& I suppose I ought to know. ( L1 , 312)

Mark Twain’s debut sketch, “A Notable Conundrum,” was the first of twenty-seven original contributions to the Californian between 1 October 1864 and 29 September 1866 (SLC 1864t–bb, 1865a, 1865c–f, 1865h–j, 1865m, 1865o, 1865q–r, 1865v, 1865z, 1865dd–ee, 1866dd, 1866jj).

 

Capt. Ogden, a rich man and a pleasant gentleman] Richard Livingston Ogden (1825–1900), a native of New York, joined the army early in his life and served in the Mexican War, after which he settled in California and tried his hand at mining. He attained the rank of captain in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps, serving in San Francisco in 1863–64. After leaving military service, he successfully pursued careers both in journalism and in business. As “Podgers,” he corresponded for the New York Times and the San Francisco Alta California (an 1865 letter to the Alta described the favorable reception in New York of Mark Twain’s “Jumping Frog” tale: see Ogden, 1). His business interests included the management of George P. Kimball and Company of San Francisco, manufacturer of carriages and cars (Shuck et al., 1015–20). An item in the San Francisco Morning Call of 4 September 1864, probably by Clemens, reported Ogden’s purchase of the Californian: “Mr. Webb has sold the paper to Captain Ogden, a gentleman of fine literary attainments, an able writer, and the possessor of a happy bank account” (SLC 1864r). Writing to Clemens in 1883, Ogden explained why he sold the Californian after only two months. He recalled

settling every Saturday with the literary talent—at a considerable loss over receipts—all because the public was not as appreciative as at the present day, i e [begin page 701] the enterprise was a little too early. Webb found that out, and after having borrowed all the money I had, to keep it up, generously walked off and left me to run it for fun. When I had got about $5000 worth of fun out of it—I sold out for what I could get and never got that.—Some of the things you wrote in those days were as good if not better than you ever wrote since. I can safely say it in Hartes case. (Ogden to SLC, 19 June 83, CU-MARK)

 

For two months . . . I did not earn a penny . . . I became a very adept at “slinking.”] Mark Twain may be drawing upon memories of two periods of financial distress during his residence in San Francisco—the first in 1864, and the second in 1865—but he was not wholly unemployed at either time. The Roughing It chronology places the two-month “slinking” period in late 1864—from about 10 October, when he lost his position with the Morning Call, until he departed in early December for Jackass Hill in Tuolumne County. During this period he apparently earned only $84 ($12 for each of seven sketches he published in the Californian); his departure from the Call cost him $200 in lost wages ($25 per week for eight weeks). In addition, on 21 October he was obliged to pay an assessment of $100 on four shares of Hale and Norcross stock, even though, when he left for Jackass Hill, he was able to take $300 with him, perhaps from the sale of one of these shares (SLC 1864v–bb; L1 , 312, 315, 316 n. 5, 318, 319 n. 5, 320). Clemens continued in straitened circumstances throughout the first half of 1865, but his situation seems to have become acute in the late summer and fall, even occasioning comment in the press. An item entitled “A Sheik on the Move,” presumably written by William K. McGrew, the Call’s local editor (see ET&S2 , 546), appeared in the Call on 29 October 1865:

There is now, and has been for a long time past, camping about through town, a melancholy-looking Arab, known as Marque Twein. . . . His favorite measure is a pint measure. He is said to be a person of prodigious capacity, and addicted to a great flow of spirits. He moves often. Like all Arabs, Marque Twein is instinctively itinerant. He moves periodically. These periods occur at the end of his credit. . . . This Arab . . . wants to claim kin with respectable folks, but he labors under a difficulty in finding persons who are “on it.” He may feel all right, but he don’t look affectionate. His hat is an old one, and comes too far down over his eyes, and his clothes don’t fit as if they were made for him. . . . Beware of him. (McGrew, 3)

Nine days earlier, Clemens had written a letter to Orion and Mollie Clemens which tends to confirm McGrew’s description:

I have a religion—but you will call it blasphemy. It is that there is a God for the rich man but none for the poor.

You are in trouble, & in debt—so am I. I am utterly miserable—so are you. Perhaps your religion will sustain you, will feed you—I place no dependence in mine. Our religions are alike, though, in one respect—neither can make a man happy when he is out of luck. If I do not get out of debt in 3 months,—pistols or poison for one—exit me. ( L1 , 324)

 the entertaining of a collector (and being entertained by him,)] This collector may have been Clemens’s friend John Henry Riley, the same man who figures later in this chapter as the mendicant [begin page 702] Blucher (see the note at 406.35–407.22). The identification is suggested by the fact that Riley evidently pursued a variety of unusual occupations during his years in San Francisco, several of which Clemens described for humorous effect in a November 1870 Galaxy sketch entitled “Riley—Newspaper Correspondent.” (The San Francisco city directory provides some corroboration of Riley’s employment history, listing him in 1862 as a “collector” for a grain brokerage.) Riley’s ability as a raconteur—as well as his love of smoking—endeared him to Clemens, who recalled the “unfailing vein of irony which makes his conversation to the last degree entertaining” (SLC 1870m; Langley 1862, 330, 381).
 the “Prodigal.”] See the note at 377.3–12.
 another child of misfortune . . . This mendicant Blucher] Clemens explicitly identified this Blucher (not to be confused with the callow “Blucher” of The Innocents Abroad) as John Henry Riley in a letter of 29 June 1871 to Mary Mason Fairbanks. Riley (1830?–72) was a Philadelphian who emigrated to California in 1849 and held a variety of jobs, including that of a newspaper reporter in San Francisco, before he sailed for Washington, D.C., in November 1865. There he worked for congressional committees, corresponded for the San Francisco Alta California, and attained prominence among the corps of journalists. For a time in the winter of 1867–68 he and Clemens shared lodgings in Washington. Late in 1870, Clemens persuaded him to collaborate on a book about the South African diamond mines. He spent several months of 1871 in South Africa at Clemens’s expense, gathering material for the project, and at the same time managed to secure an appointment as consul-general in the United States for the Orange Free State. He died of cancer in September 1872—about a year after his return from Africa—and the diamond-mine book was never written (SLC to Fairbanks, 29 June 71, CSmH, in MTMF , 155–56; MTMF , 115; SLC 1870m; biographical information in CU-MARK, courtesy of Gerald Thompson; Langley 1863, 306; “For the East,” San Francisco Alta California, 10 Nov 65, 1; obituary notice dated 4 Dec 72, Bloemfontein [Orange Free State] Gouvernements Courant, PH in CU-MARK; SLC to Riley, 2 Dec 70, CU-MARK; Riley to SLC, 23 Mar 71 and 3 Dec 71, CU-MARK).
 the Miners’ Restaurant . . . French Pete’s . . . Martin’s restaurant] The Miners’ Restaurant was a chophouse on Commercial Street—near the offices of the San Francisco Morning Call—known for its “square meals,” evidently paying “more regard . . . to . . . quantity than quality” (“An Old Land-Mark Gone,” Virginia City Evening Bulletin, 24 Oct 63, 4). Although “French Pete’s” is not listed in the San Francisco directories, it may have been a nickname for a second Miners’ Restaurant (run by the same proprietors as the original one—Pierre [begin page 703] and Francis Cordier), located at the corner of Sansome and Merchant streets (see also the next note). Martin’s (proprietor, Francisco Martin) was a high-toned establishment, also on Commercial Street, said to rival the better restaurants of New York; it was “much patronized by the Old Comstock crowd” (Edwords, 15; Langley 1860, 101, 210, 369; Langley 1859, 188; Neville, 136; Fletcher, 40).
 Take the episode all around] A fragment of manuscript in Clemens’s hand mentions an anecdote known to involve Riley, and then outlines the story related here, presumably also linked to him: “Found a dime—went up Kearney street—met poor man hungry—took him to Martin’s and fed him—then we went to the miner’s restaurant” (Anderson Auction Company, item 11: “we” may be a mistranscription of “he”). Clemens’s inscription of “miner’s restaurant” in this context supports the conjecture that “French Pete’s” was the Cordiers’ second Miners’ Restaurant.