, and every little while there would be a grand
general performance in the great library downstairs, which would
accommodate just eighty-four chairs, filled by parents of the performers
and invited guests. In notes dictated many years later, Mark Twain said:

"We dined as we could, probably with a neighbor, and by quarter to
eight in the evening the hickory fire in the hall was pouring a
sheet of flame up the chimney, the house was in a drench of gas-
light from the ground floor up, the guests were arriving, and there
was a babble of hearty greetings, with not a voice in it that was
not old and familiar and affectionate; and when the curtain went up,
we looked out from the stage upon none but faces dear to us, none
but faces that were lit up with welcome for us."

He was one of the children himself, you see, and therefore on the stage
with the others. Katy Leary, for thirty years in the family service,
once said to the author: "The children were crazy about acting, and we
all enjoyed it as much as they did, especially Mr. Clemens, who was the
best actor of all. I have never known a happier household than theirs
was during those years."

The plays were not all given by the children. Mark Twain had kept up his
German study, and a class met regularly in his home to struggle with the
problems of der, die, and das. By and by he wrote a play for the class,
"Meisterschaft," a picturesque mixture of German and English, which they
gave twice, with great success. It was unlike anything attempted before
or since. No one but Mark Twain could have written it. Later (January,
1888), in modified form, it was published in the "Century Magazine." It
is his best work of this period.

Many pleasant and amusing things could be recalled from these days if one
only had room. A visit with Robert Louis Stevenson was one of them.
Stevenson was stopping at a small hotel near Washington Square, and he
and Clemens sat on a bench in the sunshine and talked through at least
one golden afternoon. What marvelous talk that must have been! "Huck
Finn" was one of Stevenson's favorites, and once he told how he had
insisted on reading the book aloud to an artist who was painting his
portrait. The painter had protested at first, but presently had fallen a
complete victim to Huck's story. Once, in a letter, Stevenson wrote:

"My father, an old man, has been prevailed upon to read 'Roughing It'
(his usual amusement being foun