the sort of general appeal his friends were making to our principles and
pockets because I felt it so wholly idle, and when the paper was produced
in Gorky's presence and Clemens put his name to it I still refused. The
next day Gorky was expelled from his hotel with the woman who was not his
wife, but who, I am bound to say, did not look as if she were not, at
least to me, who am, however, not versed in those aspects of human
nature.

I might have escaped unnoted, but Clemens's familiar head gave us away to
the reporters waiting at the elevator's mouth for all who went to see
Gorky. As it was, a hunt of interviewers ensued for us severally and
jointly. I could remain aloof in my hotel apartment, returning answer to
such guardians of the public right to know everything that I had nothing
to say of Gorky's domestic affairs; for the public interest had now
strayed far from the revolution, and centred entirely upon these. But
with Clemens it was different; he lived in a house with a street door
kept by a single butler, and he was constantly rung for. I forget how
long the siege lasted, but long enough for us to have fun with it. That
was the moment of the great Vesuvian eruption, and we figured ourselves
in easy reach of a volcano which was every now and then "blowing a cone
off," as the telegraphic phrase was. The roof of the great market in
Naples had just broken in under its load of ashes and cinders, and
crashed hundreds of people; and we asked each other if we were not sorry
we had not been there, where the pressure would have been far less
terrific than it was with us in Fifth Avenue. The forbidden butler came
up with a message that there were some gentlemen below who wanted to see
Clemens.

"How many?" he demanded.