Within a day or two Gorky and Madame Andreieva were evicted from a procession of hotels, and of course the papers rang with the head-lines.  An army of reporters was chasing Clemens and Howells.  The Russian revolution was entirely forgotten in this more lively, more intimate domestic interest.  Howells came again, the reporters following and standing guard at the door below.  In ‘My Mark Twain’ he says: 

That was the moment of the great Vesuvian eruption, and we figured ourselves in easy reach of a volcano which was every now and then “blowing a cone off,” as the telegraphic phrase was.  The roof of the great market in Naples had just broken in under its load of ashes and cinders, and crushed hundreds of people; and we asked each other if we were not sorry we had not been there, where the pressure would have been far less terrific than it was with us in Fifth Avenue.  The forbidden butler came up with a message that there were some gentlemen below who wanted to see Clemens.

    “How many?” he demanded.

    “Five,” the butler faltered.

    “Reporters?”

    The butler feigned uncertainty.

    “What would you do?” he asked me.

“I wouldn’t see them,” I said, and then Clemens went directly down to them.  How or by what means he appeased their voracity I cannot say, but I fancy it was by the confession of the exact truth, which was harmless enough.  They went away joyfully, and he came back in radiant satisfaction with having seen them.

It is not quite clear at this time just what word was sent to Gorky but the matter must have been settled that night, for Clemens was in a fine humor next morning.  It was before dictation time, and he came drifting into the study and began at once to speak of the dinner and the impossibility of its being given now.  Then he said: 

“American public opinion is a delicate fabric.  It shrivels like the webs of morning at the lightest touch.”

Later in the day he made this memorandum: 

Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.  The penalty may be unfair, unrighteous, illogical, and a cruelty; no matter, it will be inflicted just the same.  Certainly, then, there can be but one wise thing for a visiting stranger to do—­find out what the country’s customs are and refrain from offending against them.

The efforts which have been made in Gorky’s justification are entitled to all respect because of the magnanimity of the motive back of them, but I think that the ink was wasted.  Custom is custom:  it is built of brass, boiler-iron, granite; facts, seasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle winds have upon Gibraltar.—­[To Dan Beard he said, “Gorky made an awful mistake, Dan.  He might as well have come over here in his shirt-tail.”]

The Gorky disturbance had hardly begun to subside when there came another upheaval that snuffed it out completely.  On the afternoon of the 18th of April I heard, at The Players, a wandering telephonic rumor that a great earthquake was going on in San Francisco.  Half an hour later, perhaps, I met Clemens coming out of No. 21.  He asked: