Mr. Clemens was a very affectionate father.  He seldom left the house at night, but would read to the family, first to the children until bedtime, afterward to Mrs. Clemens.  He usually read Browning to her.  They were very fond of it.  The children played charades a great deal, and he was wonderful at that game and always helped them.  They were very fond of private theatricals.  Every Saturday of their lives they had a temporary stage put up in the school-room and we all had to help.  Gerhardt painted the scenery.  They frequently played the balcony scene from “Romeo and Juliet” and several plays they wrote themselves.  Now and then we had a big general performance of “The Prince and the Pauper.”  That would be in the library and the dining-room with the folding-doors open.  The place just held eighty-four chairs, and the stage was placed back against the conservatory.  The children were crazy about acting and we all enjoyed it as much as they did, especially Mr. Clemens, who was the best actor of all.  I had a part, too, and George.  I have never known a happier household than theirs was during those years.

Mr. Clemens spent most of his time up in the billiard-room, writing or playing billiards.  One day when I went in, and he was shooting the balls around the tables, I noticed smoke coming up from the hearth.  I called Patrick, and John O’Neill, the gardener, and we began taking up the hearth to see what was the matter.  Mr. Clemens kept on playing billiards right along and paid no attention to what we were doing.  Finally, when we got the hearth up, a lot of flame and smoke came out into the room.  The house was on fire.  Mr. Clemens noticed then what we were about, and went over to the corner where there were some bottle fire-extinguishers.  He took one down and threw it into the flames.  This put them out a good deal, and he took up his cue, went back to the table, and began to shoot the balls around again as if nothing had happened.  Mrs. Clemens came in just then and said, “Why, the house is afire!”

    “Yes, I know it,” he said, but went on playing.

    We had a telephone and it didn’t work very well.  It annoyed him a
    good deal and sometimes he’d say: 

    “I’ll tear it out.”

One day he tried to call up Mrs. Dr. Tafft.  He could not hear plainly and thought he was talking to central.  “Send down and take this d—–­thing out of here,” he said; “I’m tired of it.”  He was mad, and using a good deal of bad language.  All at once he heard Mrs. Dr. Tafft say, “Oh, Mr. Clemens, good morning.”  He said, “Why, Mrs. Tafft, I have just come to the telephone.  George, our butler, was here before me and I heard him swearing as I came up.  I shall have to talk to him about it.”

Mrs. Tafft often told it on him.—­[ Mark Twain once wrote to the telephone management:  “The time is coming very soon when the telephone will be a perfect instrument, when proximity will no