I was not the one.

It was another Clemens, a cousin of mine,--Dr.J.Ross Clemens, now of St.Louis--who was due to die but presently escaped, by some chicanery or other characteristic of the tribe of Clemens.

The London representatives of the American papers began to flock in, with American cables in their hands, to inquire into my condition.

There was nothing the matter with me, and each in his turn was astonished, and disappointed, to find me reading and smoking in my study and worth next to nothing as a text for transatlantic news.

One of these men was a gentle and kindly and grave and sympathetic Irishman, who hid his sorrow the best he could, and tried to look glad, and told me that his paper, the _Evening Sun_, had cabled him that it was reported in New York that I was dead.