He also spoke at a banquet given to Andrew Carnegie—Saint Andrew, as he called him—by the Engineers Club, and had his usual fun at the chief guest's expense.
I have been chief guest at a good many banquets myself, and I know
what brother Andrew is feeling like now. He has been receiving
compliments and nothing but compliments, but he knows that there is
another side to him that needs censure.
I am going to vary the complimentary monotony. While we have all
been listening to the complimentary talk Mr. Carnegie's face has
scintillated with fictitious innocence. You'd think he never
committed a crime in his life. But he has.
Look at his pestiferous simplified spelling. Imagine the calamity
on two sides of the ocean when he foisted his simplified spelling on
the whole human race. We've got it all now so that nobody could
spell....
If Mr. Carnegie had left spelling alone we wouldn't have had any
spots on the sun, or any San Francisco quake, or any business
depression.
There, I trust he feels better now and that he has enjoyed my abuse
more than he did his compliments. And now that I think I have him
smoothed down and feeling comfortable I just want to say one thing
more—that his simplified spelling is all right enough, but, like
chastity, you can carry it too far.
As he was about to go, Carnegie called his attention to the beautiful souvenir bronze and gold-plated goblets that stood at each guest's plate. Carnegie said:
“The club had those especially made at Tiffany's for this occasion. They cost ten dollars apiece.”
Clemens sand: “Is that so? Well, I only meant to take my own; but if that's the case I'll load my cab with them.”
We made an attempt to reform on the matter of billiards. The continued strain of late hours was doing neither of us any particular good. More than once I journeyed into the country on one errand and another, mainly for rest; but a card saying that he was lonely and upset, for lack of his evening games, quickly brought me back again. It was my wish only to serve him; it was a privilege and an honor to give him happiness.
Billiards, however, was not his only recreation just then. He walked out a good deal, and especially of a pleasant Sunday morning he liked the stroll up Fifth Avenue. Sometimes we went as high as Carnegie's, on Ninety-second Street, and rode home on top of the electric stage—always one of Mark Twain's favorite diversions.
From that high seat he liked to look down on the panorama of the streets, and in that free, open air he could smoke without interference. Oftener, however, we turned at Fifty-ninth Street, walking both ways.
When it was pleasant we sometimes sat on a bench in Central Park; and once he must have left a handkerchief there, for a few days later one of his handkerchiefs came to him accompanied by a note. Its finder, a Mr. Lockwood, received a reward, for Mark Twain wrote him:
There is more rejoicing in this house over that one handkerchief
that was lost and is found again than over the ninety and nine that
never went to the wash at all. Heaven will reward you, I know it
will.