Altogether the seventy-third birthday was a pleasant one.  Clemens, in the morning, drove down to see the library lot which Mr. Theodore Adams had presented, and the rest of the day there were fine, close billiard games, during which he was in the gentlest and happiest moods.  He recalled the games of two years before, and as we stopped playing I said: 

“I hope a year from now we shall be here, still playing the great game.”

And he answered, as then: 

“Yes, it is a great game—­the best game on earth.”  And he held out his hand and thanked me for coming, as he never failed to do when we parted, though it always hurt me a little, for the debt was so largely mine.

Mark Twain’s second present came at Christmas-time.  About ten days earlier, a letter came from Robert J. Collier, saying that he had bought a baby elephant which he intended to present to Mark Twain as a Christmas gift.  He added that it would be sent as soon as he could get a car for it, and the loan of a keeper from Barnum & Bailey’s headquarters at Bridgeport.

The news created a disturbance in Stormfield.  One could not refuse, discourteously and abruptly, a costly present like that; but it seemed a disaster to accept it.  An elephant would require a roomy and warm place, also a variety of attention which Stormfield was not prepared to supply.  The telephone was set going and certain timid excuses were offered by the secretary.  There was no good place to put an elephant in Stormfield, but Mr. Collier said, quite confidently: 

“Oh, put him in the garage.”

“But there’s no heat in the garage.”

“Well, put him in the loggia, then.  That’s closed in, isn’t it, for the winter?  Plenty of sunlight—­just the place for a young elephant.”

“But we play cards in the loggia.  We use it for a sort of sun-parlor.”

“But that wouldn’t matter.  He’s a kindly, playful little thing.  He’ll be just like a kitten.  I’ll send the man up to look over the place and tell you just how to take care of him, and I’ll send up several bales of hay in advance.  It isn’t a large elephant, you know:  just a little one —­a regular plaything.”

There was nothing further to be done; only to wait and dread until the
Christmas present’s arrival.

A few days before Christmas ten bales of hay arrived and several bushels of carrots.  This store of provender aroused no enthusiasm at Stormfield.  It would seem there was no escape now.

On Christmas morning Mr. Lounsbury telephoned up that there was a man at the station who said he was an elephant-trainer from Barnum & Bailey’s, sent by Mr. Collier to look at the elephant’s quarters and get him settled when he should arrive.  Orders were given to bring the man over.  The day of doom was at hand.

But Lounsbury’s detective instinct came once more into play.  He had seen a good many elephant-trainers at Bridgeport, and he thought this one had a doubtful look.