Page:Boys Life of Mark Twain.djvu/219

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MARK TWAIN IN BUFFALO

Express, at a loss, and gave up the "Memoranda." In the closing number (April, 1871) he said:

For the last eight months, with hardly an interval, I have had for my fellows and comrades, night and day, doctors and watchers of the sick! During these eight months death has taken two members of my home circle and malignantly threatened two others. All this I have experienced, yet all the time have been under contract to furnish humorous matter, once a month, for this magazine. . . . To be a pirate on a low salary and with no share of the profits in the business used to be my idea of an uncomfortable occupation, but I have other views now. To be a monthly humorist in a cheerless time is drearier.