HOW "INNOCENTS ABROAD" WAS WRITTEN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 229, 20 June 1908, Page 12

HOW "INNOCENTS ABROAD" WAS WRITTEN.

Writing in the Philadelphia "Saturday Evening Post," Sonator Stowart tolls tho world that in tho year 1867 ho had the honour of employing as his privato secretary in "Washington no less a porson thun Mark Twain. "I was seated," writes tho Novada Senator, "at mv window one morning when a man slouchcd into tho room. Ho was arrayed in a seedy suit, which hung upon his lean frame in bunohes, with no stylo worth, mentioning. ' A sheaf of scraggly, black hair leaked out of a battered, old slouch hat, like stuffing from' an ancient colonial sofa, .and an ovil-smelling cigar-butt, very much frazzled, protruding from tho corner of his mouth.- Ho had a very sinister appoaranco. He was a man I had known around tho Nevada mining camps, several years before, and his name was Samuel L.. Clemens." Tho Senator greeted- tho immortal humorist with tho.warning, "If .you put anything in tho paper nbout'mo I'll sue you for libel, and'tho following conversation took place:— He waved tho suggestion aside with easy familiarity. Said i Clemens—"Sonator,. I!vo come to seo you ion important business. I am just back from the Holy Land." Said I, looking him over, " That is a mean tiling to say of tho Holy Land when it isn't hero to defend itself. But maybe you; didn't get all the advantages. You ought to go back and tako'a post-graduate course. Did you walk homo?" Said Clemens, not at all ruffled, " I have a- proposition. There's millions in it. All I nocxl is a littlo cash stake. I have been to the Holy Land with a party of innocent and estimable people, who are fairly aching to bo written up, and. I think I could do the job neatly and with dispatch if I were not troubled with other —more pressing— considerations. I'vo started tho book already, and it's a wonder. I can vouch for .it-" I said, "Let me see tho manuscript." Ho pulled a dozen sheets or so from his pocket, and handed them to me. I read what ho had written, and I saw that it was a bully.

Said I, "I'll appoint you my olork in the Senate, and you can live on the salary. There's a little hall bedroom across the way whero you can sleep, and you can write your book in here. Help yourself to the whisky and cigars, and wado in." Tho invitation Was _ then and there accepted, and Ivfark Twain became the private secretary of. Souator Stowart. . Unfortunately; tlio Senator's landlady was a spinster of 70, who had lost, everything in the war, and was naturally, anxious to recoup her fortunes as far as possible by this experiment of a boardinghouSo in Washington. Such a personality was necessarily hostile to tho now boarder, who found "nmusoment" in adding to lier worst fears. Often, for example, he would stagger, through tho corridors, "pretending .to bo intoxicated; and wonid throw her into a fitabout six times n day." Finally, he formed tho habit of smoking in bed. which brought her panic-strickon to tho senator. She said, " Senator, if you don't ask that friend of yours to loavo I shall have to givo: up my lodging-house, and what will becoino of mo thou? Ho smokes cigars in bed all night, and has ruined my best sheets, and l.expcct to be bnrjied out any timo. I'vo been on tho alert now for three weeks, but I can't keep it up much longer. I need sleep." ' ' I told her to leavo the room, and I called Clemens. I snid. "Tf you don't stop annoyinjr this little lady I'll cive you a sound thrashing; I'll wait till that book's finished. I don't want to'.interfere . with;, literature.. I'll thrash you after it's finished-." Ho blew some smoko in my face. Said he — " You are mighty unreasonable." I thought' he woyld behave himself after that. But one dajv a week later, Miss Virginia staggered 'into my room again, in a floral of tears. Sho said, "Senator, that man will kill mo. I oan't stand it. If be doesn't go I'll have to ask yon to give un your rooms, and the! Lord knows whether I'll be able to rent them again." j "This filled me with alarm. I was very comfortable where I was. I sent her away kindly, and called Clemens. • Said I. "You liavo cot to stop this foolishness. If you don't stop annoying this little lady I'll amend my former resolution and five you that thrashing right hero, and now. Then I'll send you to the hospital, and pay your expenses, and bring von back, and you can finish your book upholstered in bandasos." He saw that I meant business. He said— "All right, I'll give up my amusements; but I'll get even with you." The interview seems to have/been satisfactory, for Mark Twaiii gave l , up smoking in bed, but ho seems also to have kept -the incident,in mind. " When be. wrote," says tlio senator, " 'Roughing It,' ho said I had cheated him out of somo mining stock, or something like that, and that ho had given mo v a sound thrashing, aud he printed a picturri of me in the book with a patch over one eyo." Mark Twain remained a private secretary for some timo, and tho great' book was 1 ' written in that very room, and christened "The Innocents Abroad." - But the senator was still suspicions. " I was confidont," he concludes, "that he would come to no good end, but I have heard of him from timo to time since then, and I understand that he has settled down and become respectablo." - -