s
of Mr. Densmore's in the play, but I used so much of his plot that I
wrote and told him that I should pay him about as much more as I had
already paid him in case the play proved a success. I shall keep my
word.

This letter, written while the matter was fresh in his mind, is
undoubtedly in accordance with the facts. That Densmore was fully
satisfied may be gathered from an acknowledgment, in which he says:
"Your letter reached me on the ad, with check. In this place permit me
to thank you for the very handsome manner in which you have acted in
this matter."

Warner, meantime, realizing that the play was constructed almost
entirely of the Mark Twain chapters of the book, agreed that his
collaborator should undertake the work and financial responsibilities
of the dramatic venture and reap such rewards as might result. Various
stories have been told of this matter, most of them untrue. There was no
bitterness between the friends, no semblance of an estrangement of
any sort. Warner very generously and promptly admitted that he was not
concerned with the play, its authorship, or its profits, whatever the
latter might amount to. Moreover, Warner was going to Egypt very soon,
and his labors and responsibilities were doubly sufficient as they
stood.

Clemens's estimate of the play as a dramatic composition was correct
enough, but the public liked it, and it was a financial success from the
start. He employed a representative to travel with Raymond, to assist in
the management and in the division of spoil. The agent had instructions
to mail a card every day, stating the amount of his share in the
profits. Howells once arrived in Hartford just when this postal tide of
fortune was at its flood:

One hundred and fifty dollars--two hundred dollars--three hundred
dollars were the gay figures which they bore, and which he flaunted in
the air, before he sat down at the table, or rose from it to brandish,
and then, flinging his napkin in the chair, walked up and down to exult
in.

Once, in later years, referring to the matter, Howells said "He was
never a man who cared anything about money except as a dream, and he
wanted more and more of it to fill out the spaces of this dream." Which
was a true word. Mark Twain with money was like a child with a heap of
bright pebbles, ready to pile up more and still more, then presently to
throw them all away and begin gathering anew.

XCVI. THE NEW HOME

The Cleme