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Clemens answered. “Writing stories, maybe, and broke. But who has time? When the big panic of ‘63 hit after we lost the war and hung on and on and on, the whole world turned upside down. I was damn lucky to have any sort of position, and I knew it. So I hung on like a limpet on a harbor rock. If I ever get ahead of the game—” He laughed. “About as likely as the Mormons giving up their extra wives, I expect.”
    Herndon had a couple of shots of whiskey in him, too. “Suppose you weren’t a newspaperman? What would you do then?”
    “I’ve tried mining—I was almost rich once, which is every bit as fine as almost being in love—and I was a Mississippi River pilot. If I wanted to take that up again, I’d have to take Confederate citizenship with it.”
    “Why not?” Herndon said. “Then you could have yourself another go at those Tennessee lands.”
    “No, thank you.” Briefly, Clemens had served in a Confederate regiment operating—or rather, bungling—in Missouri, which remained one of the United States, not least because most Confederatetroops there had been similarly inept. He didn’t admit to that; few in the USA who had ever had anything to do with the other side admitted it these days. After a moment, he went on. “Their record isn’t what you’d call good—more like what you’d call a skunk at a picnic.”
    Herndon laughed. “You do come up with ’em, Sam. Got to hand it to you. Maybe you ought to try writing yourself a book after all. People would buy it, I expect.”
    “Maybe,” Clemens said, which meant
no
. “Don’t see a lot of authors living off the fat of the land, do you? Besides, it may have taken me a while to cipher out what steady work was about, but I’ve got it down solid now. I lived on promises when I was a miner. I was a boy then, pretty much. I’m not a boy any more.”
    “All right, all right.” Herndon held up a placatory hand. He looked at his plate, as if astonished the beefsteak he’d ordered had disappeared. His shot glass was empty, too. “You want one more for the road?”
    “Not if I intend to get any work done this afternoon. You want to listen to me snore at my desk, that’s another matter.” Clemens got to his feet. He set a quarter and a small, shiny gold dollar on the table. Herndon laid down a dollar and a half. They left Martin’s—a splendid place, for anyone who could afford to eat there—and walked back to the
Morning Call
office.
    Edgar Leary, one of the junior reporters, waved a flimsy sheet of telegraph paper in their faces when they got in. He was almost hopping with excitement. “Look at this! Look at this!” He had crumbs in his sparse black beard; he brought his dinner to the
Morning Call
in a sack. “Didn’t come in five minutes ago, or I’m a Chinaman.”
    “If you’ll stop fanning me with it, I will have a look,” Clemens said. When Leary still waved the wire around, Sam snatched it out of his hand. “Give me that, dammit.” He turned it right side up and read it. The more he read, the higher his bushy eyebrows climbed. Once he’d finished, he passed it to Clay Herndon, saying, “Looks like I’ve got something for the editorial after all.”
    Herndon quickly skimmed the telegraphic report. His lips shaped a soundless whistle. “This here is more than something to feed you an editorial, Sam. This here could be trouble.”
    “Don’t I know it,” Clemens said. “But I can’t do the first thing about the trouble, and I can do something about the editorial. So I’ll do that, and I’ll let the rest of the world get into trouble. Youever notice how it’s real good about taking care of that whether anybody wants it to or not?”
    He pulled a cigar from a waistcoat pocket, bit off the end, scraped a match against the sole of his shoe, lighted the cigar, and tossed the match into a shiny brass cuspidor stained here and there with errant expectorations. Then he went over to his desk and pulled out the
George F. Cram