THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN
usually beginning, "My opinion for the citizens of New Orleans," etc., prophesying river conditions and recalling memories as far back as 1811. These he generally signed "Mark Twain."
Naturally, the younger pilots amused themselves by imitating Sellers, and when Sam Clemens wrote a broad burlesque of the old man's contributions, relating a perfectly impossible trip, supposed to have been made in 1763 with a Chinese captain and a Choctaw crew, it was regarded as a masterpiece of wit.
It appeared in the True Delta in May, 1859, and broke Captain Sellers's literary heart. He never wrote another paragraph. Clemens always regretted the whole matter deeply, and his own revival of the name afterward was a sort of tribute to the old man he had thoughtlessly and unintentionally wounded.
Old pilots of that day remembered Samuel Clemens as a slender, fine-looking man, well dressed, even dandified, generally wearing blue serge, with fancy shirts, white duck trousers, and patent-leather shoes. A pilot could do that, for his surroundings were speckless.
The pilots regarded him as a great reader—a student of history, travels, and the sciences. In the association rooms they often saw him poring over serious books. He began the study of French one day in New Orleans, when he had passed a school of languages where French, German, and Italian were taught, one in each of three rooms. The price was twenty-five dollars for one language, or three for fifty. The student was provided with a set of
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