getting white, and I said, privately, "Now, this young man's hour has
come."

It was certainly by the mercy of God just then that the visitor said:

"I'm sorry, but I've got to go. I'd like to stay longer, but I've got an
engagement for dinner."

I don't remember how he got out, but I know that tons lifted as the door
closed behind him. Clemens made his shot, then very softly said:

"If he had stayed another five minutes I should have offered him
twenty-five cents to go."

But a moment later he glared at me.

"Why in nation did you offer him your cue?"

"Wasn't that the courteous thing to do?" I asked.

"No!" he ripped out. "The courteous and proper thing would have been to
strike him dead. Did you want to saddle that disaster upon us for life?"

He was blowing off steam, and I knew it and encouraged it. My impulse
was to lie down on the couch and shout with hysterical laughter, but I
suspected that would be indiscreet. He made some further comment on
the propriety of offering a visitor a cue, and suddenly began to sing a
travesty of an old hymn:

"How tedious are they
Who their sovereign obey,"

and so loudly that I said:

"Aren't you afraid he'll hear you and come back?" Whereupon he pretended
alarm and sang under his breath, and for the rest of the evening was in
boundless good-humor.

I have recalled this incident merely as a sample of things that were
likely to happen at any time in his company, and to show the difficulty
one might find in fitting himself to his varying moods. He was not to
be learned in a day, or a week, or a month; some of those who knew him
longest did not learn him at all.

We celebrated his seventy-first birthday by playing billiards all day.
He invented a new game for the occasion; inventing rules for it with
almost every shot.

It happened that no member of the family was at home on this birthday.
Ill health had banished every one, even the secretary. Flowers,
telegrams, and congratulations came, and there was a string of callers;
but he saw no one beyond some intimate friends--the Gilders--late in the
afternoon. When they had gone we went down to dinner. We were entirely
alone, and I felt the great honor of being his only guest on such an
occasion. Once between the courses, when he rose, as usual, to walk
about, he wandered into the drawing-room, and seating himself at the
orchestrelle began to play the beautiful flower-song from "Faust." It
was a th