they have cabled over here. Mr. Birrell says he does not know how he got
here. But he will be able to get away all right--he has not drunk
anything since he came here. I am glad to know about those friends of
his, Otway and Chatterton--fresh, new names to me. I am glad of the
disposition he has shown to rescue them from the evils of poverty, and if
they are still in London, I hope to have a talk with them. For a while I
thought he was going to tell us the effect which my book had upon his
growing manhood. I thought he was going to tell us how much that effect
amounted to, and whether it really made him what he now is, but with the
discretion born of Parliamentary experience he dodged that, and we do not
know now whether he read the book or not. He did that very neatly. I
could not do it any better myself.

My books have had effects, and very good ones, too, here and there, and
some others not so good. There is no doubt about that. But I remember
one monumental instance of it years and years ago. Professor Norton, of
Harvard, was over here, and when he came back to Boston I went out with
Howells to call on him. Norton was allied in some way by marriage with
Darwin.

Mr. Norton was very gentle in what he had to say, and almost delicate,
and he said: "Mr. Clemens, I have been spending some time with Mr. Darwin
in England, and I should like to tell you something connected with that
visit. You were the object of it, and I myself would have been very
proud of it, but you may not be proud of it. At any rate, I am going to
tell you what it was, and to leave to you to regard it as you please.
Mr. Darwin took me up to his bedroom and pointed out certain things
there-pitcher-plants, and so on, that he was measuring and watching from
day to day--and he said: 'The chambermaid is permitted to do what she
pleases in this room, but she must never touch those plants and never