In June Clemens took the family to Saranac Lake, to Ampersand.  They occupied a log cabin which he called “The Lair,” on the south shore, near the water’s edge, a remote and beautiful place where, as had happened before, they were so comfortable and satisfied that they hoped to return another summer.  There were swimming and boating and long walks in the woods; the worry and noise of the world were far away.  They gave little enough attention to the mails.  They took only a weekly paper, and were likely to allow it to lie in the postoffice uncalled for.  Clemens, especially, loved the place, and wrote to Twichell: 

I am on the front porch (lower one-main deck) of our little bijou of a dwelling-house.  The lake edge (Lower Saranac) is so nearly under me that I can’t see the shore, but only the water, small-poxed with rain splashes—­for there is a heavy down pour.  It is charmingly like sitting snuggled up on a ship’s deck with the stretching sea all around but very much more satisfactory, for at sea a rainstorm is depressing, while here of course the effect engendered is just a deep sense of comfort & contentment.  The heavy forest shuts us solidly in on three sides—­there are no neighbors.  There are beautiful little tan-colored impudent squirrels about.  They take tea 5 P.M. (not invited) at the table in the woods where Jean does my typewriting, & one of them has been brave enough to sit upon Jean’s knee with his tail curved over his back & munch his food.  They come to dinner 7 P.M. on the front porch (not invited), but Clara drives them away.  It is an occupation which requires some industry & attention to business.  They all have the one name —­Blennerhasset, from Burr’s friend—­& none of them answers to it except when hungry.

Clemens could work at “The Lair,” often writing in shady seclusions along the shore, and he finished there the two-part serial,—­[ Published in Harper’s Magazine for January and February, 1902.]—­“The Double-Barrelled Detective Story,” intended originally as a burlesque on Sherlock Holmes.  It did not altogether fulfil its purpose, and is hardly to be ranked as one of Mark Twain’s successes.  It contains, however, one paragraph at least by which it is likely to be remembered, a hoax—­his last one—­on the reader.  It runs as follows: 

It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October.  The lilacs and laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and flashing in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind nature for the wingless wild things that have their home in the tree-tops and would visit together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of woodland, the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere, far in the empty sky a solitary oesophagus slept upon motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace of God.