I have stared at my keyboard a long time waiting for some words to seep through the numbness and sadness. Nick and I first became acquainted in the early 1970s when he wrote the University of Houston asking about the Twain books in their rare book room. As a young rare book cataloger (and Twain collector) then working at UH, it was my pleasant duty to answer his questions (UH had a small and uninteresting collection). When I later became a rare book dealer, I had the pleasure of sending some good Twain material his way, and passing along news of interesting things that appeared in the market. This was a task that became increasingly difficult as his collection expanded, and his "wants" narrowed. Nick and I regularly speculated, mostly in jest, about which of us had the larger or better collection, but because our specific collecting interests overlapped by less than 50% we found ourselves direct competitors far less often than many others have imagined. When Nick, my wife, and I occasionally met together at some bookfair or other event, I sometimes found myself sitting quietly to one side while they engaged in animated chatter about their mutual experiences as school administrators. When Nick retired, he had planned to devote himself to his Twain collection full-time, and I looked forward to another 20-30 years of his good cheer and friendship. But that hope was short-lived, and his health steadily worsened in recent years, and it has been painful to witness even from a distance as great as mine. I last visited with him at length at the Twain Conference in Elmira, where I found myself helping him negotiate his way through the chairs at the end of Lou Budd's 80th birthday celebration. I have no doubt that Nick would be amused to know that even in death I still envy him a few of the pieces in his collection that I envied during his life (we amused ourselves regularly by reminding each other of the pieces we each thought rightfully belonged in the other's collection). But I doubt Nick would have guessed the darkness and depth of my grief at his passing. Many of us have lost a friend. I hope the Twain community at large realizes how great a benefactor it has lost. Kevin Mac Donnell Austin TX