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. When they told Mark Twain this he said:
"Well, it must make the Prince feel mighty fine."—[In a volume of Savage Club anecdotes the date of Mark Twain's election to honorary membership is given as 1899. Clemens's notebook gives it in 1897.]
He did not intend to rest; in another entry we find: