likely to forget the names even of those he knew best
and saw oftenest, and the small details of life seldom registered at all.

He had his breakfast served in his room, and once, on a slip of paper, he
wrote, for his own reminder:

The accuracy of your forgetfulness is absolute--it seems never to fail. I
prepare to pour my coffee so it can cool while I shave--and I always
forget to pour it.

Yet, very curiously, he would sometimes single out a minute detail,
something every one else had overlooked, and days or even weeks afterward
would recall it vividly, and not always at an opportune moment. Perhaps
this also was a part of his old pilot-training. Once Clara Clemens
remarked:

"It always amazes me the things that father does and does not remember.
Some little trifle that nobody else would notice, and you are hoping that
he didn't, will suddenly come back to him just when you least expect it
or care for it."

My note-book contains the entry:

February 11, 1907. He said to-day:

"A blindfolded chess-player can remember every play and discuss the
game afterward, while we can't remember from one shot to the next."

I mentioned his old pilot-memory as an example of what he could do
if he wished.

"Yes," he answered, "those are special memories; a pilot will tell
you the number of feet in every crossing at any time, but he can't
remember what he had for breakfast."

"How long did you keep your pilot-memory?" I asked.

"Not long; it faded out right away, but the training served me, for
when I went to report on a paper a year or two later I never had to
make any notes."

"I suppose you still remember some of the river?"

"Not much. Hat Island, Helena and here and there a place; but that
is about all."

CCLV

FURTHER PERSONALITIES

Like every person living, Mark Twain had some peculiar and petty
economies. Such things in great men are noticeable. He lived
extravagantly. His household expenses at the time amounted to more than
fifty dollars a day. In the matter of food, the choicest, and most
expensive the market could furnish was always served in lavish abundance.
He had the best and highest-priced servants, ample as to number. His
clothes he bought generously; he gave without stint to his children; his
gratuities were always liberal. He never questioned pecuniary outgoes
--seldom worried as to the state of his bank-account so long as there