February 13 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam responded to William Dean Howells’ dream by playing along and extending the joke.
I am infinitely sorry. I was lying awake at the time, & felt sure I heard voices; so sure, that I put on a dressing-gown & went down to inquire into the matter, but you were already gone. I encountered Sam coming up as I turned the lower corner of the house, & he said it was a stranger, who insisted on seeing me— “a stumpy little gray man with furtive ways & an evil face.”
“What did he say his name was?”
“He didn’t say. He offered his card, but I didn’t take it.”
“That was stupid. Describe him again—& more in detail.”
He did it.
“I can’t seem to locate him—I wish you had taken the card. Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t like his manners.”
“Why? What did he do?”
“He called me a quadrilateral astronomical incandescent son of a bitch.”
“Oh, that was Howells. Is that what annoyed you’! What is the matter with it? Is that a thing to distort into an offence, when you couldn’t possibly know but that he meant it as a compliment? And it is a compliment, too.”
“I don’t think so, it only just sounds so. I am not finding any fault with the main phrase, which is hallowed to me by the memories of childhood’s happy days, now vanished never to return, on account of it’s being very sainted mother’s diminutive for me, but I did not like those adverbs. I have an aversion for adverbs. I will not take adverbs from a stranger.”
[following page struck out:]
“Very well,” I said, coldly, “such being your theology, you can get your money after breakfast, & seek another place. I know you are honest, I know you are competent, & I am sorry to part with you; you are the best gardener I have ever had, but in matter of grammar you are morbid & this makes you over-sensitive & altogether too god dam particular.”
I am sorry & ashamed, Howells, & so is Clara, who is helping write this letter, with expressions she got of her mother, but the like will not happen again on this place, I can assure you.
Ys Ever
Mark.
[cross-written in bottom left corner:]
P.S. This page had to be rewritten & made parlormentory, because I found Mrs. Clemens had given orders that the letter be brought under her blue pencil before mailing. But I knew 2 of the pages would pass.
M.T.
“Very well,” I said, coldly, “such being your theology, you can get your money after breakfast, & seek another place. I know you are honest, I know you are competent, & I am sorry to part with you; you are the best gardener I have ever had, but in matter of grammar you are morbid, & this makes you over-sensitive & altogether too amsterdam particular.”
I am sorry & ashamed, Howells, & so are Clara & Mrs. Clemens, who blame me for allowing it to happen, but the like will not happen again on this place, I can assure you [MTHL 2: 764-6].