to Hartford
--to my friends--but they were not moved, not strongly interested, &
I was ashamed that I went. It was from Mr. Rogers, a stranger, that
I got the money and was by it saved. And then--while still a
stranger--he set himself the task of saving my financial life
without putting upon me (in his native delicacy) any sense that I
was the recipient of a charity, a benevolence. He gave time to me
--time, which could not be bought by any man at $100,000 a
month--no, nor for three times the money.

He adds that a friend has just offered to Webster & Co. a book that
arraigns the Standard Oil magnates individual by individual.

I wanted to say the only man I care for in the world, the only man I
would give a d---n for, the only man who is lavishing his sweat &
blood to save me & mine from starvation is a Standard Oil magnate.
If you know me, you know whether I want the book or not.

But I didn't say that. I said I didn't want any book; I wanted to
get out of this publishing business & out of all business & was here
for that purpose & would accomplish it if I could.

He tells how he played billiards with Rogers, tirelessly as always, until
the millionaire had looked at him helplessly and asked:

"Don't you ever get tired?"

And he answered:

"I don't know what it is to get tired. I wish I did."

He wrote of going with Mr. Rogers to the Madison Square Garden to see an
exhibition of boxing given by the then splendid star of pugilism, James
J. Corbett. Dr. Rice accompanied him, and painters Robert Reid and
Edward Simmons, from The Players. They had five seats in a box, and
Stanford White came along presently and took Clemens into the champion's
dressing-room.

Corbett has a fine face and is modest and diffident, besides being
the most perfectly & beautifully constructed human animal in the
world. I said:

"You have whipped Mitchell & maybe you will whip Jackson in June
--but you are not done then. You will have to tackle me."

He answered, so gravely that one might easily have thought him in
earnest:

"No, I am not going to meet you in the ring. It is not fair or
right to require it. You might chance to knock me out, by no merit
of your own, but by a purely accidental blow, & then my reputation
would be gone & you would have a double one. You have got fame
enough & you ought not to want to take mine aw