Warner, meantime, realizing that the play was constructed almost entirely of the Mark Twain chapters of the book, agreed that his collaborator should undertake the work and financial responsibilities of the dramatic venture and reap such rewards as might result.  Various stories have been told of this matter, most of them untrue.  There was no bitterness between the friends, no semblance of an estrangement of any sort.  Warner very generously and promptly admitted that he was not concerned with the play, its authorship, or its profits, whatever the latter might amount to.  Moreover, Warner was going to Egypt very soon, and his labors and responsibilities were doubly sufficient as they stood.

Clemens’s estimate of the play as a dramatic composition was correct enough, but the public liked it, and it was a financial success from the start.  He employed a representative to travel with Raymond, to assist in the management and in the division of spoil.  The agent had instructions to mail a card every day, stating the amount of his share in the profits.  Howells once arrived in Hartford just when this postal tide of fortune was at its flood: 

One hundred and fifty dollars—­two hundred dollars—­three hundred dollars were the gay figures which they bore, and which he flaunted in the air, before he sat down at the table, or rose from it to brandish, and then, flinging his napkin in the chair, walked up and down to exult in.

Once, in later years, referring to the matter, Howells said “He was never a man who cared anything about money except as a dream, and he wanted more and more of it to fill out the spaces of this dream.”  Which was a true word.  Mark Twain with money was like a child with a heap of bright pebbles, ready to pile up more and still more, then presently to throw them all away and begin gathering anew.

XCVI

THE NEW HOME

The Clemenses returned to Hartford to find their new house “ready,” though still full of workmen, decorators, plumbers, and such other minions of labor as make life miserable to those with ambitions for new or improved habitations.  The carpenters were still on the lower floor, but the family moved in and camped about in rooms up-stairs that were more or less free from the invader.  They had stopped in New York ten days to buy carpets and furnishings, and these began to arrive, with no particular place to put them; but the owners were excited and happy with it all, for it was the pleasant season of the year, and all the new features of the house were fascinating, while the daily progress of the decorators furnished a fresh surprise when they roamed through the rooms at evening.  Mrs. Clemens wrote home: 

    We are perfectly delighted with everything here and do so want you
    all to see it.

Her husband, as he was likely to do, picked up the letter and finished it: