Read "The Gilded Age, Volume 4" by Mark Twain online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Whatever may have been the language of Harry's letter to the Colonel, the information it conveyed was condensed or expanded, one or the other, from the following episode of his visit to New York:
He called, with official importance in his mien, at No. -- Wall street, where a great gilt sign betokened the presence of the head-quarters of the "Columbus River Slack-Water Navigation Company. " He entered and gave a dressy porter his card, and was requested to wait a moment in a sort of ante-room. The porter returned in a minute; and asked whom he would like to see?