is characteristic. He is always humorous. Once he arranged for a donkey to be sent to the Elmira summer home for one of the children to ride. He acknowledged the receipt: “Much obliged, Homer, for the jackass. Tell Redpath I shall not want him now.” Of course the latter reference was to a business matter, but the conjunction was irresistible. In the autumn of 1899 he wrote to me: “I’m not going to barnstorm the platform any more, but I am glad you have corralled Howells. He’s a most sinful man, and I always knew God would send him to the platform if he didn’t behave.” In another letter he writes: “Say! Some time ago I received notice that I had been elected honorary member of the ‘Society of Sons of Steerage Immigrants,’ and was told that Kipling, Hop Smith, and Nelson Page are officers of it. What right have they to belong? Ask Page or Smith about it.” But it is not always fun. His business letters are clear and straightforward. He understood how to deal with his audiences and to meet requirements with the utmost honesty. But his “nerves” were readily worn out on the surface, and one of his horrors was delay in beginning and the late comers who always interrupt. He devised small programmes, printed on stiff card paper, so that they could neither be used as fans nor rustle, which is so annoying to a person on the platform. He and Cable were always friends, but the novelist never could resist the temptation to lengthen the reading of his selections, and this made a constant friction, because it necessarily curtailed the time left for “Mark,” sensitive ever to the obligation he felt to the audiences. Throughout the scores of letters in my possession there are constant and charming references to his wife and children, unpremeditated in expression, and therefore the more valuable. His hospitable spirit is also as fully exhibited. He has the keenest sense of personal honor, as well as of his own rights. I had received a letter from the Secretary of War notifying me that by order of the President a Congressional medal of honor had been presented to me for “most distinguished gallantry in action”--gallantry thirty-seven years ago. I was so proud that I wrote Mark about it. He wrote me from Austria, June 17, 1898, in reply: * * * * * “Keltenburgeben. “DEAR POND: My, it’s a long jump from the time you played solitaire with your cannon! Yes, I should think you would want to go soldiering again. Old as I am, I want to go to the war myself. And I should do it, too, if it were not for the danger. “To-day we ought to get great news from Cuba. I am watching for the Vienna evening papers. This is a good war with a dignified cause to fight for. A thing not to be said of the average war.” * * * * *