. A sequel to Huckleberry Finn--Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among
the Indians--was begun, and a number of its chapters were set in type
on the new Paige compositor, which had cost such a gallant sum, and
was then thought to be complete. There seems to have been a plan to
syndicate the story, but at the end of Chapter IX Huck and Tom had
got themselves into a predicament from which it seemed impossible to
extricate them, and the plot was suspended for further inspiration,
which apparently never came.

Clemens, in fact, was troubled with rheumatism in his arm and shoulder,
which made writing difficult. Mrs. Clemens, too, had twinges of the
malady. They planned to go abroad for the summer of 1890, to take the
waters of some of the German baths, but they were obliged to give up
the idea. There were too many business complications; also the health
of Clemens's mother had become very feeble. They went to Tannersville in
the Catskills, instead--to the Onteora Club, where Mrs. Candace Wheeler
had gathered a congenial colony in a number of picturesque cottages,
with a comfortable hotel for the more transient visitor. The Clemenses
secured a cottage for the season. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, Laurence
Hutton, Carroll Beckwith, the painter; Brander Matthews, Dr. Heber
Newton, Mrs. Custer, and Dora Wheeler were among those who welcomed Mark
Twain and his family at a generous home-made banquet.

It was the beginning of a happy summer. There was a constant visiting
from one cottage to another, with frequent assemblings at the Bear and
Fox Inn, their general headquarters. There were pantomimes and charades,
in which Mark Twain and his daughters always had star parts. Susy
Clemens, who was now eighteen, brilliant and charming, was beginning
to rival her father as a leader of entertainment. Her sister Clara gave
impersonations of Modjeska and Ada Rehan. When Fourth of July came there
were burlesque races, of which Mark Twain was starter, and many of that
lighthearted company took part. Sometimes, in the evening, they gathered
in one of the cottages and told stories by the firelight, and once he
told the story of the Golden Arm, so long remembered, and brought
them up with the same old jump at the sudden climax. Brander Matthews
remembers that Clemens was obliged frequently to go to New York on
business connected with the machine and the publishing, and that during
one of these absences a professional entertainer came along, and in the
course o