Page:Boys Life of Mark Twain.djvu/161

"MARK TWAIN" in a new land. Clemens took a trip from Carson up to Virginia City.

"Joe," he said to Goodman, "I want to sign my articles. I want to be identified to a wider audience."

"All right, Sam. What name do you want to use—Josh?"

"No, I want to sign them Mark Twain. It is an old river term, a leadsman's call, signifying two fathoms—twelve feet. It has a richness about it; it was always a pleasant sound for a pilot to hear on a dark night; it meant safe waters."

He did not mention that Captain Sellers had used and dropped the name. He was not proud of his part in that episode, and it was too recent for confession.

Goodman considered a moment. "Very well, Sam," he said, "that sounds like a good name."

A good name, indeed! Probably, if he had considered every combination of words in the language, he could not have found a better one. To-day we recognize it as the greatest nom de plume ever chosen, and, somehow, we cannot believe that the writer of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and Roughing It could have selected any other had he tried.

The name Mark Twain was first signed to a Carson letter, February 2, 1863, and after that to all of Samuel Clemens's work. The letters that had amused so many readers had taken on a new interest—the interest that goes with a name. It became immediately more than a pen-name. Clemens found he had attached a name to himself as well as to his letters. Everybody began to address him as Mark. 131