In "Roughing It" the author tells us how he finally was dismissed from the "Call" for general incompetency, and presently found himself in the depths of hard luck, debt, and poverty. But this is only his old habit of making a story on himself sound as uncomplimentary as possible. The true version is that the "Call" publisher and Mark Twain had a friendly talk and decided that it was better for both to break off the connection. Almost immediately he arranged to write a daily San Francisco letter for the "Enterprise," for which he received thirty dollars a week. This, with his earnings from the "Californian," made his total return larger than before. Very likely he was hard up from time to time--literary men are often that--but that he was ever in abject poverty, as he would have us believe, is just a good story and not history. XXIV. THE DISCOVERY OF "THE JUMPING FROG" Mark Twain's daily letters to the "Enterprise" stirred up trouble for him in San Francisco. He was free, now, to write what he chose, and he attacked the corrupt police management with such fierceness that, when copies of the "Enterprise" got back to San Francisco, they started a commotion at the city hall. Then Mark Twain let himself go more vigorously than ever. He sent letters to the "Enterprise" that made even the printers afraid. Goodman, however, was fearless, and let them go in, word for word. The libel suit which the San Francisco chief of police brought against the Enterprise advertised the paper amazingly. But now came what at the time seemed an unfortunate circumstance. Steve Gillis, always a fearless defender of the weak, one night rushed to the assistance of two young fellows who had been set upon by three roughs. Gillis, though small of stature, was a terrific combatant, and he presently put two of the assailants to flight and had the other ready for the hospital. Next day it turned out that the roughs were henchmen of the police, and Gillis was arrested. Clemens went his bail, and advised Steve to go down to Virginia City until the storm blew over. But it did not blow over for Mark Twain. The police department was only too glad to have a chance at the author of the fierce "Enterprise" letters, and promptly issued a summons for him, with an execution against his personal effects. If James N. Gillis, brother of Steve, had not happened along just then and spirited Mark Twain away to his mining-camp in the Tuolumne Hills, the beautiful gold watch given to the governor of the Third House might have been sacrificed in the cause of friendship.