"Did you ever meet this present peer and possible usurper?" I asked.

"No," he answered, "I never did, but if he had called on me, I would
have had him come up."

III

His mind turned ever to the droll. Once in London I was living with my
family at 103 Mount Street. Between 103 and 102 there was the parochial
workhouse, quite a long and imposing edifice. One evening, upon coming
in from an outing, I found a letter he had written on the sitting-room
table. He had left it with his card. He spoke of the shock he had
received upon finding that next to 102--presumably 103--was the
workhouse. He had loved me, but had always feared that I would end by
disgracing the family--being hanged or something--but the "work'us,"
that was beyond him; he had not thought it would come to that. And so
on through pages of horseplay; his relief on ascertaining the truth and
learning his mistake, his regret at not finding me at home, closing with
a dinner invitation.

It was at Geneva, Switzerland, that I received a long, overflowing
letter, full of flamboyant oddities, written from London. Two or three
hours later came a telegram. "Burn letter. Blot it from your memory.
Susie is dead."

How much of melancholy lay hidden behind the mask of his humour it would
be hard to say. His griefs were tempered by a vein of stoicism. He was
a medley of contradictions. Unconventional to the point of eccentricity,
his sense of his proper dignity was sound and sufficient. Though lavish
in the use of money, he had a full realization of its value and made
close contracts for his work. Like Sellers, his mind soared when it
sailed financial currents. He lacked acute business judgment in the
larger things, while an excellent economist in the lesser.

His marriage was the most brilliant stroke of his life. He got the woman
of all the world he most needed, a truly lovely and wise helpmate, who
kept him in bounds and headed him straight and right while she
lived. She was the best of housewives and mothers, and the safest of
counsellors and critics. She knew his worth; she appreciated his genius;
she understood his limitations and angles. Her death was a grievous
disaster as well as a staggering blow. He never wholly recovered from
it.

IV

It was in the early seventies that Mark Twain dropped into New York,
where there was already gathered a congenial group to meet and greet
him. John Hay, quoting old Jack Dade's description of himself, was