humor which qualified her to appreciate the self-lawed genius of a man
who will be remembered with the great humorists of all time, with
Cervantes, with Swift, or with any others worthy his company; none of
them was his equal in humanity.




IV.

Clemens had appointed himself, with the architect's connivance, a
luxurious study over the library in his new house, but as his children
grew older this study, with its carved and cushioned arm-chairs, was
given over to them for a school-room, and he took the room above his
stable, which had been intended for his coachman. There we used to talk
together, when we were not walking and talking together, until he
discovered that he could make a more commodious use of the billiard-room
at the top of his house, for the purposes of literature and friendship.
It was pretty cold up there in the early spring and late fall weather
with which I chiefly associate the place, but by lighting up all the
gas-burners and kindling a reluctant fire on the hearth we could keep it
well above freezing. Clemens could also push the balls about, and,
without rivalry from me, who could no more play billiards than smoke,
could win endless games of pool, while he carried points of argument
against imaginable differers in opinion. Here he wrote many of his tales
and sketches, and for anything I know some of his books. I particularly
remember his reading me here his first rough sketch of Captain
Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, with the real name of the captain, whom I
knew already from his many stories about him.