They were pretty lively evenings.  A music-teacher on the floor below did not care for them—­they disturbed his class.  He was furious, in fact, and assailed the boys roughly at first, with no result but to make matters worse.  Then he tried gentleness, and succeeded.  The boys stopped their capers and joined his class.  Sam, especially, became a distinguished member of that body.  He was never a great musician, but with his good nature, his humor, his slow, quaint speech and originality, he had no rival in popularity.  He was twenty now, and much with young ladies, yet he was always a beau rather than a suitor, a good comrade to all, full of pranks and pleasantries, ready to stop and be merry with any that came along.  If they prophesied concerning his future, it is not likely that they spoke of literary fame.  They thought him just easy-going and light-minded.  True, they noticed that he often carried a book under his arm—­a history, a volume of Dickens, or the tales of Poe.

He read more than any one guessed.  At night, propped up in bed—­a habit continued until his death—­he was likely to read until a late hour.  He enjoyed smoking at such times, and had made himself a pipe with a large bowl which stood on the floor and had a long rubber stem, something like the Turkish hubble-bubble.  He liked to fill the big bowl and smoke at ease through the entire evening.  But sometimes the pipe went out, which meant that he must strike a match and lean far over to apply it, just when he was most comfortable.  Sam Clemens never liked unnecessary exertion.  One night, when the pipe had gone out for the second time, he happened to hear the young book-clerk, Brownell, passing up to his room on the top floor.  Sam called to him: 

“Ed, come here!”

Brownell poked his head in the door.  The two were great chums.

“What will you have, Sam?” he asked.

“Come in, Ed; Henry’s asleep, and I’m in trouble.  I want somebody to light my pipe.”

“Why don’t you light it yourself?” Brownell asked.

“I would, only I knew you’d be along in a few minutes and would do it for me.”

Brownell scratched a match, stooped down, and applied it.

“What are you reading, Sam?”

“Oh, nothing much—­a so-called funny book.  One of these days I’ll write a funnier book myself.”

Brownell laughed.  “No, you won’t, Sam,” he said.  “You’re too lazy ever to write a book.”

Years later, in the course of a lecture which he delivered in Keokuk, Mark Twain said that he supposed the most untruthful man in the world lived right there in Keokuk, and that his name was Ed Brownell.

Orion Clemens did not have the gift of prosperity, and his printing-office did not flourish.  When he could no longer pay Sam’s wages he took him into partnership, which meant that Sam got no wages at all, though this was of less consequence, since his mother, now living with Pamela, was well provided for.  The disorder of the office, however, distressed him.  He wrote home that he could not work without system, and, a little later, that he was going to leave Keokuk, that, in fact, he was planning a great adventure—­a trip to the upper Amazon!