New York: day 656

Late in life, [Samuel] Clemens collected a club of surrogate grandchildren, all girls under the age of sixteen.

“All the ten school-girls… are my angel-fishes, and constitute my club, whose name is ‘The Aquarium,’ and contains no creature but these angel-fishes and one slave. I am the slave. The Bermudian angel-fish, with its splendid blue decorations, is easily the most beautiful fish that swims, I think…

The club’s badge is the angel-fish’s splendors reproduced in enamels and mounted for service as a lapelpin — at least that is where the girls wear it. I get these little pins in Bermuda; they are made in Norway.”

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