Within a few weeks he was writing humorous accounts of “My Late Senatorial Secretaryship,” “Facts Concerning the Recent Resignation,” etc., all good-natured burlesque, but inspired, we may believe, by the change:  These articles appeared in the New York Tribune, the New York Citizen, and the Galaxy Magazine.

There appears to have been no ill-feeling at this time between Clemens and Stewart.  If so, it is not discoverable in any of the former’s personal or newspaper correspondence.  In fact, in his article relating to his “late senatorial secretaryship” he puts the joke, so far as it is a joke, on Senator James W. Nye, probably as an additional punishment for Nye’s failure to appear on the night of his lecture.  He established headquarters with a brilliant newspaper correspondent named Riley.  “One of the best men in Washington—­or elsewhere,” he tells us in a brief sketch of that person.—­[See Riley, newspaper correspondent.  Sketches New and Old.]—­He had known Riley in San Francisco; the two were congenial, and settled down to their several undertakings.

Clemens was chiefly concerned over two things:  he wished to make money and he wished to secure a government appointment for Orion.  He had used up the most of his lecture accumulations, and was moderately in debt.  His work was in demand at good rates, for those days, and with working opportunity he could presently dispose of his financial problem.  The Tribune was anxious for letters; the Enterprise and Alta were waiting for them; the Herald, the Chicago Tribune, the magazines—­all had solicited contributions; the lecture bureaus pursued him.  Personally his outlook was bright.

The appointment for Orion was a different matter.  The powers were not especially interested in a brother; there were too many brothers and assorted relatives on the official waiting-list already.  Clemens was offered appointments for himself—­a consulship, a post-mastership; even that of San Francisco.  From the Cabinet down, the Washington political contingent had read his travel-letters, and was ready to recognize officially the author of them in his own person and personality.

Also, socially:  Mark Twain found himself all at once in the midst of receptions, dinners, and speech-making; all very exciting for a time at least, but not profitable, not conducive to work.  At a dinner of the Washington Correspondents Club his response to the toast, “Women,” was pronounced by Schuyler Colfax to be “the best after dinner speech ever made.”  Certainly it was a refreshing departure from the prosy or clumsy-witted efforts common to that period.  He was coming altogether into his own.—­[This is the first of Mark Twain’s after-dinner speeches to be preserved.  The reader will find it complete, as reported next day, in Appendix G, at the end of last volume.]