“Now we’ll proceed to more serious matters—­it’s your—­shot.”  And he was quite serious, for the green cloth and the rolling balls afforded him a much larger interest.

To the donor of his new possession Clemens wrote: 

Dear Mrs. Rogers,—­The billiard-table is better than the doctors.  I have a billiardist on the premises, & walk not less than ten miles every day with the cue in my hand.  And the walking is not the whole of the exercise, nor the most health giving part of it, I think.  Through the multitude of the positions and attitudes it brings into play every muscle in the body & exercises them all.

The games begin right after luncheons, daily, & continue until midnight, with 2 hours’ intermission for dinner & music.  And so it is 9 hours’ exercise per day & 10 or 12 on Sunday.  Yesterday & last night it was 12—­& I slept until 8 this morning without waking.  The billiard-table as a Sabbath-breaker can beat any coal-breaker in Pennsylvania & give it 30 in the game.  If Mr. Rogers will take to daily billiards he can do without the doctors & the massageur, I think.

    We are really going to build a house on my farm, an hour & a half
    from New York.  It is decided.

    With love & many thanks. 
                                S. L. C.

Naturally enough, with continued practice I improved my game, and he reduced my odds accordingly.  He was willing to be beaten, but not too often.  Like any other boy, he preferred to have the balance in his favor.  We set down a record of the games, and he went to bed happier if the tally-sheet showed him winner.

It was natural, too, that an intimacy of association and of personal interest should grow under such conditions—­to me a precious boon—­and I wish here to record my own boundless gratitude to Mrs. Rogers for her gift, which, whatever it meant to him, meant so much more to me.  The disparity of ages no longer existed; other discrepancies no longer mattered.  The pleasant land of play is a democracy where such things do not count.

To recall all the humors and interesting happenings of those early billiard-days would be to fill a large volume.  I can preserve no more than a few characteristic phases.

He was not an even-tempered player.  When the balls were perverse in their movements and his aim unsteady, he was likely to become short with his opponent—­critical and even fault-finding.  Then presently a reaction would set in, and he would be seized with remorse.  He would become unnecessarily gentle and kindly—­even attentive—­placing the balls as I knocked them into the pockets, hurrying from one end of the table to render this service, endeavoring to show in every way except by actual confession in words that he was sorry for what seemed to him, no doubt, an unworthy display of temper, unjustified irritation.

Naturally, this was a mood that I enjoyed less than that which had induced it.  I did not wish him to humble himself; I was willing that he should be severe, even harsh, if he felt so inclined; his age, his position, his genius entitled him to special privileges; yet I am glad, as I remember it now, that the other side revealed itself, for it completes the sum of his great humanity.