1 Neither the original letter, nor Elliott’s paraphrase of it in his newspaper, the Fort Plain (N.Y.) Mohawk Valley Register, has been found. That paraphrase survives only as it was reprinted in advertisements for The Innocents Abroad, first produced in early July. Although Clemens might have written this “private note” at almost any time in February or early March, when he still expected both to publish his book and to be in California by the end of March, he most likely would have waited until he had seen tangible progress towards publication. This letter therefore may be assigned to the initial period of his 5–13 March stay in Hartford, after he first saw such progress, in the form of early proofs of the illustrations, but before he learned that his book was in fact not “about to issue,” and that he needed to find a different title for it. Associate editor of the Mohawk Valley Register, Elliott had been Clemens’s host, and had praised him lavishly in print, when he lectured in Fort Plain the previous December (L2, 335). In 1869 Elliott continued this obsequious treatment, notwithstanding Clemens soon tired of it (see 21 Aug 69 to OLL, n. 6).