*

MY HARDY ANNUAL.

I met him first three summers ago when he arrived from Baltimore with a
letter of introduction from a mutual American friend. He was a tall thin
clean-shaven man, a typical American of the inquiring rather than
commanding type--and not a millionaire, not indeed rich at all, and
rather nervous among waiters and wine lists: preferring a boarding-house
in Bayswater to a caravanserai (as the newspaper men always call the big
hotels). He had culture and desired more, and one way of getting it (one
way, I mean, of making sure that it should be gotten) was to talk with
every one he met. This I believe is an American custom.

Anyway, he arrived with his letter of introduction, and I did what I
could for him--asked him to lunch, told him about picture galleries,
adjured him not to see this play and that, and mentioned a few new
books. Our surest common ground being American men of letters, we
discussed them. We agreed that the early death of FRANK NORRIS was a
blow; that GEORGE W. CABLE had style; that JOHN FOX, Junior, could tell
a good story, but OWEN WISTER a better. My friend interested me greatly
by stating that he had been on intimate terms with that great man, MARK
TWAIN, and wondered if I had ever heard the story (which he used to tell
against himself) of the visitor to his house who, after a very
delightful stay, during which the humorist had been at the top of his
form, asked his daughter if her father was always like that? "Only when
we have company," she replied.

The next year my American friend turned up again, sending a letter in
advance to say that he would be at his old address in Bayswater at a
certain date, and again I wrote asking him to lunch with me, as before.
He was exactly the same, even to his clothes, and we talked of American
writers in what I remembered to be the identical terms of the previous
year. This is one of the disadvantages of annual meetings; there is no
advance. The familiar ground included our decision, reinforced, that
Mrs. WHARTON was a swell, but rather on the bitter side; that it was a
pity that MARY WILKINS had given up writing; that JOHN KENDRICK BANGS'
name, at any rate, was funny; that AMBROSE BIERCE was a man of genius,
and that OLIVER HERFORD'S continued residence in New York was a loss to
England.

"_A propos_ of humorists," said my friend, "I wonder if you have heard
that story of MARK TWAIN which he often told against himself. A visitor
to his h