ok-store for the purpose of
finding something to read. Pulling over some volumes on one of the
tables, Clemens happened to pick up a little green, cloth-bound book, and
after looking at the title turned the pages rather curiously and with
increasing interest.

"Cable," he said, "do you know anything about this book, the Arthurian
legends of Sir Thomas Malory, Morte Arthure?"

Cable answered: "Mark, that is one of the most beautiful books in the
world. Let me buy it for you. You will love it more than any book you
ever read."

So Clemens came to know the old chronicler's version of the rare Round
Table legends, and from that first acquaintance with them to the last
days of his life seldom let the book go far from him. He read and reread
those quaint, stately tales and reverenced their beauty, while fairly
reveling in the absurdities of that ancient day. Sir Ector's lament he
regarded as one of the most simply beautiful pieces of writing in the
English tongue, and some of the combats and quests as the most ridiculous
absurdities in romance. Presently he conceived the idea of linking that
day, with its customs, costumes, and abuses, with the progress of the
present, or carrying back into that age of magicians and armor and
superstition and cruelties a brisk American of progressive ideas who
would institute reforms. His note-book began to be filled with memoranda
of situations and possibilities for the tale he had in mind. These were
vague, unformed fancies as yet, and it would be a long time before the
story would become a fact. This was the first entry:

Dream of being a knight-errant in armor in the Middle Ages. Have
the notions and habits, though, of the present day mixed with the
necessities of that. No pockets in the armor. No way to manage
certain requirements of nature. Can't scratch. Cold in the head
and can't blow. Can't get a handkerchief; can't use iron sleeve;
iron gets red-hot in the sun; leaks in the rain; gets white with
frost and freezes me solid in winter; makes disagreeable clatter
when I enter church. Can't dress or undress myself. Always getting
struck by lightning. Fall down and can't get up.

Twenty-one years later, discussing the genesis of the story, he said:

"As I read those quaint and curious old legends I suppose I naturally
contrasted those days with ours, and it made me curious to fancy what
might be the picturesque result if we could dump the nineteen