Page:Boys Life of Mark Twain.djvu/355

ARRANGES FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY stray leaf from Joan's life, blown to him by the wind—which had led to his interest in all literature. Then presently I was with Genung again and he was still insisting that I write the life of Mark Twain. It may have been his faithful urging, it may have been the quick sympathy kindled by the name of Joan of Arc; whatever it was, in the instant of bidding good-by to our guest I was prompted to add:

"May I call to see you, Mr. Clemens, some day?" And something—to this day I do not know what—prompted him to answer:

"Yes, come soon."

Two days later, by appointment with his secretary, I arrived at 21 Fifth Avenue, and waited in the library to be summoned to his room. A few moments later I was ascending the long stairs, wondering why I had come on so useless an errand, trying to think up an excuse for having come at all.

He was propped up in bed—a regal bed, from a dismantled Italian palace—delving through a copy of Huckleberry Finn, in search of a paragraph concerning which some unknown correspondent had inquired. He pushed the cigars toward me, commenting amusingly on this correspondent and on letter-writing in general. By and by, when there came a lull, I told him what so many thousands had told him before—what his work had meant to me, so long ago, and recalled my childish impressions of that large black-and-gilt book with its wonderful pictures and adventures—The Innocents Abroad. Very likely he was willing enough to let me change 313