These reports came every month.  They were written on foolscap, 600 words to the page, and usually about twenty-five pages in a report—­a good 15,000 words, I should say,—­a solid week’s work.  The reports were absorbingly entertaining, long as they were; but, unfortunately for me, they did not come alone.  They were always accompanied by a lot of questions about passages and purposes in my books, which the Club wanted answered; and additionally accompanied every quarter by the Treasurer’s report, and the Auditor’s report, and the Committee’s report, and the President’s review, and my opinion of these was always desired; also suggestions for the good of the Club, if any occurred to me.

By and by I came to dread those things; and this dread grew and grew and grew; grew until I got to anticipating them with a cold horror.  For I was an indolent man, and not fond of letter-writing, and whenever these things came I had to put everything by and sit down—­for my own peace of mind—­and dig and dig until I got something out of my head which would answer for a reply.  I got along fairly well the first year; but for the succeeding four years the Mark Twain Club of Corrigan Castle was my curse, my nightmare, the grief and misery of my life.  And I got so, so sick of sitting for photographs.  I sat every year for five years, trying to satisfy that insatiable organization.  Then at last I rose in revolt.  I could endure my oppressions no longer.  I pulled my fortitude together and tore off my chains, and was a free man again, and happy.  From that day I burned the secretary’s fat envelopes the moment they arrived, and by and by they ceased to come.

Well, in the sociable frankness of that night in Bendigo I brought this all out in full confession.  Then Mr. Blank came out in the same frank way, and with a preliminary word of gentle apology said that he was the Mark Twain Club, and the only member it had ever had!

Why, it was matter for anger, but I didn’t feel any.  He said he never had to work for a living, and that by the time he was thirty life had become a bore and a weariness to him.  He had no interests left; they had paled and perished, one by one, and left him desolate.  He had begun to think of suicide.  Then all of a sudden he thought of that happy idea of starting an imaginary club, and went straightway to work at it, with enthusiasm and love.  He was charmed with it; it gave him something to do.  It elaborated itself on his hands;—­it became twenty times more complex and formidable than was his first rude draft of it.  Every new addition to his original plan which cropped up in his mind gave him a fresh interest and a new pleasure.  He designed the Club badge himself, and worked over it, altering and improving it, a number of days and nights; then sent to London and had it made.  It was the only one that was made.  It was made for me; the “rest of the Club” went without.