The steward, who was introduced to us as Harrison, set off at a brisk pace through such a maze of stairs and passageways that I quickly lost track of all the twists and turns. Meanwhile, he kept up a steady stream of commentary, indicating various points of interest as we passed them. “Here’s the purser’s office, and right down that passageway you’ll find the first-class barbershop, and the ship’s doctor is just opposite. Now we’ll go up to the cabin deck. Watch your step, please, gentlemen. Just aft of us is the ship’s library, which I’m sure you’ll find of interest, Mr. Clemens—we have over six hundred volumes on all subjects, and the Grand Saloon is aft of that. That’s the main smoking room, there—there’s another smoker up by the prow, and another on the deck below.”
I did my best to keep track of all the facilities he mentioned, but by the time he finally brought us to the door of our cabin I was certain only that the ship was even larger on the inside than she had appeared from the dock. It was obvious that we would find every amenity on board that one would expect in a first-class hotel ashore. Perhaps the only thing missing was a billiard room, but it did not take much thought to realize that lining up a carom shot on a rolling sea might be more akin to torture than to diversion.
Our cabin was actually a small suite of rooms, with an opening from the main room directly onto the deck. The sitting-room, paneled in blond oak, had two large armchairs and a small table, and a comfortable-looking settee. Two doors opened off it, leading to a pair of bedrooms with brass bedsteads. Two portholes offered ample sunlight, and there was an electric bulb in each room. We also had our own sink (cold water only), and Harrison showed us to a bathroom on the inside corridor only a few doors away. Mr. Clemens took the slightly larger bedroom; but even my smaller one was more comfortably appointed than the stateroom I had inhabited for several weeks on the Horace Greeley, our Mississippi riverboat. I had thought the three-hundred-fifty-dollar price for the crossing excessive, but now that I saw the accommodations, I began to revise my estimate.
The trunks containing the clothing we would wear on the voyage had been delivered to the main room, and Mr. Clemens and I directed Harrison in sorting the contents and placing them in our bedrooms. (The bulk of our luggage was stored somewhere below, until we reached Southampton.) The steward was finishing this job when there was a knock on the door. “Who could that be?” I wondered out loud.
I opened the door to discover Mr. Kipling, dressed in a serviceable brown tweed jacket and a well-broken-in felt hat. “Hullo,” he said. “I see you two are getting settled in nicely. Carrie and I are just around the corner in number seventeen. Shall we go see if we can all get seated at the same table for meals?”
“That would be fine with me, but it may not be as easy as you’d think,” said Mr. Clemens. “The captain will probably insist on having me at his table. I’m not sure he’ll want to take on all four of us as the price of it.”
“We shan’t attempt to read the captain’s mind,” said Mr. Kipling, smiling broadly. “Let’s go make our own arrangements, and we can adjust our plans to the captain’s wishes when he makes them known.”
“Fair enough,” said Mr. Clemens. We left the steward to finish stowing our belongings, and walked out on deck. We had a good view of the harbor from this point, well above the sheds that lined the dock. It was a clear day, and I could see well up the Hudson beyond the currently vacant dock of the White Star Line, and across to the steep Palisades on the New Jersey side. There were numerous boats of one kind or another in the river, sail and steam alike: the Hoboken ferry, barges coming downriver from Albany and Poughkeepsie, pleasure craft and fishing boats. Yet all of them seemed inconsequential next to the great liner we were about to sail on. It was exhilarating to contemplate the voyage that lay before us.
I followed Mr. Clemens and Mr. Kipling aft toward the purser’s office to make our seating arrangements for meals. Being experienced travelers, they seemed to have a good idea where we were going; I was still a bit disoriented by the layout of the ship. But I followed them into a broad passageway, down a couple of flights of stairs, and into a sort of lobby, where there was already a small crowd waiting, presumably on the same errand that brought us there.
A murmur went through the group as some of the waiting passengers recognized my employer. Of course, his long white hair and mustache, and his white suit (which he wore despite the fact that summer was long gone) made him a distinctive figure, and his recent lecture tour had been written up in a number of newspapers. So he was perhaps more of a public figure than most writers who spent their time alone in a room “turning blank paper into prose,” as he described his trade.
“Hello, Mr. Clemens,” came a familiar voice. We turned to see Julius Babson (a prosecuting attorney in Philadelphia, as I learned later on), who had evidently gotten on board in spite of his son’s confrontation with Prinz Karl at the gangplank. “I’m delighted to see we’ll have the pleasure of your company on the way to Europe.”
“Well, I’m delighted to be going,” said Mr. Clemens. “It’ll be the first I’ve seen my wife and family in several months, and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it. I want to thank you again for the loan of your coach the other night; it was a mighty civilized thing to do for a stranger. But I’m glad to see we’re on the same boat, because it’ll give me the chance to buy you a drink.”
“My goodness, that’s hardly necessary,” said Mr. Babson, but his beaming face clearly betrayed his pleasure at the invitation.
“Oh, I insist,” said Mr. Clemens. “I reckon being on the same boat for most of a week makes us neighbors. It wouldn’t be neighborly to let somebody give you a ride and not return the favor some way or another.”
“Well, then, I’ll take you up on your offer once we’re under weigh,” Mr. Babson replied.
As he said this, the young man I’d seen arguing with Prinz Karl on the gangplank came through the door and walked over to Mr. Babson. With him was a very pretty young woman whom I hadn’t seen before, but who certainly caught my eye. “Excuse me, Father,” he said. “I found our deck chairs after all. They’d been stowed with Mr. Mercer’s things, so we can get them any time we want to.”
“Good, I’m glad that’s straightened out,” said Mr. Babson senior. Then he turned to my employer. “Mr. Clemens, permit me to introduce my son, Robert. Robert, this is Mr. Samuel Clemens, whom you’ve heard of under his pen name, Mark Twain.”
“Hello, Mr. Clemens,” said young Babson. “Pleased to meet you; Father’s talked a lot about your books.” Then he turned to the young woman with him. “May I introduce Miss Theresa Mercer. Tess has consented to become my bride, after we return from Europe.”
“Hello, Mr. Clemens,” the young woman said. She blushed prettily as she gave a little curtsy, but she did not lower her eyes. She was a very fair-skinned blonde, with twinkling blue eyes, and I found myself envious of Robert Babson.
“Well, my congratulations, young man—and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Mercer. It’s good to know there’ll be something aboard for these old eyes to look at besides the ocean waves.” My employer smiled broadly, and Theresa Mercer blushed again. I thought I saw young Babson stiffen as my employer paid this harmless little compliment; then she took her fiancé’s hand and he relaxed, and the moment passed.
As Mr. Clemens had predicted, the chief steward had already placed him at the captain’s table for the duration of our crossing. The other seats would be filled (by invitation) with a selection of the more important or influential passengers, changing from one evening to the next. So by the time we reached Southampton, a fair number of guests would have had the honor of dining with the captain—and with the famous author Mark Twain.
Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Kipling and I reserved seats together at one of the other tables for dinners. Mr. Clemens shrugged. “Now you see the price of fame, Kipling. I’ll be sitting next to a bunch of businessmen most of the way over, providing the only amusement at the table. I’ll tell the cap
tain you’re aboard, though. That’ll probably get you and your wife invited up for at least one meal, and I’ll have somebody I can actually talk to. With any luck, you’ll be invited for a couple more meals—assuming you want to help me entertain the stuffed shirts.” My employer concluded his speech with a broad wink at Mr. Kipling and myself, from which I deduced that he meant his remark facetiously. After three months in Mr. Clemens’s company, I was becoming accustomed to his sort of humor, which often consisted of belittling observations about the respectable classes of society—of which he was, willy-nilly, a member.
Mr. Kipling laughed. “Your American businessmen can’t be very different to some of the pukka sahibs in India. The ones I’ve met have been decent enough chaps. You never know when a friend with money might come in useful, do you?”
“You’re right about that,” said Mr. Clemens. “I’d be in sad shape if Henry Rogers hadn’t been willing to help bail me out. He’s paying my passage over, and Wentworth’s, too—giving me the chance to work my way back into solvency. I used to think the Carnegies and Rockefellers were parasites on the human race. Now I think maybe millionaires have some purpose in the world, after all.”
“Aye, making it possible for writers to live by their wits,” agreed Mr. Kipling. “Shall we go see how the smoking room is set up?”
“Best suggestion I’ve heard today,” said Mr. Clemens. “No, make that second best—assuming that German makes good on his offer of a bottle of champagne. We’ll have a smoke, and then we’ll look back in my cabin and see if he’s remembered his promise.”
“And if he hasn’t, we can send for our own,” said Kipling. “Be a shame to cast off without a proper celebration. I’m looking forward to meeting this Prinz Karl; sounds like a capital fellow—although a bit of an odd one.” He laughed again, and we went in search of the first-class smoking lounge, while Mrs. Kipling made her way to the Grand Saloon.
I have never been one of the brotherhood of smokers—my one childhood experiment with a pipe and tobacco that one of my playmates “borrowed” from his father ended in such a way as to discourage me from further efforts along the same lines. And when I went out for football and other sports, I quickly learned that I had an edge in endurance over the fellows who smoked. But Mr. Clemens was an inveterate smoker, and his brain seemed to operate at full speed only when properly fumed with pipe or cigar smoke. So I had gotten used to doing much of our work, during his travels, in smoking cars and in hotel rooms with a thick aura of tobacco in the air. Knowing that the smoking lounge would be, in effect, our second home during the voyage, I saw no reason not to scout it out along with my employer and Mr. Kipling.
We found the area we were looking for not far from the dining room. The room was laid out much like a gentleman’s club on land, with card tables, plush sofas, several electric lights, and a supply of current newspapers and magazines. Half a dozen other passengers had already arrived in this sanctuary, and were putting it to good use—there were a pair of bewhiskered older men pegging away a hand of cribbage, two more quietly poring over the New York papers, and all adding their quota of smoke to the air. A few, evidently recognizing Mr. Clemens, looked up and nodded as we entered.
“Well, this is pleasantly laid out,” said Mr. Kipling, settling down on one of the sofas and pulling a cigar case out of his pocket. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get too crowded to have a quiet talk.”
“Oh, there are two other smoking lounges if we want to go hunt for them,” said Mr. Clemens, looking around at the appointments. “You young fellows are spoiled when it comes to ocean travel. Hell, I remember the old days, when we had to go out to the ‘fiddle’ for a smoke. That was just a shed covering the main hatch, with no place to sit, a stinking oil lamp, and cracks in the walls big enough to throw a tomcat through. I’d as soon smoke in a chicken coop—no, I’d rather smoke in a chicken coop. A well-made chicken coop is cleaner and keeps the weather out more efficiently, though I’ll grant you the company is a bit dull. But this room is as comfortable as you’ll find in most hotels—hell, I’ve been in German hotels that didn’t have a smoking room at all.”
Mr. Kipling leaned over to me and asked, in a stage whisper, “Is he going to give us his lecture on the old days, when the passengers had to row all the way across and catch their own fish to eat?” We all laughed, and I decided that Mr. Kipling was a fellow very much to my liking.
Mr. Clemens scowled at Kipling. “Now, don’t mock your elders, young man. You’re likely to make poor Wentworth think I’m not entirely veracious. He’s been with me since early summer, and I don’t think he’s caught me in a lie yet. Don’t go spoiling my reputation.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There was some sort of tale you tried to tell me about alligator nets . . .”
“There, Kipling, see what you’ve done?” Mr. Clemens knit his brows fiercely. “You’ve roused up Wentworth’s suspicions, and I reckon I’ll never be able to impose on him again. You have no idea what a loss that is. Now I’ll just have to shut up entirely—or worse yet, confine myself strictly to the truth. See if I let you have any of my champagne!”
“Hoist by my own petard,” said Kipling, a wide smile on his features. “Could I possibly change your mind by offering you one of these excellent Havana cigars? I bought a box specially in New York, thinking they’d be just the thing to help pass the voyage.”
Mr. Clemens took the proffered cigar and sniffed it, then smiled. “That’s what I like about you, Kipling—you have a good sense of the priorities. Let’s see if these things want to burn properly.” He snipped the end of the cigar with his pocket knife, and struck a sulfur-match to light it. Soon the two writers were happily smoking, and I sat back to look around the room.
The cribbage players were still locked in combat, calling out the scores and watching each other’s hands like hawks for stray points they could steal: “Fifteen, two. Fifteen, four. Run of three, seven. And nobby, for eight.” They gave the impression of being old rivals, who had met over the card table more than once. Another fellow of about the same vintage had joined them, and was looking over the shoulder of the nearer player with manifest interest.
A lean man with a fringe of gray hair around a balding pate and an expensively cut dark blue suit had sat down next to the gentleman who had been reading the newspaper, and they were now engaged in a sober discussion of the stock market. “My broker says to stay away from the railroad stocks for the next six months,” said the newcomer, and the other shook his head gravely. “Can’t imagine what the fellow’s thinking about. There’s nothing sounder than railroads, nothing at all. I just took on ten thousand B and O, myself. If I were you, I’d do the same.” My own familiarity with stocks and finance was extremely limited, but I had the instant impression that I was hearing two of the prime movers of American commerce in conference, and wondered how much money might be gained or lost when one of these gentlemen decided to change his portfolio.
I became aware of a bit of noise at the entrance, and looked up to see a uniformed steward attempting to prevent several younger-looking men from entering. At second glance, I was startled to recognize two of them as former Yale classmates of mine. What a surprise! I stood up and said, “Excuse me a moment,” to Mr. Clemens and Mr. Kipling, and walked over to see what they were doing here.
“I’m sorry, this is the first-class lounge,” the steward was saying. “Steerage passengers strictly forbidden. You’ll have to go back to your own deck.”
“Oh, bosh, old man, we’re not going to break anything,” said one of the fellows. “We just want to come in and have a smoke like everyone else.”
“Hello, Bertie,” I said. “What, are you going to Europe?”
“Good Lord, it’s Wentworth Cabot!” said Bertie Parsons—he’d had a room just down the hall from me our last year at Yale. “Hullo, old boy, what on earth are you doing aboard? Tell this chap we’re regular fellows, will you? You remember good old Johnny DeWitt, don’t you? And this is his brother Tom
—he’s finished his first year up at New Haven.”
I turned to the steward, who seemed overwhelmed by the sudden influx of sons of Eli. “I know these fellows,” I said. “Is my word enough to let them in?”
“It’s hardly regular,” said the steward, flustered. He was a little worried-looking fellow with a red face and blond hair parted in the middle. A premature bald spot had started to show toward the back of his skull. He kept glancing around as if he hoped to find someone of higher authority to back him up.
“Oh, they can be my guests, if you need authorization,” I said. “They’re none of them ruffians, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t just let you bring in a pack of people who don’t belong,” said the steward, although he was clearly beginning to waver.
“Here, what’s the problem?” It was Mr. Clemens, who’d come up behind me. “Do you know these fellows, Wentworth?”
“Why, yes,” I said, and quickly introduced them to my employer. I was secretly pleased to see that Bertie and the DeWitts seemed properly impressed to learn that I was traveling with none other than Mr. Clemens, whom they probably knew as Mark Twain.
“Well, I’m pleased to say that I’m a Yale man myself,” said Mr. Clemens. “If a man that can get into Yale College ain’t good enough to sit in the smoking lounge, then you might as well throw all five of us overboard and get it done with. Are you going to let these boys in—as my guests?”
At this, the steward had to confess that he was out of his league, and he beat a hasty retreat as Mr. Clemens and I escorted the three Yale men over to sit with us.
Bertie and Johnny and I had spent more than one late night with a bottle of wine and an endless stream of talk on every subject under the sun. Those were still some of my fondest memories of college. I had been looking forward to my Atlantic voyage, but now I was even more convinced it was going to be great fun.
[Mark Twain Mysteries 03] - The Prince and the Prosecutor Page 4
