but it doesn’t seem to have spoiled him.”
“Mr. Kipling, a pleasure to meet you,” I said. “I’ve read one of your books on India.” We shook hands.
“What boat are you sailing on?” asked my employer. “We’re on the City of Baltimore, next Monday.”
“What luck, so are Carrie and I!” said Kipling. “We should have a capital crossing, then. Nonetheless, let’s get together in the city before we leave. Are you free this evening?”
As it happened, Mr. Clemens had no engagement for the evening, and so he and Mr. Kipling agreed to meet for dinner. The Englishman then took his leave, and we crossed the lobby and waited for the elevator. “Kipling will be good to travel with,” said Mr. Clemens. “First-class storyteller, and a hell of a fine poet, too. He lives in Vermont now, but he must have spent ten years in India, learning the country and watching the people. He came to visit me at my summer place in Elmira, New York, a few years ago. Between the two of us, we cover the entire field of human knowledge.”
“Really?” I said, impressed that my employer would have such a high opinion of a man not so much older than I.
“Yes,” drawled Mr. Clemens. The elevator door opened, and we both got in and told the boy our floor number. Then Mr. Clemens fixed me with his gaze. “Kipling has mastered all there is to know,” he said. “And I know everything else.” The elevator door closed, and I found myself speechless again.
Dinner that evening was at Solari, a pleasant restaurant on University Place between Ninth and Tenth streets, a few short blocks from our hotel. I was pleasantly surprised to be included in the dinner party, having often been left to my own devices when Mr. Clemens was asked out to dinner during our riverboat tour a few short months earlier. I was not about to complain; the New York restaurants were considerably more expensive than those in the West, and I hadn’t the option of eating cheaply on the boat, as I had often done on the tour.
We were joined by Mr. Kipling’s wife, Caroline, a Vermont woman of good family (and, as quickly became evident, the repository of a great stock of New England common sense). Solari’s cuisine had been highly recommended, and Mr. Clemens seemed determined to put the restaurant’s reputation to the test. I myself thought the wine was overpriced, not to mention a bit thin, but everything else was as good as I could have asked for. I especially enjoyed my first taste of terrapin stew, the flavor of which belied its reptilian origin. For dessert I had a sinfully rich chocolate cake with chocolate icing, and by the time Mr. Clemens and Mr. Kipling lit their after-dinner cigars, I was beginning to wonder whether I would be able to walk back to the hotel unaided. If I or any of my companions ate or drank another iota, we might well have to find a cab for the four-block journey.
However, Mr. Clemens showed no sign of being ready to bring the evening to a conclusion. He ordered brandy and coffee, and he and Mr. Kipling began “swapping yarns,” as my employer called it. As always when Mr. Clemens dined in public, he had been recognized by many of the restaurant’s patrons, and he was enjoying the spotlight. A number of them had come to the table to extend their good wishes, or to express their appreciation for something he had written, and Mr. Clemens returned their attentions by playing to the crowd: telling his best stories, with a wealth of colorful detail, and in a rich variety of accents and voices.
Mr. Kipling held up his own end of the conversation in fine style, as well—I was almost ready to believe Mr. Clemens’s declaration that he knew everything there was to know. His brief residence in Vermont (barely five years) had given him a surprising familiarity with New England life. He told stories about the fishing boats and their sailors that made me wonder how I had spent almost my entire life within five miles of the Atlantic without learning even half of what this Englishman seemed to know as well as the palm of his hand.
But it was his tales of India (he pronounced it In-ja) that brought out his true wealth of knowledge. After hearing him tell of teeming cities and primeval wilderness, beggars and maharajahs, Hindus and Moslems, deadly cobras and royal white elephants, and all the variety of life in that populous British colony, I promised myself that some day I would visit that mysterious land. If only half of what Mr. Kipling said of it were true, then it outstripped my wildest imagination. Even Mr. Clemens seemed impressed. After the Englishman told a fantastic tale of a boy raised in the jungle by wolves, my employer remarked, “I can see I’m going to have to make it my business to go see India, if only to find out whether Kipling’s a better storyteller than I am, or just a better liar.”
“It would be presumptuous of me to claim superiority to Mark Twain in either respect,” replied Mr. Kipling, smiling broadly. Mr. Clemens and Mrs. Kipling laughed, as did the eavesdroppers at several nearby tables, and the storytelling continued.
Finally Mr. Clemens recounted the tale of our trip down the Mississippi, and our stay in New Orleans, with special emphasis on how he and I had brought two murderers to justice. “Now that’s what I call an incredible story,” said Mr. Kipling. He leaned his elbows on the table and peered at Mr. Clemens with an envious expression. “It’s rare enough that anyone not a policeman has anything to do with solving a murder case, let alone two of them in the space of a few weeks. It’s unprecedented, I tell you. Will you be giving up writing and become the American Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Clemens?”
“If I thought there was any money in it, I might,” said my employer, leaning back in his chair. “But I haven’t gotten a nickel for my detecting, and I reckon I won’t anytime soon. As far as the glory, I can do without it. There’s only so much excitement a man my age can take. Maybe a young rascal like Cabot can enjoy fistfights and getting thrown in jail, but I’d just as soon save my energy for something a little less strenuous. Smoking cigars, for example.”
Finally, we were ready to return to our hotel. And while the restaurant owner had undoubtedly been pleased to see us ordering up his best brandy, and keeping other diners buying food and drink while they stayed to listen to Mr. Clemens, it was clear he was ready to close his doors for the evening. But when we came to the front of the restaurant, we discovered several of the other patrons huddled in the entryway, peering anxiously into the street. The reason was not far to seek: Rain was falling in sheets, and a flash of lightning threw the empty streets into stark relief. “We’ll never find a cab in this weather,” said Mr. Clemens. “Anyone with a lick of sense is going to be indoors. We’ll have to wait it out.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Kipling. “And we’ll have to wait our turn after these people already here. If I know the signs, this storm won’t let up any time soon.”
Even as he finished speaking, a stylish double brougham—clearly someone’s private conveyance—stopped in front of the restaurant, pulled by a nicely matched span of bays. The driver, dressed in oilskins against the weather, leapt down from the seat, holding a large umbrella for his passengers, a prosperous-looking middle-aged couple who were standing in the doorway just in front of us. “It’s too bad that one’s not for hire,” said Mr. Clemens. “There’d be room for all four of us, and we’d be at the hotel in five minutes.”
“Five minutes?” The gentleman had begun to step forward toward his coach, but now he turned to look at us. “Why, I think I can solve your problem. Louise, would you be willing to wait ten minutes while Roger takes Mr. Clemens and his party to their hotel?”
“I could hardly object, seeing as how he’s been so kind as to provide our evening’s entertainment,” said the lady, smiling at my employer. She wore a fox coat and matching cap; the head of one of the animals peered over her shoulder, glassy-eyed.
“Well, that’s settled, then,” said the gentleman. “Roger, take Mr. Clemens and his friends wherever they’re going, and then come straight back for me and Mrs. Babson.”
