door.

The "slave" must have been setting the table in good season, for the
Clemens breakfasts were likely to be late. They usually came along about
nine o'clock, by which time Howells and John were fairly clawing with
hunger.

Clemens did not have an early appetite, but when it came it was a good
one. Breakfast and dinner were his important meals. He seldom ate at
all during the middle of the day, though if guests were present he would
join them at luncheon-time and walk up and down while they were eating,
talking and gesticulating in his fervent, fascinating way. Sometimes
Mrs. Clemens would say:

"Oh, Youth, do come and sit down with us. We can listen so much better."

But he seldom did. At dinner, too, it was his habit, between the
courses, to rise from the table and walk up and down the room, waving his
napkin and talking!--talking in a strain and with a charm that he could
never quite equal with his pen. It's the opinion of most people who knew
Mark Twain personally that his impromptu utterances, delivered with that
ineffable quality of speech, manifested the culmination of his genius.

When Clemens came to Boston the Howells household was regulated, or
rather unregulated, without regard to former routine. Mark Twain's
personality was of a sort that unconsciously compelled the general
attendance of any household. The reader may recall Josh Billings's
remark on the subject. Howells tells how they kept their guest to
themselves when he visited their home in Cambridge, permitting him to
indulge in as many unconventions as he chose; how Clemens would take a
room at the Parker House, leaving the gas burning day and night, and
perhaps arrive at Cambridge, after a dinner or a reading, in evening
dress and slippers, and joyously remain with them for a day or more in
that guise, slipping on an overcoat and a pair of rubbers when they went
for a walk. Also, how he smoked continuously in every room of the house,
smoked during every waking moment, and how Howells, mindful of his
insurance, sometimes slipped in and removed the still-burning cigar after
he was asleep.

Clemens had difficulty in getting to sleep in that earlier day, and for a
time found it soothing to drink a little champagne on retiring. Once,
when he arrived in Boston, Howells said:

"Clemens, we've laid in a bottle of champagne for you."

But he answered:

"Oh, that's no good any more. Beer's the thing."

So Howells provided the beer, and always a