ahoy!  What ship is that?  And whence and whither?” In a deep and thunderous bass the answer came back through the speaking- trumpet, “The Begum, of Bengal—­142 days out from Canton—­homeward bound!  What ship is that?” Well, it just crushed that poor little creature’s vanity flat, and he squeaked back most humbly, “Only the Mary Ann, fourteen hours out from Boston, bound for Kittery Point —­with nothing to speak of!” Oh, what an eloquent word that “only,” to express the depths of his humbleness!  That is just my case.  During just one hour in the twenty-four—­not more—­I pause and reflect in the stillness of the night with the echoes of your English welcome still lingering in my ears, and then I am humble.  Then I am properly meek, and for that little while I am only the Mary Ann, fourteen hours out, cargoed with vegetables and tinware; but during all the other twenty-three hours my vain self-complacency rides high on the white crests of your approval, and then I am a stately Indiaman, plowing the great seas under a cloud of canvas and laden with the kindest words that have ever been vouchsafed to any wandering alien in this world, I think; then my twenty-six fortunate days on this old mother soil seem to be multiplied by six, and I am the Begum, of Bengal, 142 days out from Canton—­homeward bound!

He returned to London, and with one of his young acquaintances, an American—­he called her Francesca—­paid many calls.  It took the dreariness out of that social function to perform it in that way.  With a list of the calls they were to make they drove forth each day to cancel the social debt.  They paid calls in every walk of life.  His young companion was privileged to see the inside of London homes of almost every class, for he showed no partiality; he went to the homes of the poor and the rich alike.  One day they visited the home of an old bookkeeper whom he had known in 1872 as a clerk in a large establishment, earning a salary of perhaps a pound a week, who now had risen mightily, for he had become head bookkeeper in that establishment on a salary of six pounds a week, and thought it great prosperity and fortune for his old age.

He sailed on July 13th for home, besought to the last moment by a crowd of autograph-seekers and reporters and photographers, and a multitude who only wished to see him and to shout and wave good-by.  He was sailing away from them for the last time.  They hoped he would make a speech, but that would not have been possible.  To the reporters he gave a farewell message:  “It has been the most enjoyable holiday I have ever had, and I am sorry the end of it has come.  I have met a hundred, old friends, and I have made a hundred new ones.  It is a good kind of riches to have; there is none better, I think.”  And the London Tribune declared that “the ship that bore him away had difficulty in getting clear, so thickly was the water strewn with the bay-leaves of his triumph.  For Mark Twain has triumphed, and in his all-too-brief stay of a month has done more for the cause of the world’s peace than will be accomplished by the Hague Conference.  He has made the world laugh again.”