Mark Twain--The Original of Colonel Mulberry Sellers--The "Earl of Durham"-- Some Noctes Ambrosianae--A Joke on Murat Halstead I Mark Twain came down to the footlights long after Artemus Ward had passed from the scene; but as an American humorist with whom during half a century I was closely intimate and round whom many of my London experiences revolve, it may be apropos to speak of him next after his elder.

There was not lacking a certain likeness between them.
Samuel L.Clemens and I were connected by a domestic tie, though before either of us were born the two families on the maternal side had been neighbors and friends.

An uncle of his married an aunt of mine--the children of this marriage cousins in common to us--albeit, this apart, we were life-time cronies.

He always contended that we were "bloodkin." Notwithstanding that when Mark Twain appeared east of the Alleghanies and north of the Blue Ridge he showed the weather-beating of the west, the bizarre alike of the pilot house and the mining camp very much in evidence, he came of decent people on both sides of the house.

The Clemens and the Lamptons were of good old English stock.