Part 4 (1/2)

An enterprising reporter ed to track her down in Halifax, where she and Clara were staying for a few days while waiting for another shi+p houard, the journalist asked bluntly if she and Tere engaged to be h several shades of red as she tried to coht words to make a carefully measured reply ”I hope that you will contradict the report you have lad that I saw you in order that I ive this unqualified denial”

She emphasized that the relationshi+p was ton Post version of the report, her presence in Halifax was explained as si after her ehter while he was out of the country: ”Miss Lyon said that Miss Clemens had been ill, and they were on their way to St Johns, Newfoundland, but since the collision they had decided to abandon the Eastern part of their tripMiss Lyon, although she has recently been the secretary for Mr Clemens, acted in the same capacity for the late Mrs ClemensOn account of her attention to detail and her ability to keep track of engagements she has been invaluable to Mr Clemens”7 Predictably, an American correspondent in London approached Twain at Brown's Hotel and asked what he thought of the story He wasn't pleased Confronted with the question of whether he intended to wed Lyon, he was ”speechless” He had just returned to the hotel after a late night and wasn't ready to discuss such a personalGoing to his room, he sat down and wrote two sentences Then he sent the auous, coy, or forced about his reply

”I have not known, and shall never know, anyone who could fill the place of the wife I have lost I shall not ain S L Clemens”8 There were bound to be further co as Lyon's service to the family was more like that of a close relation than of a mere secretary Outsiders were naturally suspicious that the fa to assume the part of the family matriarch For someone like Clara, who cared so much for ”proprieties,” it is odd that she failed to see how others could easilyfriendshi+p with Lyon and jue, she had inadvertently done ossip than Twain's supposedly reckless act of strolling down the street in his bathrobe As one press report explicitly stated at the tie were linked: ”Miss Lyon ith Twain's daughter when the latter proved herself a heroinein Halifax harbor on Monday The engagerown out of this incident”9 Basking in his own success, Twain didn't criticize Clara for her trip, but teased her about his own supposedly exemplary behavior On the day before he sailed home, he wrote her, ”I have been most mannerly & etiquetical I have returned every call-card-calls by card, delivered by myself; personal calls in personEverybody has been very affectionate, & you will be spiteful & jealous”10 Of course, his way of dealing with their rivalry was to ht of it, and this was one of those times when Clara probably didn't appreciate his sense of hu to New York with Lyon, Clara traveled on her own to Boston and then stayed for a short tie in another one of her rest cures In New York, Lyon prepared for Twain's return She planned to meet him at the pier But Clara decided that it would be io home so soon She was content to let Lyon welcome her father back without her

RETURNING TO AMERICA on the Minnetonka-a sister shi+p of the Minneapolis-Twain ran into the same kind of trouble that Clara and Isabel Lyon had encountered on their trip After just two days at sea, his shi+p beca hours and collided with a fishi+ng schooner Both vessels survived the accident and remained seaworthy, but there was confusion aboard the liner at first, and the captain ordered everyone on deck for possible evacuation Most of the passengers were sleeping at the ti their nightclothes Just as the lifeboats were being lowered, however, the captain called off the alar determined that the hole from the collision was above the waterline and repairable

A great sense of relief ran through the various groups of passengers standing on the foggy deck in their robes and paja tension vanished coht wide shter, they pointed to a figure in a white robe and slippers wandering like a sleepy ghost a out in all directions fro spectacle that the crowd soon forgot about the collision and began asking each other questions about various aspects of Twain's sleeping attire As one of the onlookers later recounted, ”Aler was over a stage whisper went round that Mark Tas clad in pink pajamas Another report was that they were blue, and another was that while they were pajaht they were yellow”

It was left to Ralph Ashcroft to clear up the pajamas question ”I am sorry to disappoint you,” he soleers, ”but as a matter of fact Mr Cleht shi+rt” Despite this explanation, soers suspected that the real cause of the confusion was that Twain had own in the darkness and had been wearing it under his robe11 Sohtened by their close call that they slept fully dressed every night of the voyage thereafter While the shi+p ran at reduced speed so the crew could make repairs, Twain decided to let the outside world know that he and his fellow passengers had survived their brush with disaster in good shape Taking advantage of the shi+p's neireless telegraph syste that the dae, ”All well, MARK TWAIN” Later, he gave an honest explanation of why he had wired the news ”It was not that I knew anything ive the impression that I did”12 When the shi+p sailed into New York harbor on July 22 under a bright sky, the crowd at the pier was surprised to see that the dae froe had indicated As the New York A scrape on the starboard side of the Minnetonka, a jagged hole and several bent plates told of her narrow escape in a fog by collision with an English bark” But when reporters scurried aboard the shi+p and began bo Tith questions, he refused to take the accident seriously, preferring instead to joke about the way he was dressed when the alarm had sounded ”My costume was a model of propriety andOf the collision I saw nothing, because I dressed very leisurely I was disappointed because I felt that I should have been notified beforehand”13 He tried to keep his responses light and fanciful, so he ducked most of the serious questions and fired up his wit to produce a steady stream of droll answers It was a bonanza for the reporters, ere given o around As he rattled off his funny answers, a chorus of laughter periodically erupted fro nearby

He announced right away that he expected the press to address him properly ”Doctor Twain, if you please,” he said sole with his white suit ”That is the only title I a now”

Asked whether he had any interest in tasting a new cocktail named after a recent political scandal, he answered that he was ”like the girl in a show I saw before going to England, I'll do anything that won't make me blush However, I'd like to see anybody make me blush”

When he was infor the Missouri cabin where he was born-it was supposedly for sale-he fired back, ”It is about time it was It has been burned down four times”

On the subject of whether he understood the British sense of hu that he was ”the proud possessor of two senses of hureethat happened to me on the trip”14 Twain enjoyed the attention so o In reply to a question about his age, he sounded like a man who still had many years of fun left in hi I feel old and sinful,” he said, ”but at eight o'clock, when I a and ready to hunt trouble There is this about old age, though-every year brings one a new accureater capacity for enjoy others-Isabel Lyon and his editors at the North American Review and Harper's But Clara's absence was conspicuous She was still in Boston, where Charles Wark had joined her, and where her health had yet to i this proud hts on both sides of the Atlantic-he couldn't help being disappointed But he would have understood why she was reluctant to appear at a crowded event that raph captioned ”Mark Twain and his daughter” Even soratuitous press notices that Miss Clara Clehter” Such notices ood if she had wanted a career on the popular stage, but they didn't impress the serious lovers of classical music whom she desperately wanted to cultivate She feared that few of those people would ever take her seriously as long as they were constantly being rehter of a ”funny man”16

TWAIN DIDN'T NEED to think twice about how to spend his first day back hoht upstairs to his billiards table and began taking practice shots until Paine was able to join hireetings at the door, he rapher inside and said, ”Get your cue”

Although Paine was looking forward to hearing the details of Twain's long trip, and wanted to report on his own interviews and other research he had been doing, his host insisted that such things could be discussed later Having been away from his cherished table for aht, they said very little to each other that didn't pertain to billiards17 Absorbed in the pleasures of his favorite pastirave crisis had overtaken his dearest friend earlier that day Henry Rogers had suddenly becoht not recover

It was a Monday, and the business thequeasy Then he found it difficult to stand, grew faint, and collapsed at his desk A doctor was summoned, and soon confirers's face was distorted, his speech had becoarbled, and his left arreat shock to everyone in the office, but in keeping with their reputation for cool professionalism, his secretary and other subordinates at Standard Oilthat news of the attack would cause a panic on Wall Street, they tried to pretend that nothing was aet hi, but out of town He hisked away to his son-in-law Urban Broughton'sIsland, where the best doctors from the city came in a rush and hovered over the patient No one beyond the immediate family was allowed to see hi more serious than a mild case of exhaustion from overwork and the su at the ti at the pier He was only a short distance from the Standard Oil headquarters; yet, because of all the secrecy, it would take several days before he realized that soht And when he tried to find out as happening, he wasn't told the truth On a business visit to 26 Broadway, Isabel Lyon was given the impression by the dutiful Katharine Harrison that the powerful executive wasn't seriously ill at all, and would soon return to work

”Good,” Trote to Rogers, after receiving this ers remained in a bad way for weeks and was moved in late July from New York to his mansion in Massachusetts, where doctors hoped that the fas would help in his recovery It wasn't until the ave Twain a version of events that was closer to the facts Her husband was i, she said, but admitted that ”he had really been in worse shape than we have cared to acknowledge to anybody” She added that Henry had spoken of hiers would regain enough strength to enjoy many more hours in Twain's company, but he would never er for the rereat blow that in an instant took away soer

Even after he knew the truth, it was hard for Twain to accept that the th was as vulnerable to physical shocks as anyone else Though he kneell enough how hard Rogers worked and played, he seemed to underestimate the pressures that his friend was under, especially during the first half of 1907 The co Standard Oil in antitrust proceedings had proved too ers, and his health had suffered under the strain For months, he had been bombarded with subpoenas, and there was talk that theoil trust would be followed by criainst the directors theers fell ill, Standard Oil was on the verge of losing an important case in federal court, and a stiff penalty was expected Only twelve days after Rogers suffered his stroke, the verdict in this case was announced On August 3, United States district judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (the future baseball coainst Standard Oil froal rebate pay its petroleum products across state lines He wanted to impose a cri that they were in the same position as someone ”who counterfeits the coin or steals letters from the mail” But the law allowed him to hand down only a fine, so he ered by the ”studied insolence” of the officers and lawyers of Standard Oil, Judge Landis required theton Post called it ”the greatest monetary punishment in the history of Aravity of his friend's illness was not explained to hiainst Standard Oil, Twain's first reaction to the verdict was to ht of it He probably shared the widespread assumption that the penalty would be reduced on appeal In fact, much to the consternation of President Roosevelt, it would be revoked a year later Perhaps hoping that he and Rogers would soon find a way to laugh about the massive fine, Trote in his notebook that it reht: ”I expected it but I didn't suppose it would be so big”21 Such levity was just the ers needed, and the world's e dose as soon as possible In early Septeiven permission to receive visitors and to take short trips around his hometown of Fairhaven Except for a slowness in his speech and so rown children, their spouses, and his nine grandchildren gathered at the Fairhaven mansion to lend their support to his recovery Tas invited to join theers told his friend in a letter dictated to a secretary ”I have been on the loaf for seven or eight weeks, and think I will stay Am due in New York after a ti in a hurry?”22 Encouraged by Rogers's unusual willingness to remain ”on the loaf,” Twain ca up froer stea hiers, as delighted to have his old friend back at his side Staying at the e resort hotel Built in the Queen Anne style on twenty-five acres near the sea, it had almost twenty bedrooms and a central toith an observation balcony fifty feet high

The two old friends were soon spotted driving around town together in a sers at the wheel, his features pale and drawn but his eyes full of deterot to set the brake and turn off the engine when he stopped to get a newspaper at a local shop As Rogers walked away, the wheels slowly rolled forhile his passenger was still sitting in the car

It took Twain a fewThe top speed of the electric engine was only sixBut when he finally noticed itsto a reporter itnessed the scene, ”Mark Twain looked over one side, then he slid across the seat and looked over the other, and then he furtively looked at the lever He reached for the lever, but drew his hand back uncertainly It was obvious he was very uncomfortable and would have swapped his place for the wheelhouse of a Mississippi steamboat if the alternative had offered The runabout continued to hitch along and Twain concluded to desert He fled to the sidewalk and went into the newspaper store”

With a childlike air of innocence, he explained to Rogers, ”She started and I got out”

His friend laughed, then strode down the street in pursuit of the runaway car Looking aled to rescue the 23 I never write ”et the same money for ”city”

MARK TWAIN

PART THREE

THE WORLD

ACCORDING TO

MARK

Twain assu fortress of the Knickerbocker Trust Company

NINE

Princes and Paupers

Put all your eggs into one basket-and watch that basket

Andrew Carnegie's advice to Mark Twain