Certainly a queer "testimonial." And we are glad that the selling agents, in spite of Mark Twain's prohibition, had the "nerve" to publish it. In course of time Mark Twain overcame his reticence, and many years after, in his "Autobiography," he tells in his own inimitable manner all about his first typewriter. It seems that he bought it in Boston late in the autumn of 1874, when in company with that other famous humorist D. R. Locke, better known as "Petroleum V. Nasby." He and Nasby saw the strange looking device in the window of the Remington store, were drawn in by curiosity, and Mark Twain purchased one on the spot. What Nasby's impressions were of his purchase Mark Twain does not tell us, but we know that they must have been deep and vivid, for only a short time later we find Nasby a member of the firm which for a time controlled the sale of the Remington Typewriter. Shortly afterward Mark Twain had one of his manuscripts type-copied on this typewriter. The "Autobiography" says that this book was "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but in this statement, based only on his memory of the long ago, Mark Twain must have been mistaken. A letter of his, written many years earlier, proves that the book was "Life on the Mississippi." However, the exact identity of the book is a minor matter. In any case, Mark Twain was unquestionably the first author who ever submitted a typewritten manuscript to a publisher, a practice now universal. And it accords with the importance of this great step in progress that this original typewritten manuscript should have been a literary masterpiece. Another letter, typed by Mark Twain himself, appears in fac-simile in his "Autobiography." This letter was written to his brother, Orien Clemens, three months before the letter to E. Remington & Sons, and before the "curiosity breeding little joker" had worn out his patience. It has a special interest because it was the first letter written by Mark Twain on his first typewriter. The row of characters typed across the top of the sheet are undoubtedly the work of Mark Twain's little daughter Susie, to whom reference is made in the letter. Mark Twain's description of the first typewriter as a "curiosity breeding little joker" applies very well to those who had some inkling of what the machine really was, but, on those who did not, the impression was sometimes very different. The story is classic of the Kentucky mountaineer who returned his first typewritten letter to the man who wrote it, with the words indignantly scribbled on the margin, "You don't need to print no letters for me. I kin read writin." This particular yarn cannot be verified, but there were plenty of similar cases. J. P. Johns, a Texas insurance man and banker in the seventies, gives the following transcript from memory of a reply he once received from one of his agents to one of his first typewritten letters: Dear Sir: I received your communication and will act accordingly.