Buf. Dec. 20.
Friend Bliss
Have just read over, approved & signed that contract, & it will go to you to-night.1
Riley is my man—did I introduce him to you in New York? He sails Jan. 4 for Africa. Just read about him in my Galaxy Memoranda for a month or two ago—have forgotten which month, but it is headed “Riley—Newspaper Correspondent.”2 Riley is perfectly honorable & reliable in every possible way—his simple promise is as good as any man’s oath. I have roomed with him long, & have known him years. He has “roughed [it]” it ‸in‸ many savage countries & is as tough as a pine-knot. He is the very best man in the entire United States for this mission—& when he comes back & tells me his story in my study (for he is a splendid talker,) I’ll set it down red hot, & that book will just make the “Innocents” sick! I He is to talk to me 2 hours a day, till I have week after week & month after month till I have pumped him entirely dry, I boarding him free in my house & paying him $50 a month beside. I’ll get two 600–page books out of his experiences, see if I don’t. And if you make the first one go, we won’t have any trouble about who shall publish the second one. I mean to keep Riley traveling for me till I wear him out!
All this is “mum.”
Yrs Clemens
P. S. When I [ teel tel[e]graphed] you to send the check for $1,500 it didn’t occur to me that maybe you’d rather have the contract signed first, but that was just likel my thoughtlessness. But send the check to me [on] New York, made payable to the order of J. H. Riley, & I will forward it to him at Washington, as he desired me to do. If you haven’t sent it yet, you may make it in two drafts,3 one for $10000 and one for $1,40000.
How is my brother getting along, & what sort of a home has he gone into?4
Mark.
[letter docketed:] Mark Twain | Dec 20/70 | Author
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
We send you to day our check on New York for
Fifteen Hundred Dolls, payable to your order, & you
can endorse it over to anyone you choose to. . . . Did you find
the contract at Buffalo on your return & is it all
right. If so sign & return at your
convenience— . . . Please acknowledge receipt of check
&c. Let me know about Mss. & also about
the sketches & come on & have a talk if
possible. (CU-MARK) The check was on the Tenth National Bank, in New York
(NN-B). On 22 December Clemens endorsed it to
Riley and enclosed it in a letter that went first to Washington and
then by 26 December reached Riley in Philadelphia, where he was
visiting his mother (Riley to SLC, 26 Dec 70, 31 Dec 70, both in
CU-MARK).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L4, 276–278; Christie 1991, lot 201, with omission.
Provenance:The present location of the MS (formerly property of “A
Lady”), sold at auction in 1991, is not known.
Emendations and textual notes:
it • [deletion implied]
teel tel[e]graphed • teellgraphed
on • [sic]
