"You don't need as much as that," he said. "Just say the report of my death has been grossly exaggerated."
The young man went away quite seriously, and it was not until he was nearly to his office that he saw the joke. Then, of course, it was flashed all over the world.
Clemens kept grinding steadily at the book, for it was to be a very large volume--larger than he had ever written before. To MacAlister, April 6, 1897, he wrote, replying to some invitation:
Ah, but I mustn't stir from my desk before night now when the publisher is hurrying me & I am almost through. I am up at work now--4 o'clock in the morning-and a few more spurts will pull me through. You come down here & smoke; that is better than tempting a working-man to strike & go to tea.
And it would move me too deeply to see Miss Corelli. When I saw her last it was on the street in Homburg, & Susy was walking with me.
On April 13th he makes a note-book entry: "I finished my book to-day," and on the 15th he wrote MacAlister, inclosing some bits of manuscript:
I finished my book yesterday, and the madam edited this stuff out of it--on the ground that the first part is not delicate & the last part is indelicate. Now, there's a nice distinction for you--& correctly stated, too, & perfectly true.
It may interest the reader to consider briefly the manner in which Mark Twain's "editor" dealt with his manuscript, and a few pages of this particular book remain as examples. That he was not always entirely tractable, or at least submissive, but that he did yield, and graciously, is clearly shown.
In one of her comments Mrs. Clemens wrote:
Page 597. I hate to say it, but it seems to me that you go too minutely into particulars in describing the feats of the aboriginals. I felt it in the boomerang-throwing.
And Clemens just below has written:
Boomerang has been furnished with a special train--that is, I've turned it into "Appendix." Will that answer?
Page 1002. I don't like the "shady-principled cat that has a family in every port."
Then I'll modify him just a little.
Page 1020. 9th line from the top. I think some other word would be better than "stench." You have used that pretty often.
But can't I get it in anywhere? You've knocked it out every time. Out it goes again. And yet "stench" is a noble, good word.
Page 1038. I hate to have your father pictured as lashing a slave boy.
It's out, and my father is whitewashed.
Page 1050. 2d line from the bottom. Change breech-clout. It's a word that you love and I abominate. I would take that and "offal" out of the language.
You are steadily weakening the English tongue, Livy.
Page 1095. Perhaps you don't care, but whoever told you that the Prince's green stones were rubies told an untruth. They were superb emeralds. Those strings of pearls and emeralds were famous all over Bombay.
All right, I'll make them emeralds, but it loses force. Green rubies is a fresh thing. And besides it was one of the Prince's own staff liars that told me.
That the book was not quite done, even after the triumphant entry of April 13th, is shown by another note which followed something more than a month later:
May 18, 1897. Finished the book again--addition of 30,000 words.
And to MacAlister he wrote:
I have finished the book at last--and finished it for good this time. Now I am ready for dissipation with a good conscience. What night will you come down & smoke?
His book finished, Clemens went out rather more freely, and one evening allowed MacAlister to take him around to the Savage Club. There happened to be a majority of the club committee present, and on motion Mark Twain was elected an honorary life member. There were but three others on whom this distinction had been conferred--Stanley, Nansen, and the Prince of Wales.