n (57) noted, while in San Francisco, "the company [Twain] kept was of a mixed nature, running the gamut from clergymen to derelicts." Although Twain was a good writer and knew of all levels of society, it is hard to not feel that the adventurous spirit of the male youths in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are but mirror images of the roaming freespirited young Twain.
Twain returned to the river and learned how to be a riverboat pilot until the end of the civil war stopped the flow of traffic along the Mississippi. His name, river slang for two fathoms deep, came from this period, which would be chronicled in Life On The Mississippi. Next, Artemus Ward taught Twain how to lecture properly; Twain then moved to California as a roving correspondent. The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County established his fame as a story-teller and humorist. His lectures grew, but it was his work, The Innocents Abroad, which gained him respect as a man of letters and enough financial stability to marry Olivia Langdon. Immediately following this period, Twain put out his greatest works: Roughing It, Tom Sawyer, A Tramp Abroad, The Prince And The Pauper, Life On The Mississippi, Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee In
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