“Well—, d—-n Scott. I hope his uncle's funeral will be a failure!”
The second anecdote concerns The Player egg-cups. They easily hold two eggs, but not three. One morning a new waiter came to take the breakfast order. Clemens said:
“Boy, put three soft eggs in that cup for me.”
By and by the waiter returned, bringing the breakfast. Clemens looked at the egg portion and asked:
“Boy, what was my order?”
“Three soft eggs broken in the cup, Mr. Clemens.”
“And you've filled that order, have you?”
“Yes, Mr. Clemens.”
“Boy, you are trifling with the truth; I've been trying all winter to get three eggs into that cup.”]
In one letter he tells of a dinner with his old Comstock friend, John Mackay—a dinner without any frills, just soup and raw oysters and corned beef and cabbage, such as they had reveled in sometimes, in prosperous moments, thirty years before.