are so like my beloved "Colonel."

Mr. Rogers had agreed that he would bring Paige to rational terms, and
with Clemens made a trip to Chicago. All agreed now that the machine
promised a certain fortune as soon as a contract acceptable to everybody
could be concluded--Paige and his lawyer being the last to dally and
dicker as to terms. Finally a telegram came from Chicago saying that
Paige had agreed to terms. On that day Clemens wrote in his note-book:

This is a great date in my history. Yesterday we were paupers with but 3
months' rations of cash left and $160,000 in debt, my wife & I, but this
telegram makes us wealthy.

But it was not until a fortnight later that Paige did actually sign.
This was on the 1st of February, '94, and Clemens that night cabled to
Paris, so that Mrs. Clemens would have it on her breakfast-plate the
morning of their anniversary:

"Wedding news. Our ship is safe in port. I sail the moment Rogers can
spare me."

So this painted bubble, this thing of emptiness, had become as substance
again--the grand hope. He was as concerned with it as if it had been an
actual gold-mine with ore and bullion piled in heaps--that shadow, that
farce, that nightmare. One longs to go back through the years and face
him to the light and arouse him to the vast sham of it all.

CLXXXVII. SOME LITERARY MATTERS

Clemens might have lectured that winter with profit, and Major Pond did
his best to persuade him; but Rogers agreed that his presence in New
York was likely to be too important to warrant any schedule of absence.
He went once to Boston to lecture for charity, though his pleasure
in the experience was a sufficient reward. On the evening before the
lecture Mrs. James T. Fields had him to her house to dine with Dr.
Holmes, then not far from the end of his long, beautiful life.--[He died
that same year, October, 1894.]

Clemens wrote to Paris of their evening together:

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes never goes out (he is in his 84th year), but
he came out this time--said he wanted to "have a time" once more with
me.

Mrs. Fields said Aldrich begged to come, & went away crying because
she wouldn't let him. She allowed only her family (Sarah Orne Jewett &
sister) to be present, because much company would overtax Dr. Holmes.

Well, he was just delightful! He did as brilliant and beautiful talking
(& listening) as he ever did in his life, I guess. Fields and Jewett
said he hadn't been in such splendid f