He was full of his usual enthusiasm in any new undertaking, and writes of the Extraordinary Twins: 

By and by I shall have to offer (for grown folks’ magazine) a novel entitled, ‘Those Extraordinary Twins’.  It’s the howling farce I told you I had begun awhile back.  I laid it aside to ferment while I wrote Tom Sawyer Abroad, but I took it up again on a little different plan lately, and it is swimming along satisfactorily now.  I think all sorts of folks will read it.  It is clear out of the common order—­it is a fresh idea—­I don’t think it resembles anything in literature.

He was quite right; it did not resemble anything in literature, nor did it greatly resemble literature, though something at least related to literature would eventually grow out of it.

In a letter written many years afterward by Frank Mason, then consul-general at Frankfort, he refers to “that happy summer at Nauheim.”  Mason was often a visitor there, and we may believe that his memory of the summer was justified.  For one thing, Clemens himself was in better health and spirits and able to continue his work.  But an even greater happiness lay in the fact that two eminent physicians had pronounced Mrs. Clemens free from any organic ills.  To Orion, Clemens wrote: 

We are in the clouds because the bath physicians say positively that Livy has no heart disease but has only weakness of the heart muscles and will soon be well again.  That was worth going to Europe to find out.

It was enough to change the whole atmosphere of the household, and financial worries were less considered.  Another letter to Orion relates history: 

The Twichells have been here four days & we have had good times with them.  Joe & I ran over to Homburg, the great pleasure-resort, Saturday, to dine with friends, & in the morning I went walking in the promenade & met the British ambassador to the Court of Berlin and he introduced me to the Prince of Wales.  I found him a most unusually comfortable and unembarrassing Englishman.

Twichell has reported Mark Twain’s meeting with the Prince (later Edward VII) as having come about by special request of the latter, made through the British ambassador.  “The meeting,” he says, “was a most cordial one on both sides, and presently the Prince took Mark Twain’s arm and the two marched up and down, talking earnestly together, the Prince, solid, erect, and soldierlike, Clemens weaving along in his curious, swinging gait in a full tide of talk, and brandishing a sun-umbrella of the most scandalous description.”

When they parted Clemens said: 

“It has been, indeed, a great pleasure to meet your Royal Highness.”

The Prince answered: 

“And it is a pleasure, Mr. Clemens, to have met you—­again.”

Clemens was puzzled to reply.

“Why,” he said, “have we met before?”

The Prince smiled happily.