MARK TWAIN IN THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC CHRONICLE
1865
MORE CALIFORNIA NOTABLES GONE
The steamer did not pan out well for Fitz Smythe on Monday. He only got one departing notability out of the whole list of passengers. Moses Ellis retired from business with a heavy income, was banquetted at the Occidental by the merchants of the city, "left us on a visit to the home of his nativity," and Fitz Smythe gloats over it to the extent of a "stickfull." But why did he neglect Conness? Why Rosecrans? Why Angela Starr King? And, above all, why did he let J. Schmeltzer go away without a parting dose of adulation? Oh, unhappy Schmeltzer, you didn't make your "pile," perhaps!
[published in Early Tales & Sketches, Volume 2, 1864-1865, University of California Press, 1981, p. 485.]
