Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3813/My Hardy Annual
I met him first three summers ago when he arrived from Baltimore with a letter of introduction from a mutual American friend. He was a tall thin clean-shaven man, a typical American of the inquiring rather than commanding type―and not a millionaire, not indeed rich at all, and rather nervous among waiters and wine lists: preferring a boarding-house in Bayswater to a caravanserai (as the newspaper men always call the big hotels). He had culture and desired more, and one way of getting it (one way, I mean, of making sure that it should be gotten) was to talk with every one he met. This I believe is an American custom.
Anyway, he arrived with his letter of introduction, and I did what I could for him―asked him to lunch, told him about picture galleries, adjured him not to see this play and that, and mentioned a few new books. Our surest common ground being American men of letters, we discussed them. We agreed that the early death of Frank Norris was a blow; that George W. Cable had style; that John Fox, Junior, could tell a good story, but Owen Wister a better. My friend interested me greatly stating that he had been on intimate terms with that great man, Mark Twain, and wondered if I had ever heard the story (which he used to tell against himself) of the visitor to his house who, after a very delightful stay, during which the humorist had been at the top of his form, asked his daughter if her father was always like that? "Only when we have company," she replied.
The next year my American friend turned up again, sending a letter in advance to say that he would be at his old address in Bayswater at a certain date, and again I wrote asking him to lunch with me, as before. He was exactly the same, even to his clothes, and we talked of American writers in what I remembered to be the identical terms of the previous year. This is one of the disadvantages of annual meetings; there is no advance. The familiar ground including our decision, reinforced, that Mrs. Wharton was a swell, but rather on the bitter side; that it was a pity that Mary Wilkins had given up writing; that John Kendrick Bangs' name, at any rate, was funny; that Amrose Bierce was a man of genius, and that Oliver Herford's continued residence in New York was a loss to England.
"À propos of humorists," said my friend, "I wonder if you have heard that story of Mark Twain which he often told against himself. A visitor to his house who had been greatly entertained by a constant flow of wit and satire asked Mark Twain's daughter if he was always in the game good spirits. 'Only when we have company,'" said said.
In August of last year I was doomed to London owing to the frivolous holiday proclivities of certain fellow-workers, and again my Baltimore migrant was here, and again we met for our single tête-à-tête. He looked, he said, on a year as wasted, unless a part of it was spent in London and Paris. He was exactly as he had been; his voice had the same slow mirthlessness and it uttered the same flat definitive comments. He could not be surprised or shocked or amused. He had taken the world’s measure and was now chiefly occupied in adding to his collection of fine men and lovely-minded women. I made an effort to get the conversation to other than American literary personages, but it was useless. To discuss Mr. Roosevelt he was unwilling. The name of Hearst—I mean Mr. Hearst—touched no live wire, as it does with a few of his countrymen. He had merely heard of Mr. Brisbane, but had no information. Mr. Wilson was doing well, he thought, on the whole. Reaching books at last, we agreed again that it was a pity that Mr. James Lane Allen wrote so little nowadays and that Mr. Howells had become so silent. Mr. Howells, it seemed, had felt the death of his old frield, Mr. Clemens—Mark Twain—very deeply. Had I ever heard, he wondered, that story of Mark Twain about a reply made to one of his visitors by his daughter?
"Yes, I have," I said.
"The visitor," he went on, "had asked her if her father was always in the jovial and witty vein in which he had been during his—the visitor's—stay."
"Yes, I know," I said.
"Mark Twain's daughter," he continued, "replied that he was always like that—'when they had company.'"
He looked remorselessly at me for his reward of laughter. Since he was my guest he got it, but—
And then last week he arrived again, on his 1914 trip, and he is here now, or perhaps he is in Paris. In Europe, at any rate. He told me once more that across the Atlantic Mr. Henry James is no longer thought of as an American; that Mr. Jack London, it seems, is becoming one of the most popular writers; that Ella Wheeler Wilcox sells probably more copies of her poetry than any English writer sells stories. He had had the pleasure of meeting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in New York recently, but when Mr. Arnold Bennett was there he missed him, to his great regret. America was still feeling the loss of Mark Twain. By the way, that was a good story which Mark Twain used to tell against himself. A visitor—
But this time I was too clever for him. I gave a preconcerted signal to a waiter, who hurried up to tell me I was wanted on the telephone. When I returned it was to say good-bye.
And now I am safe till next summer; but last evening I met a lady who had been taken in to dinner by the American a few days ago. "A little bit pompous, perhaps," she said, "but he told me such a delightful story about Mark Twain that I should like to meet him again."