ouse who had been greatly entertained by a constant flow of wit
and satire asked MARK TWAIN'S daughter if he was always in the same good
spirits. 'Only when we have company,'" she said.

In August of last year I was doomed to London owing to the frivolous
holiday proclivities of certain fellow-workers, and again my Baltimore
migrant was here, and again we met for our single _tete-a-tete_. He
looked, he said, on a year as wasted, unless a part of it was spent in
London and Paris. He was exactly as he had been; his voice had the same
slow mirthlessness and it uttered the same flat definitive comments. He
could not be surprised or shocked or amused. He had taken the world's
measure and was now chiefly occupied in adding to his collection of fine
men and lovely-minded women. I made an effort to get the conversation to
other than American literary personages, but it was useless. To discuss
Mr. ROOSEVELT he was unwilling. The name of HEARST--I mean Mr.
HEARST--touched no live wire, as it does with a few of his countrymen.
He had merely heard of Mr. BRISBANE, but had no information. Mr. WILSON
was doing well, he thought, on the whole. Reaching books at last, we
agreed again that it was a pity that Mr. JAMES LANE ALLEN wrote so
little nowadays and that Mr. HOWELLS had become so silent. Mr. HOWELLS,
it seemed, had felt the death of his old friend, Mr. CLEMENS--MARK
TWAIN--very deeply. Had I ever heard, he wondered, that story of MARK
TWAIN about a reply made to one of his visitors by his daughter?

"Yes, I have," I said.

"The visitor," he went on, "had asked her if her father was always in
the jovial and witty vein in which he had been during his--the
visitor's--stay."

"Yes, I know," I said.

"MARK TWAIN'S daughter," he continued, "replied that he was always like
that--'when they had company.'"

He looked remorselessly at me for his reward of laughter. Since he was
my guest he got it, but----

And then last week he arrived again, on his 1914 trip, and he is here
now, or perhaps he is in Paris. In Europe, at any rate. He told me once
more that across the Atlantic Mr. HENRY JAMES is no longer thought of as
an American; that Mr. JACK LONDON, it seems, is becoming one of the most
popular of writers; that ELLA WHEELER WILCOX sells probably more copies
of her poetry than any English writer sells stories. He had had the
pleasure of meeting Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE in New York recently, but
when Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT was there he m