ed when Clemens and
Rogers had made their Chicago trip. Rogers had written for passes over
the Pennsylvania road, and the president, replying, said:

"No, I won't give Mark Twain a pass over our road. I've been reading his
'Traveling with a Reformer,' in which he abuses our road. I wouldn't let
him ride over it again if I could help it. The only way I'll agree to
let him go over it at all is in my private car. I have stocked it with
everything he can possibly want, and have given orders that if there
is anything else he wants the train is to be stopped until they can get
it."

"Pudd'nhead Wilson" was appearing in the Century during this period, and
"Tom Sawyer Abroad" in the St. Nicholas. The Century had issued a tiny
calendar of the Pudd'nhead maxims, and these quaint bits of philosophy,
the very gems of Mark Twain mental riches, were in everybody's mouth.
With all this going on, and with his appearance at various social
events, he was rather a more spectacular figure that winter than ever
before.

From the note-book:

The Haunted Looking-glass. The guest (at midnight a dim light
burning) wakes up & sees appear & disappear the faces that have
looked into the glass during 3 centuries.

Love seems the swiftest but is the slowest of all growths. No man
and woman really know what perfect love is until they have been
married a quarter of a century.

It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.

Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made the
slave of the lash--that one is the cat.

Truth is stranger than fiction--to some people, but I am measurably
familiar with it.

CLXXXVIII. FAILURE

It was the first week in March before it was thought to be safe for
Clemens to return to France, even for a brief visit to his family. He
hurried across and remained with them what seemed an infinitesimal time,
a bare three weeks, and was back again in New York by the middle of
April. The Webster company difficulties had now reached an acute stage.
Mr. Rogers had kept a close watch on its financial affairs, hoping to be
able to pull it through or to close it without failure, paying all the
creditors in full; but on the afternoon of the 16th of April, 1894, Hall
arrived at Clemens's room at The Players in a panic. The Mount Morris
Bank had elected a new president and board of directors, and had
straightway served notice on him that he must pay his n