big bell forward boom out the call for
leads. Then came the leadsman's long-drawn chant, once so familiar, the
monotonous repeating in river parlance of the depths of water. Presently
the lead had found that depth of water signified by his nom de plume and
the call of "Mark Twain, Mark Twain" floated up to him like a summons
from the past. All at once a little figure came running down the deck,
and Clara confronted him, reprovingly:

"Papa," she said, "I have hunted all over the boat for you. Don't you
know they are calling for you?"

They remained in Keokuk a week, and Susy starts to tell something of
their visit there. She begins:

"We have arrived in Keokuk after a very pleasant----"

The sentence remains unfinished. We cannot know what was the
interruption or what new interest kept her from her task. We can
only regret that the loving little hand did not continue its pleasant
history. Years later, when Susy had passed from among the things we
know, her father, commenting, said:

When I look at the arrested sentence that ends the little book it
seems as if the hand that traced it cannot be far--it is gone for a
moment only, and will come again and finish it. But that is a
dream; a creature of the heart, not of the mind--a feeling, a
longing, not a mental product; the same that lured Aaron Burr, old,
gray, forlorn, forsaken, to the pier day after day, week after week,
there to stand in the gloom and the chill of the dawn, gazing
seaward through veiling mists and sleet and snow for the ship which
he knew was gone down, the ship that bore all his treasure--his
daughter.

VOLUME II, Part 2: 1886-1900

CLXII. BROWNING, MEREDITH, AND MEISTERSCHAFT

The Browning readings must have begun about this time. Just what
kindled Mark Twain's interest in the poetry of Robert Browning is not
remembered, but very likely his earlier associations with the poet had
something to do with it. Whatever the beginning, we find him, during
the winter of 1886 and 1887, studiously, even violently, interested in
Browning's verses, entertaining a sort of club or class who gathered
to hear his rich, sympathetic, and luminous reading of the
Payleyings--"With Bernard de Mandeville," "Daniel Bartoli," or
"Christopher Smart." Members of the Saturday Morning Club were among his
listeners and others-friends of the family. They were rather remarkable
gatherings, and no one of that group but a