Page:Boys Life of Mark Twain.djvu/162

THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN Within a few weeks he was no longer "Sam" or "Clemens," but Mark—Mark Twain. The Coast papers liked the sound of it. It began to mean something to their readers. By the end of that legislative session Samuel Clemens, as Mark Twain, had acquired out there on that breezy Western slope something resembling fame.

Curiously, he fails to mention any of this success in his letters home of that period. Indeed, he seldom refers to his work, but more often speaks of mining shares which he has accumulated, and their possible values. His letters are airy, full of the joy of life and of the wild doings of the frontier. Closing one of them, he says: "I have just heard five pistol-shots down the street. As such things are in my line, I will go and see about it."

And in a postscript, later, he adds:

The Comstock was a great school for Mark Twain, and in Roughing It he has left us a faithful picture of its long-vanished glory.

More than one national character came out of the Comstock school. Senator James G. Fair was one of them, and John Mackay, both miners with pick and shovel at first, though Mackay presently became a superintendent. Mark Twain one day laughingly offered to trade jobs with Mackay.

"No," Mackay said, "I can't trade. My business 132