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 captain 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,
