f that great heap of letters."

"Yes," he said, gently, "they have liked to be amused."

I tucked him in for the night, promising to send him to Bermuda, with
Claude to take care of him, if he felt he could undertake the journey in
two days more.

He was able, and he was eager to go, for he longed for that sunny island,
and for the quiet peace of the Allen home. His niece, Mrs. Loomis, came
up to spend the last evening in Stormfield, a happy evening full of quiet
talk, 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 r