d, he found no
lack of material in America. That winter in Hartford, with Charles
Dudley Warner, he wrote "The Gilded Age." The Warners were neighbors,
and the families visited back and forth. One night at dinner, when the
two husbands were criticizing the novels their wives were reading, the
wives suggested that their author husbands write a better one. The
challenge was accepted. On the spur of the moment Warner and Clemens
agreed that they would write a book together, and began it immediately.

Clemens had an idea already in mind. It was to build a romance around
that lovable dreamer, his mother's cousin, James Lampton, whom the reader
will recall from an earlier chapter. Without delay he set to work and
soon completed the first three hundred and ninety-nine pages of the new
story. Warner came over and, after listening to its reading, went home
and took up the story. In two months the novel was complete, Warner
doing most of the romance, Mark Twain the character parts. Warner's
portion was probably pure fiction, but Mark Twain's chapters were full of
history.

Judge Hawkins and wife were Mark Twain's father and mother; Washington
Hawkins, his brother Orion. Their doings, with those of James Lampton as
Colonel Sellers, were, of course, elaborated, but the story of the
Tennessee land, as told in that book, is very good history indeed. Laura
Hawkins, however, was only real in the fact that she bore the name of
Samuel Clemens's old playmate. "The Gilded Age," published later in the
year, was well received and sold largely. The character of Colonel
Sellers at once took a place among the great fiction characters of the
world, and is probably the best known of any American creation. His
watchword, "There's millions in it!" became a byword.

The Clemenses decided to build in Hartford. They bought a plot of land
on Farmington Avenue, in the literary neighborhood, and engaged an
architect and builder. By spring, the new house was well under way, and,
matters progressing so favorably, the owners decided to take a holiday
while the work was going on. Clemens had been eager to show England to
his wife; so, taking little Sissy, now a year old, they sailed in May, to
be gone half a year.

They remained for a time in London--a period of honors and entertainment.
If Mark Twain had been a lion on his first visit, he was hardly less than
royalty now. His rooms at the Langham Hotel were like a court. The
nation's most distinguished