them three bareheaded secretaries seated at a table.
Mr. Phelps put his finger upon one of the three and said, with
exulting indifference:

"An ancestor of mine."

I put a finger on a judge and retorted with scathing languidness:
"Ancestor of mine. But it is a small matter. I have others."

Clemens was sincerely fond of Phelps and spent a good deal of time
at the legation headquarters. Sometimes he wrote there. An American
journalist, Henry W. Fischer, remembers seeing him there several times
scribbling on such scraps of paper as came handy, and recalls that on
one occasion he delivered an address to a German and English audience
on the "Awful German Tongue." This was probably the lecture that brought
Clemens to bed with pneumonia. With Mrs. Clemens he had been down to
Ilsenburg, in the Hartz Mountains, for a week of change. It was pleasant
there, and they would have remained longer but for the Berlin lecture
engagement. As it was, they found Berlin very cold and the lecture-room
crowded and hot. When the lecture was over they stopped at General von
Versen's for a ball, arriving at home about two in the morning. Clemens
awoke with a heavy cold and lung congestion. He remained in bed, a
very sick man indeed, for the better part of a month. It was unpleasant
enough at first, though he rather enjoyed the convalescent period. He
could sit up in bed and read and receive occasional callers.
Fischer brought him Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth, always a
favorite.--[Clemens was deeply interested in the Margravine, and at one
time began a novel with her absorbing history as its theme. He gave it
up, probably feeling that the romantic form could add nothing to the
Margravine's own story.]--The Emperor sent Frau von Versen with an
invitation for him to attend the consecration of some flags in the
palace. When she returned, conveying thanks and excuses, his Majesty
commanded her to prepare a dinner at her home for Mark Twain and
himself and a few special guests, the date to be arranged when Clemens's
physician should pronounce him well enough to attend.

Members of the Clemens household were impressed by this royal attention.
Little Jean was especially awed. She said:

"I wish I could be in papa's clothes"; then, after reflection, "but that
wouldn't be any use. I reckon the Emperor wouldn't recognize me." And
a little later, when she had been considering all the notables and
nobilities of her father's