MARK TWAIN

was profane. It is a long record, for it covers, intermit-
tently, about forty years. The only thing uniform about
it is the form—the books he kept it in. There are between
thirty and forty of them, filled with his neat, beautiful
writing, smooth and graceful in the beginning, becoming
angular and uncertain with age. Except for the two little
black-bound river logs all are nearly of the same size and
style—books to fit the pocket—buff-leather-covercd dur-
ing the early years—limp morocco later, evidently made
to order, with a projecting ear or flange on each leaf, to
be torn off when used, so that he might always, and
quickly, find his place. This was his own idea, and my
recollection is that it was patented—he was always pat-
enting things. Sometimes he lost a notebook, but for the
most part he preserved them. One wonders how he man-
aged it—he had a gift for mislaying his belongings,1

In writing Mark Twain—A Biography I made some
use of the little river notebooks, and quoted from his own
record the circumstance that led to their purchase. These
things are too important, however, to be ignored here.

1 He never really lost more than two or three of them. Two were
left by mistake at the Hotel Metropole, in Vienna, and turned up
nineteen years later, in a New York auction-room. Charles T. Lark,
attorney for the S. L. Clemens estate, saw the announcement, and
obtained a catalogue of the sale. In it the statement was made that
the books had been left behind when Mark Twain gave up his
apartment at the Metropole, in 1898. Visiting the auction-room,
Mr. Lark was shown the notebooks, with the information that a
private bid of fifteen thousand dollars had been received for one of
them. He also learned that the books were now claimed by a butler
on a Long Island estate, nephew of the former Metropole proprietor.

Mr. Lark promptly filed a claim for the two books, as property
of the S. L. Clemens estate and got out a writ of replevin for them.
They were seized by the sheriff just before the sale started. There
followed a good deal of parleying back and forth, the nephew's
lawyer finally agreeing to compromise on payment to his client of
one thousand dollars, to which Mr. Lark assented, thus obtaining-
the precious notebooks for their rightful owners.