t summer island, and no one was visible. I was familiar with the
place, and, without knocking, I went through to the room occupied by
Mark Twain. As I entered I saw that he was alone, sitting in a large
chair, clad in the familiar dressing-gown.

Bay House stands upon the water, and the morning light, reflected in at
the window, had an unusual quality. He was not yet shaven, and he seemed
unnaturally pale and gray; certainly he was much thinner. I was too
startled, for the moment, to say anything. When he turned and saw me he
seemed a little dazed.

"Why," he said, holding out his hand, "you didn't tell us you were
coming."

"No," I said, "it is rather sudden. I didn't quite like the sound of
your last letters."

"But those were not serious," he protested. "You shouldn't have come on
my account."

I said then that I had come on my own account; that I had felt the need
of recreation, and had decided to run down and come home with him.

"That's--very--good," he said, in his slow, gentle fashion. "Now I'm
glad to see you."

His breakfast came in and he ate with an appetite.

When he had been shaved and freshly propped tip in his pillows it seemed
to me, after all, that I must have been mistaken in thinking him so
changed. Certainly he was thinner, but his color was fine, his eyes were
bright; he had no appearance of a man whose life was believed to be in
danger. He told me then of the fierce attacks he had gone through, how
the pains had torn at him, and how it had been necessary for him to have
hypodermic injections, which he amusingly termed "hypnotic injunctions"
and "subcutaneous applications," and he had his humor out of it, as of
course he must have, even though Death should stand there in person.

From Mr. and Mrs. Allen and from the physician I learned how slender had
been his chances and how uncertain were the days ahead. Mr. Allen had
already engaged passage on the Oceana for the 12th, and the one purpose
now was to get him physically in condition for the trip.

How devoted those kind friends had been to him! They had devised every
imaginable thing for his comfort. Mr. Allen had rigged an electric bell
which connected with his own room, so that he could be aroused instantly
at any hour of the night. Clemens had refused to have a nurse, for it
was only during the period of his extreme suffering that he needed any
one, and he did not wish to have a nurse always around. When the pains
were gone he was as