Mark Twain, A Biography 1875-1886 | Page 8

a sultry denial which became a soothing and
balmy subterfuge before it reached the front door.

The "slave" must have been setting the table in good season, for the
Clemens breakfasts were likely to be late. They usually came along
about nine o'clock, by which time Howells and John were fairly
clawing with hunger.
Clemens did not have an early appetite, but when it came it was a good
one. Breakfast and dinner were his important meals. He seldom ate at
all during the middle of the day, though if guests were present he would
join them at luncheon-time and walk up and down while they were
eating, talking and gesticulating in his fervent, fascinating way.
Sometimes Mrs. Clemens would say:
"Oh, Youth, do come and sit down with us. We can listen so much
better."
But he seldom did. At dinner, too, it was his habit, between the courses,
to rise from the table and walk up and down the room, waving his
napkin and talking!--talking in a strain and with a charm that he could
never quite equal with his pen. It's the opinion of most people who
knew Mark Twain personally that his impromptu utterances, delivered
with that ineffable quality of speech, manifested the culmination of his
genius.
When Clemens came to Boston the Howells household was regulated,
or rather unregulated, without regard to former routine. Mark Twain's
personality was of a sort that unconsciously compelled the general
attendance of any household. The reader may recall Josh Billings's
remark on the subject. Howells tells how they kept their guest to
themselves when he visited their home in Cambridge, permitting him to
indulge in as many unconventions as he chose; how Clemens would
take a room at the Parker House, leaving the gas burning day and night,
and perhaps arrive at Cambridge, after a dinner or a reading, in evening
dress and slippers, and joyously remain with them for a day or more in
that guise, slipping on an overcoat and a pair of rubbers when they
went for a walk. Also, how he smoked continuously in every room of
the house, smoked during every waking moment, and how Howells,
mindful of his insurance, sometimes slipped in and removed the
still-burning cigar after he was asleep.
Clemens had difficulty in getting to sleep in that earlier day, and for a
time found it soothing to drink a little champagne on retiring. Once,
when he arrived in Boston, Howells said:

"Clemens, we've laid in a bottle of champagne for you."
But he answered:
"Oh, that's no good any more. Beer's the thing."
So Howells provided the beer, and always afterward had a vision of his
guest going up-stairs that night with a pint bottle under each arm.
He invented other methods of inducing slumber as the years went by,
and at one time found that this precious boon came more easily when
he stretched himself on the bath-room floor.
He was a perpetual joy to the Howells family when he was there, even
though the household required a general reorganization when he was
gone.
Mildred Howells remembers how, as a very little girl, her mother
cautioned her not to ask for anything she wanted at the table when
company was present, but to speak privately of it to her. Miss Howells
declares that while Mark Twain was their guest she nearly starved
because it was impossible to get her mother's attention; and Mrs.
Howells, after one of those visits of hilarity and disorder, said:
"Well, it 'most kills me, but it pays," a remark which Clemens vastly
enjoyed. Howells himself once wrote:
Your visit was a perfect ovation for us; we never enjoy anything so
much as those visits of yours. The smoke and the Scotch and the late
hours almost kill us; but we look each other in the eyes when you are
gone, and say what a glorious time it was, and air the library, and begin
sleeping and longing to have you back again....

CVIII
SUMMER LABORS AT QUARRY FARM
They went to Elmira, that summer of '76, to be "hermits and eschew
caves and live in the sun," as Clemens wrote in a letter to Dr. Brown.
They returned to the place as to Paradise: Clemens to his study and the
books which he always called for, Mrs. Clemens to a blessed relief
from social obligations, the children to the shady play-places, the green,
sloping hill, where they could race and tumble, and to all their animal
friends.
Susy was really growing up. She had had several birthdays, quite grand
affairs, when she had been brought down in the morning, decked, and
with proper ceremonies, with subsequent celebration. She was a strange,

thoughtful child, much given to reflecting on the power and presence of
infinity, for she