, and next morning, in the old closed carriage that
had been his wedding-gift, he was driven to the railway station. This
was on January 4, 1910.

He was to sail next day, and that night, at Mr. Loomis's, Howells came
in, and for an hour or two they reviewed some of the questions they
had so long ago settled, or left forever unsettled, and laid away.
I remember that at dinner Clemens spoke of his old Hartford butler,
George, and how he had once brought George to New York and introduced
him at the various publishing houses as his friend, with curious and
sometimes rather embarrassing results.

The talk drifted to sociology and to the labor-unions, which Clemens
defended as being the only means by which the workman could obtain
recognition of his rights.

Howells in his book mentions this evening, which he says "was made
memorable to me by the kind, clear, judicial sense with which he
explained and justified the labor-unions as the sole present help of the
weak against the strong."

They discussed dreams, and then in a little while Howells rose to go.
I went also, and as we walked to his near-by apartment he spoke of Mark
Twain's supremacy. He said:

"I turn to his books for cheer when I am down-hearted. There was never
anybody like him; there never will be."

Clemens sailed next morning. They did not meet again.

CCXCI. LETTERS FROM BERMUDA

Stormfield was solemn and empty without Mark Twain; but he wrote by
every steamer, at first with his own hand, and during the last week by
the hand of one of his enlisted secretaries--some member of the
Allen family usually Helen. His letters were full of brightness and
pleasantry--always concerned more or less with business matters, though
he was no longer disturbed by them, for Bermuda was too peaceful and too
far away, and, besides, he had faith in the Mark Twain Company's ability
to look after his affairs. I cannot do better, I believe, than to offer
some portions of these letters here.

He reached Bermuda on the 7th of January, 1910, and on the 12th he
wrote:

Again I am living the ideal life. There is nothing to mar it but
the bloody-minded bandit Arthur,--[A small playmate of Helen's of
whom Clemens pretended to be fiercely jealous. Once he wrote a
memorandum to Helen: "Let Arthur read this book. There is a page in
it that is poisoned."]--who still fetches and carries Helen.
Presently he will be found drowned. Claude comes to Bay Hous