This chapter provides us with a good example of the use of slang in regional dialects. My attempt at a dialogue between Scotty Briggs and the minister misses in a few spots but I think I've followed the conversation fairly closely.

Some anecdotes about the creation of the Nevada Nabobs, suddenly rich folk, and their adventures.

Mr. Goodman and a journeyman printer arrive in Virginia City. They revive the moribund Territorial Enterprise and the flush times of the Nevada Territory shift into high gear, as exemplified by the sale(s) of the Sanitary Fund Flour Sack.

A review of how money was actually made in the Nevada silver mines.

Twain provides a nice description of the boom times in Virginia City, the days of the Comstock Lode. He is now a reporter on the staff of the Enterprise and enjoys a friendly rivalry with Boggs of the Union.

The young Mark Twain finally convinces a pilot, Mr Bixby, to take him on as a cub and learn him the river. He soon finds out that there is much more to the job than he's ever imagined, including working the night shift. However, the romance is returned full force when he finds himself on a full size New Orleans riverboat.

I've seen this story described as Faustian, but I don't see these people as selling their souls for this sack of gold. It seems to me they've already done that. I suppose this could be thought of as the devil coming to collect his due. The story was written in 1898 while Mark was living in Vienna, Austria. This was a time of great elitism, with the Hapsburg aristocrats, and also a time described as "notoriously, stingingly, passionately antisemitic". Mark was courted by aristocrats and also denounced in the press as either a "Jew-lover" or as a "secret Jew".

Young Mark is traveling the Ohio River, posing for the boys on shore while attempting to become acquainted with the riverboat men. He can obtain the attention of only a humbug.