The MS. sketch mentioned in the foregoing letter was "The
     Canvasser's Tale," later included in the volume, Tom Sawyer Abroad,
     and Other Stories.  It is far from being Mark Twain's best work, but
     was accepted and printed in the Atlantic.  David Gray was an able
     journalist and editor whom Mark Twain had known in Buffalo.

     The "sketch of Elizabeth's time" is a brilliant piece of writing
     —an imaginary record of conversation and court manners in the good
     old days of free speech and performance, phrased in the language of
     the period.  Gray, John Hay, Twichell, and others who had a chance
     to see it thought highly of it, and Hay had it set in type and a few
     proofs taken for private circulation.  Some years afterward a West
     Point officer had a special font of antique type made for it, and
     printed a hundred copies.  But the present-day reader would hardly
     be willing to include "Fireside Conversation in the Time of Queen
     Elizabeth" in Mark Twain's collected works.

     Clemens was a strong Republican in those days, as his letters of
     this period show.  His mention of the "caves" in the next is another
     reference to "The Canvasser's Tale."