Clemens empowered certain of his friends to find a home for him, and Mr. Frank N. Doubleday discovered an attractive and handsomely furnished residence at 14 West Tenth Street, which was promptly approved.  Doubleday, who was going to Boston, left orders with the agent to draw the lease and take it up to the new tenant for signature.  To Clemens he said: 

“The house is as good as yours.  All you’ve got to do is to sign the lease.  You can consider it all settled.”

When Doubleday returned from Boston a few days later the agent called on him and complained that he couldn’t find Mark Twain anywhere.  It was reported at his hotel that he had gone and left no address.  Doubleday was mystified; then, reflecting, he had an inspiration.  He walked over to 14 West Tenth Street and found what he had suspected—­Mark Twain had moved in.  He had convinced the caretaker that everything was all right and he was quite at home.  Doubleday said: 

“Why, you haven’t executed the lease yet.”

“No,” said Clemens, “but you said the house was as good as mine,” to which Doubleday agreed, but suggested that they go up to the real-estate office and give the agent notice that he was in possession of the premises.

Doubleday’s troubles were not quite over, however.  Clemens began to find defects in his new home and assumed to hold Doubleday responsible for them.  He sent a daily postal card complaining of the windows, furnace, the range, the water-whatever he thought might lend interest to Doubleday’s life.  As a matter of fact, he was pleased with the place.  To MacAlister he wrote: 

We were very lucky to get this big house furnished.  There was not another one in town procurable that would answer us, but this one is all right-space enough in it for several families, the rooms all old-fashioned, great size.

The house at 14 West Tenth Street became suddenly one of the most conspicuous residences in New York.  The papers immediately made its appearance familiar.  Many people passed down that usually quiet street, stopping to observe or point out where Mark Twain lived.  There was a constant procession of callers of every kind.  Many were friends, old and new, but there was a multitude of strangers.  Hundreds came merely to express their appreciation of his work, hoping for a personal word or a hand-shake or an autograph; but there were other hundreds who came with this thing and that thing—­axes to grind—­and there were newspaper reporters to ask his opinion on politics, or polygamy, or woman’s suffrage; on heaven and hell and happiness; on the latest novel; on the war in Africa, the troubles in China; on anything under the sun, important or unimportant, interesting or inane, concerning which one might possibly hold an opinion.  He was unfailing “copy” if they could but get a word with him.  Anything that he might choose to say upon any subject whatever was seized upon and magnified and printed with head-lines.  Sometimes opinions were invented for him.  If he let fall a few words they were multiplied into a column interview.