to Bell) attributed it largely to his
influence. He wrote to him:

DEAR MR. BELL,--Your hand is in it & you have my best thanks.
Although I wouldn't cross an ocean again for the price of the ship
that carried me I am glad to do it for an Oxford degree. I shall
plan to sail for England a shade before the middle of June, so that
I can have a few days in London before the 26th.

A day or two later, when the time for sailing had been arranged, he
overtook his letter with a cable:

I perceive your hand in it. You have my best thanks. Sail on
Minneapolis June 8th. Due in Southampton ten days later.

Clemens said that his first word of the matter had been a newspaper
cablegram, and that he had been doubtful concerning it until a cablegram
to himself had confirmed it.

"I never expected to cross the water again," he said; "but I would be
willing to journey to Mars for that Oxford degree."

He put the matter aside then, and fell to talking of Jim Gillis and
the others I had visited, dwelling especially on Gillis's astonishing
faculty for improvising romances, recalling how he had stood with his
back to the fire weaving his endless, grotesque yarns, with no other
guide than his fancy. It was a long, happy walk we had, though rather
a sad one in its memories; and he seemed that day, in a sense, to close
the gate of those early scenes behind him, for he seldom referred to
them afterward.

He was back at 21 Fifth Avenue presently, arranging for his voyage.
Meantime, cable invitations of every sort were pouring in, from this and
that society and dignitary; invitations to dinners and ceremonials, and
what not, and it was clear enough that his English sojourn was to be a
busy one. He had hoped to avoid this, and began by declining all but
two invitations--a dinner-party given by Ambassador Whitelaw Reid and a
luncheon proposed by the "Pilgrims." But it became clear that this would
not do. England was not going to confer its greatest collegiate honor
without being permitted to pay its wider and more popular tribute.

Clemens engaged a special secretary for the trip--Mr. Ralph W. Ashcroft,
a young Englishman familiar with London life. They sailed on the 8th of
June, by a curious coincidence exactly forty years from the day he had
sailed on the Quaker City to win his great fame. I went with him to the
ship. His first elation had passed by this time, and he seemed a little
sad, remembering, I think, the