y came drifting along three feet
or so above the floor. The kitten must have got a glimpse of the insect
out of the corner of its eye, and perhaps did not altogether realize its
action. At all events, it suddenly shot straight up into the air,
exactly like a bounding rubber ball, missed the butterfly, fell back on
the porch floor with considerable force and with much surprise. Then it
sprang to its feet, and, after spitting furiously once or twice, bounded
away. Clemens had seen the performance, and it completely took his
subject out of his mind. He laughed extravagantly, and evidently cared
more for that moment's entertainment than for many philosophies.

In that remote solitude there was one important advantage--there was no
procession of human beings with axes to grind, and few curious callers.
Occasionally an automobile would find its way out there and make a
circuit of the drive, but this happened too seldom to annoy him. Even
newspaper men rarely made the long trip from Boston or New York to secure
his opinions, and when they came it was by permission and appointment.
Newspaper telegrams arrived now and then, asking for a sentiment on some
public condition or event, and these he generally answered willingly
enough. When the British Premier, Campbell-Bannerman, celebrated his
seventieth birthday, the London Tribune and the New York Herald requested
a tribute. He furnished it, for Bannerman was a very old friend. He had
known him first at Marienbad in '91, and in Vienna in '98, in daily
intercourse, when they had lived at the same hotel. His tribute ran:

To HIS EXCELLENCY THE BRITISH PREMIER,--Congratulations, not condolences.
Before seventy we are merely respected, at best, and we have to behave
all the time, or we lose that asset; but after seventy we are respected,
esteemed, admired, revered, and don't have to behave unless we want to.
When I first knew you, Honored Sir, one of us was hardly even respected.
MARK TWAIN.

He had some misgivings concerning the telegram after it had gone, but he
did not recall it.

Clemens became the victim of a very clever hoax that summer. One day a
friend gave him two examples of the most deliciously illiterate letters,
supposed to have been written by a woman who had contributed certain
articles of clothing to the San Francisco sufferers, and later wished to
recall them because of the protests of her household. He was so sure
that the letter