Clemens knocked the ash out of his pipe and shook his head. “You don’t know the half of it, Wentworth. The fast ships cause more trouble than they prevent. With a couple of my books, the Canadians got hold of the English edition and ran off pirated copies for sale in the U.S before my American publishers had the type set. They cost me thousands in royalties, and thousands more trying to stop their goddamned thievery. Howells and George Putnam and I went to Congress a few years ago, and we convinced them to plug up some of the loopholes. But there’s still no guarantee I’ll get the benefit of my labors unless I pay attention to every jot and tittle of the law. Writing’s hard enough work, without having to be a damned lawyer, as well.”
“I can believe you,” I told him, recalling my own efforts at turning my notes into something resembling passible prose. I thought I had a solid grounding in the use of my native tongue, but while my sentences were correctly formed, to my eye they lacked a certain vigor. I had expected my employment with Mr. Clemens to bring about some improvement in my writing, but my carefully revised pages looked even less presentable to me now than they had when I was still a student.
“We’ll be traveling on the City of Baltimore,” said Mr. Clemens, standing up and walking over to pour himself another cup of coffee—his third since the urn had been delivered. “I figure an American writer ought to patronize an American ship when he can. Besides, she’s a little older and less fashionable than the others leaving at around the same time. So she’ll save us a few dollars.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s important. It would have been nice to travel on one of the big new ships, though.”
“Oh, the City of Baltimore is big enough,” said Mr. Clemens. “You should have seen the old Quaker City, the ship I took on my first visit to Europe in ’67. I thought she was pretty well fitted out, but she was already thirteen years old, and barely a dinghy next to these modern ocean liners. Only nineteen hundred tons, with paddle wheels, and sails! They’d laugh her out of the water, these days.”
“I shan’t complain,” I said. “I’m getting to see Europe at last. If I had to stoke the boilers on the crossing, it wouldn’t be too high a price to pay.”
Mr. Clemens looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that, Wentworth,” he said. “I do have to watch my expenses these days, and two passages to England for the price of one may be too much of a bargain to pass up!”
After lunch (at which I was treated to a string of amusing stories about European travel), Mr. Clemens sent me to the American Steamship Line’s terminal at Pier 43, on the Hudson River near Christopher Street. The bellboy in the hotel lobby told me that the Fourteenth Street tramway, which stopped not far from the hotel, would take me directly there, and (after a somewhat crowded ride that my mother would undoubtedly have considered undignified if not outright dangerous) so it did.
I had gone past the Hudson River piers on my previous visits to New York, but this was my first chance to see them up close. I was pleased to learn that our pier was near those of the Cunard Line, where I had the opportunity to observe the red and black funnels of the Campania, which had recently established a record for the Atlantic crossing, just under five and a half days. And the City of New York, which had held the record only a few years ago, was tied up at the American Line’s docks. So there were two of the fastest ships ever built, sitting within a hundred yards of one another. Though Mr. Clemens and I would be sailing on an older, slower boat, for a moment my imagination conjured up the vision of these two “ocean greyhounds” racing side by side across the waves. Perhaps another time I should have the pleasure of crossing the ocean aboard one of them.
The office I was searching for was in a sort of warehouse on the shore end of the pier, and there were several people ahead of me at the ticket window. I had all afternoon to transact my business, so I took my place in line, content to enjoy the unfamiliar sights and scenes of a steamship terminal. At first all went quite pleasantly, if slowly. I overheard conversations in several languages and accents, and saw a variety of gentlemen and ladies in their best traveling clothes preparing to board the New York, which was scheduled to sail that very afternoon. Through a door opening onto the docks, I saw the smartly uniformed employees of the steamship line readying the great ship for departure.
But before long I became aware of a disturbance up ahead at the window. Actually, it would have been difficult to ignore, since the large, loud fellow who was the evident cause of the problem was less than ten feet away from me. “This is an outrage,” he bellowed. “I have given you the full fare for a first-class passage over a month ago, and now you tell me there is no room for me on the New York.”
The clerk attempted to explain the situation. “I’m sorry, sir, but your check was returned by the bank. We tried to get in touch with you, but you weren’t at the address you gave us. The best we can do now is find you a second-class cabin on City of New York. Or I can give you a first-class cabin on City of Baltimore, this time next week.” I felt sorry for the clerk, a fresh-faced young fellow who was clearly trying to be as diplomatic as possible under the circumstances. I wondered whether, if I were in his position, I would be so polite to someone who had given me a bad check.
But the man would hear none of the clerk’s explanation. He brandished his cane, and for a moment I was afraid he was about to swing it at the clerk, although he would have had a hard time doing any damage on account of the barred window between them. His little white goatee fairly quivered as he shouted, “The bank has made a mistake, and you have made a bigger one, you impudent whelp! If I am not on the New York when she sails, I will see to it that you lose your position. Why should I absorb another week’s hotel bills? I demand to see your superior this instant.” The fellow’s face was red, and his gestures were wild. The man behind him in the line had stepped back, as if he feared being struck by the fellow, even if accidentally. Others around the office had stopped what they were doing, staring at the growing altercation.
The poor clerk stepped back from the window and said in a tired voice, “Very well, sir. Please wait here while I call my supervisor.” He turned his back, and disappeared, while the angry customer planted his cane on the floor with a loud thump, and stood there in a posture that radiated hostility, even from behind. I saw several of the onlookers make faces and roll their eyes at one another, and one young woman struggled to suppress a giggle.
After an uncomfortable interval—it could hardly have been much more than two minutes, but the tension made it seem like fifteen—a balding fellow with a walrus mustache appeared on the other side of the window. Behind him I could see the worried-looking clerk. “I am Mr. Saunders, the manager,” he said, “Now, what seems to be the problem, mister?”
Perhaps the brief wait had calmed the irate passenger. He managed to outline his complaint in a normal speaking voice, and his gestures were considerably restrained, although he still waved his hands more than the occasion demanded. Listening to him, I thought I detected something of an accent—German, perhaps.
“I am Prinz Heinrich Karl von Ruckgarten,” he said. “One month ago, I deposited my check for four hundred American dollars with your company, to secure a first-class passage on the New York. Now I am told that you have not held a cabin for me, and I am reduced to traveling second-class or else to waiting a week for the next ship. Why, if I wanted to wait another entire week, I would have asked for that date to begin with. I have a mind to walk over to Cunard and see if the English understand better how to treat a gentleman.”
“Is that so?” said Mr. Saunders from behind the window, leaning on his elbow while the passenger spoke. “Well, you may have given us a piece of paper with the bank’s name on it, but the bank says you never gave ’em the four hundred dollars to back it. I don’t know what the English call that, but in New York we call it writing a bum check. Sometimes
