Mark Twain, A Biography 1875-1886 | Page 7

cues all at sixes and sevens, but
it delighted the audience beyond measure. No such impersonation of
that. character was ever given before, or ever will be given again. It
was repeated with new and astonishing variations on the part of Peter,

and it could have been put on for a long run. Augustin Daly wrote
immediately, offering the Fifth Avenue Theater for a "benefit"
performance, and again, a few days later, urging acceptance. "Not for
one night, but for many."
Clemens was tempted, no doubt. Perhaps, if he had yielded, he would
today have had one more claim on immortality.

CVII
HOWELLS, CLEMENS, AND "GEORGE"
Howells and Clemens were visiting back and forth rather oftener just
then. Clemens was particularly fond of the Boston crowd--Aldrich,
Fields, Osgood, and the rest--delighting in those luncheons or dinners
which Osgood, that hospitable publisher, was always giving on one
pretext or another. No man ever loved company more than Osgood, or
to play the part of host and pay for the enjoyment of others. His dinners
were elaborate affairs, where the sages and poets and wits of that day
(and sometimes their wives) gathered. They were happy reunions, those
fore- gatherings, though perhaps a more intimate enjoyment was found
at the luncheons, where only two or three were invited, usually Aldrich,
Howells, and Clemens, and the talk continued through the afternoon
and into the deepening twilight, such company and such twilight as
somehow one seems never to find any more.
On one of the visits which Howells made to Hartford that year he took
his son John, then a small boy, with him. John was about six years old
at the time, with his head full of stories of Aladdin, and of other
Arabian fancies. On the way over his father said to him:
"Now, John, you will see a perfect palace."
They arrived, and John was awed into silence by the magnificence and
splendors of his surroundings until they went to the bath-room to wash
off the dust of travel. There he happened to notice a cake of pink soap.
"Why," he said, "they've even got their soap painted!" Next morning he
woke early--they were occupying the mahogany room on the ground
floor-- and slipping out through the library, and to the door of the
dining-room, he saw the colored butler, George--the immortal
George--setting the breakfast-table. He hurriedly tiptoed back and
whispered to his father:
"Come quick! The slave is setting the table!"

This being the second mention of George, it seems proper here that he
should be formally presented. Clemens used to say that George came
one day to wash windows and remained eighteen years. He was
precisely the sort of character that Mark Twain loved. He had formerly
been the body- servant of an army general and was typically racially
Southern, with those delightful attributes of wit and policy and
gentleness which go with the best type of negro character. The children
loved him no less than did their father. Mrs. Clemens likewise had a
weakness for George, though she did not approve of him. George's
morals were defective. He was an inveterate gambler. He would bet on
anything, though prudently and with knowledge. He would investigate
before he invested. If he placed his money on a horse, he knew the
horse's pedigree and the pedigree of the horses against it, also of their
riders. If he invested in an election, he knew all about the candidates.
He had agents among his own race, and among the whites as well, to
supply him with information. He kept them faithful to him by lending
them money--at ruinous interest. He buttonholed Mark Twain's callers
while he was removing their coats concerning the political situation,
much to the chagrin of Mrs. Clemens, who protested, though vainly, for
the men liked George and his ways, and upheld him in his iniquities.
Mrs. Clemens's disapproval of George reached the point, now and then,
where she declared he could not remain.
She even discharged him once, but next morning George was at the
breakfast-table, in attendance, as usual. Mrs. Clemens looked at him
gravely:
"George," she said, "didn't I discharge you yesterday?"
"Yes, Mis' Clemens, but I knew you couldn't get along without me, so I
thought I'd better stay a while."
In one of the letters to Howells, Clemens wrote:
When George first came he was one of the most religious of men. He
had but one fault--young George Washington's. But I have trained him;
and now it fairly breaks Mrs. Clemens's heart to hear him stand at that
front door and lie to an unwelcome visitor.
George was a fine diplomat. He would come up to the billiard-room
with a card or message from some one waiting below, and Clemens
would fling his soul into