“Say, that ain’t Sherman, that’s Mark Twain,” which brought another cheer.

Then Sherman had to come out too, and the result was that both spoke.  They kept this up at the different stations, and sometimes Lincoln came out with them.  When there was time all three spoke, much to the satisfaction of their audiences.

President Garfield was shot that summer—­July 2, 1881.—­[On the day that President Garfield was shot Mrs. Clemens received from their friend Reginald Cholmondeley a letter of condolence on the death of her husband in Australia; startling enough, though in reality rather comforting than otherwise, for the reason that the “Mark Twain” who had died in Australia was a very persistent impostor.  Clemens wrote Cholmondeley:  “Being dead I might be excused from writing letters, but I am not that kind of a corpse.  May I never be so dead as to neglect the hail of a friend from a far land.”  Out of this incident grew a feature of an anecdote related in Following the Equator the joke played by the man from Bendigo.]—­He died September 19th, and Arthur came into power.  There was a great feeling of uncertainty as to what he would do.  He was regarded as “an excellent gentleman with a weakness for his friends.”  Incumbents holding appointive offices were in a state of dread.

Howells’s father was consul at Toronto, and, believing his place to be in danger, he appealed to his son.  In his book Howells tells how, in turn, he appealed to Clemens, remembering his friendship with Grant and Grant’s friendship with Arthur.  He asked Clemens to write to Grant, but Clemens would hear of nothing less than a call on the General, during which the matter would be presented to him in person.  Howells relates how the three of them lunched together, in a little room just out of the office, on baked beans and coffee, brought in from some near-by restaurant: 

The baked beans and coffee were of about the railroad-refreshment quality; but eating them with Grant was like sitting down to baked beans and coffee with Julius Caesar, or Alexander, or some other great Plutarchan captain.

Clemens, also recalling the interview, once added some interesting details: 

“I asked Grant if he wouldn’t write a word on a card which Howells could carry to Washington and hand to the President.  But, as usual, General Grant was his natural self—­that is to say, ready and determined to do a great deal more for you than you could possibly ask him to do.  He said he was going to Washington in a couple of days to dine with the President, and he would speak to him himself on the subject and make it a personal matter.  Grant was in the humor to talk—­he was always in a humor to talk when no strangers were present—­he forced us to stay and take luncheon in a private room, and continued to talk all the time.  It was baked beans, but how ‘he sits and towers,’ Howells said, quoting Dame.  Grant remembered ‘Squibob’