Several questions related to "Colloquy Between a Slum Child and a
Moral Mentor" (_Fables of Man_, 1977, pp. 106-109) and later
provided with a date of composition between Jan. and March 1868
in _Collected Tales, Speeches, & Essays_ ed. by Louis Budd
(pp. 253-256) --

What is the meaning of the phrase that slum child James (forerunner
of "Sociable Jimmy" ??) uses:  "I goes to the Bowery when shining's
good and I've got the lush." (_Fables of Man_, p. 106)?

This sketch seems to be closely related to Twain's letter to the
Virginia City Territorial Enterprise that was written on
Jan 20, 1868.  Online at:

http://www.tarleton.edu/activities/pages/facultypages/schmidt/18680219t.html

In the Jan. 20, 1868 letter Twain writes of touring the slum
tenements of New York; of meeting in a morgue a spectator
"...who has nothing in life to accomplish but the spending of
four hundred thousand dollars a year."

Any ideas on who the morgue spectator may have been?
Or who Twain's tour guide(s) of the slums may have been?
James Gordon Bennet, Jr. or staff from the New York Herald?
Or why he was touring the slums?  A letter written to his family
four days later only indicates that he has agreed to serve as
a correspondent to the New York Herald.  (_Letters, Vol. II_
p. 160)

Thanks for any comments,
Barb