And Clemens, though his conscience pricked him, obeyed, as was his habit at such times. To Mrs. Clemens (in Paris now, at the Hotel Brighton) he wrote:
He is not common clay, but fine-fine & delicate. I did hate to burden his good heart & overworked head, but he took hold with avidity & said it was no burden to work for his friends, but a pleasure. When I arrived in September, Lord! how black the prospect was & how desperate, how incurably desperate! Webster & Co. had to have a small sum of money or go under at once. I flew to Hartford —to my friends—but they were not moved, not strongly interested, & I was ashamed that I went. It was from Mr. Rogers, a stranger, that I got the money and was by it saved. And then—while still a stranger—he set himself the task of saving my financial life without putting upon me (in his native delicacy) any sense that I was the recipient of a charity, a benevolence. He gave time to me —time, which could not be bought by any man at $100,000 a month—no, nor for three times the money.
He adds that a friend has just offered to Webster & Co. a book that arraigns the Standard Oil magnates individual by individual.
I wanted to say the only man I care for in the world, the only man I would give a d—-n for, the only man who is lavishing his sweat & blood to save me & mine from starvation is a Standard Oil magnate. If you know me, you know whether I want the book or not.
But I didn't say that. I said I didn't want any book; I wanted to get out of this publishing business & out of all business & was here for that purpose & would accomplish it if I could.
He tells how he played billiards with Rogers, tirelessly as always, until the millionaire had looked at him helplessly and asked:
"Don't you ever get tired?"
And he answered:
"I don't know what it is to get tired. I wish I did."
He wrote of going with Mr. Rogers to the Madison Square Garden to see an exhibition of boxing given by the then splendid star of pugilism, James J. Corbett. Dr. Rice accompanied him, and painters Robert Reid and Edward Simmons, from The Players. They had five seats in a box, and Stanford White came along presently and took Clemens into the champion's dressing-room.