“But,” he added, “I have spent a good deal of time there since, and reduced everything to exact order and system.”

Just what were the new features of order instituted it would be interesting to know.  That the financial pressure was beginning to be felt even in the Clemens home is shown by a Christmas letter to Mrs. Moffett.

Hartford, December 18, 1887.

Dear Pamela,—­Will you take this $15 & buy some candy or other trifle for yourself & Sam & his wife to remind you that we remember you?

If we weren’t a little crowded this year by the type-setter I’d send a check large enough to buy a family Bible or some other useful thing like that.  However, we go on & on, but the type-setter goes on forever—­at $3,000 a month; which is much more satisfactory than was the case the first 17 months, when the bill only averaged $2,000, & promised to take a thousand years.  We’ll be through now in 3 or 4 months, I reckon, & then the strain will let up and we can breathe freely once more, whether success ensues or failure.

Even with a type-setter on hand we ought not to be in the least scrimped-but it would take a long letter to explain why & who is to blame.

All the family send love to all of you, & best Christmas wishes for your prosperity.

Affectionately,
Sam.

CLXV

LETTERS, VISITS, AND VISITORS

There were many pleasanter things, to be sure.  The farm life never failed with each returning summer; the winters brought gay company and fair occasions.  Sir Henry and Lady Stanley, visiting.  America, were entertained in the Clemens home, and Clemens went on to Boston to introduce Stanley to his lecture audience.  Charles Dickens’s son, with his wife and daughter, followed a little later.  An incident of their visit seems rather amusing now.  There is a custom in England which requires the host to give the guest notice of bedtime by handing him a lighted candle.  Mrs. Clemens knew of this custom, but did not have the courage to follow it in her own home, and the guests knew of no other way to relieve the situation; as a result, all sat up much later than usual.  Eventually Clemens himself suggested that possibly the guests would like to retire.

Robert Louis Stevenson came down from Saranac, and Clemens went in to visit him at his New York hotel, the St. Stevens, on East Eleventh Street.  Stevenson had orders to sit in the sunshine as much as possible, and during the few days of their association he and Clemens would walk down to Washington Square and sit on one of the benches and talk.  They discussed many things—­philosophies, people, books; it seems a pity their talk could not have been preserved.

Stevenson was a great admirer of Mark Twain’s work.  He said that during a recent painting of his portrait he had insisted on reading Huck Finn aloud to the artist, a Frenchman, who had at first protested, and finally had fallen a complete victim to Huck’s yarn.  In one of Stevenson’s letters to Clemens he wrote: