“Dear sir,—­I have, as you say, been interested in patents and
   patentees.  If your book tells how to exterminate inventors, send me
   nine editions.  Send them by express.

   “Very truly yours,

   “S.  L. Clemens.”

Those were economical days.  There was no income except from the old books, and at the time this was not large.  The Clemens family, however, was cheerful, and Mark Twain was once more in splendid working form.  The story of Joan hurried to its tragic conclusion.  Each night he read to the family what he had written that day, and Susy, who was easily moved, would say, “Wait—­wait till I get my handkerchief,” and one night when the last pages had been written and read, and the fearful scene at Rouen had been depicted, Susy wrote in her diary, “To-night Joan of Arc was burned at the stake!” Meaning that the book was finished.

Susy herself had fine literary taste, and might have written had not her greater purpose been to sing.  There are fragments of her writing that show the true literary touch.  Both Susy and her father cared more for Joan than for any of the former books.  To Mr. Rogers Clemens wrote, “Possibly the book may not sell, but that is nothing—­it was mitten for love.”  It was placed serially with “Harper’s Magazine” and appeared anonymously, but the public soon identified the inimitable touch of Mark Twain.

It was now the spring of 1895, and Mark Twain had decided upon a new plan to restore his fortunes.  Platform work had always paid him well, and though he disliked it now more than ever, he had resolved upon something unheard of in that line—­nothing less, in fact, than a platform tour around the world.  In May, with the family, he sailed for America, and after a month or two of rest at Quarry Farm he set out with Mrs. Clemens and Clara and with his American agent, J. B. Pond, for the Pacific coast.  Susy and Jean remained behind with their aunt at the farm.  The travelers left Elmira at night, and they always remembered the picture of Susy, standing under the electric light of the railway platform, waving them good-by.

Mark Twain’s tour of the world was a success from the beginning.  Everywhere he was received with splendid honors—­in America, in Australia, in New Zealand, in India, in Ceylon, in South Africa—­wherever he went his welcome was a grand ovation, his theaters and halls were never large enough to hold his audiences.  With the possible exception of General Grant’s long tour in 1878-9 there had hardly been a more gorgeous progress than Mark Twain’s trip around the world.  Everywhere they were overwhelmed with attention and gifts.  We cannot begin to tell the story of that journey here.  In “Following the Equator” the author himself tells it in his own delightful fashion.