ended. It was not quite over. A sequel to his "Luck" story, published
nine years before, suddenly developed.

To go back a little, the reader may recall that "Luck" was a story which
Twichell had told him as being supposedly true. The hero of it was a
military officer who had risen to the highest rank through what at
least seemed to be sheer luck, including a number of fortunate blunders.
Clemens thought the story improbable, but wrote it and laid it away for
several years, offering it at last in the general house-cleaning which
took place after the first collapse of the machine. It was published
in Harper's Magazine for August, 1891, and something less than a year
later, in Rome, an English gentleman--a new acquaintance--said to him:

"Mr. Clemens, shall you go to England?"

"Very likely."

"Shall you take your tomahawk with you?"

"Why--yes, if it shall seem best."

"Well, it will. Be advised. Take it with you."

"Why?"

"Because of that sketch of yours entitled 'Luck.' That sketch is current
in England, and you will surely need your tomahawk."

"What makes you think so?"

"I think so because the hero of the sketch will naturally want your
scalp, and will probably apply for it. Be advised. Take your tomahawk
along."

"Why, even with it I sha'n't stand any chance, because I sha'n't know
him when he applies, and he will have my scalp before I know what his
errand is."

"Come, do you mean to say that you don't know who the hero of that
sketch is?"

"Indeed I haven't any idea who the hero of the sketch is. Who is it?"

His informant hesitated a moment, then named a name of world-wide
military significance.

As Mask Twain finished his Fourth of July speech at the Cecil and
started to sit down a splendidly uniformed and decorated personage at
his side said:

"Mr. Clemens, I have been wanting to know you a long time," and he was
looking down into the face of the hero of "Luck."

"I was caught unprepared," he said in his notes of it. "I didn't sit
down--I fell down. I didn't have my tomahawk, and I didn't know what
would happen. But he was, composed, and pretty soon I got composed and
we had a good, friendly time. If he had ever heard of that sketch of
mine he did not manifest it in any way, and at twelve, midnight, I took
my scalp home intact."

CCXI. DOLLIS HILL AND HOME

It was early in July, 1900, that they removed to Dollis Hill House, a
beautiful old residence surrounded by trees on a pe