LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEO \*> of ff\ THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT COLONEL SELLERS INTRODUCES SALLY TO LORD BERKELEY THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT AND OTHER STORIES AND SKETCHES BY MARK TWAIN ILLUSTRATED HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON BOOKS BY MARK TWAIN ST. JOAN OF ARC THE INNOCENTS ABROAD' ROUGHING IT THE GILDED AGE A TRAMP ABROAD FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR^ PUDD'NHEAD WILSON SKETCHES NEW AND OLD THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE A CONNECTICUT YANKEE AT THE COURT OP KING ARTHUR THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURQ THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER THE $30,000 BEQUEST THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER TOM SAWYER ABROAD WHAT IS MAN? THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER ADAM'S DIARY A DOG'S TALE A DOUBLE-BARRELED DETECTIVE STORY EDITORIAL WILD OATS EVE'S DIARY IN DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY AND OTHER ESSAYS IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? CAPT. STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN A HORSE'S TALE THE JUMPING FROG THE 1,000,000 BANK-NOTE TRAVELS AT HOME TRAVELS IN HISTORY MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS MARK TWAIN'S SPEECHES HARPER & BROTHERS. NEW YORK [ESTABLISHED 1817] THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT Copyright, 1892, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS Copyright, 1892, by CHARLES L. WEBSTER & Co. Copyright, 1893, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS Copyright, 1806 and 1899, by HARPER & BROTHERS Copyright, 1917, by MARK TWAIN COMPANY Printed in the United States of America M-T CONTENTS PACK THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT i MERRY TALES THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED . . 255 LUCK 283 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE 290 MRS. McWlLLIAMS AND THE LIGHTNING 33O MEISTERSCHAFT: IN THREE ACTS 341 PLAYING COURIER 376 ILLUSTRATIONS SALLY INTRODUCED TO LORD BERKELEY Frontispiece "AND I AS USURPER A NAMELESS PAUPER, A TRAMP " Facing p. 4 FINALLY THERE WAS A QUIET WEDDING AT THE TOWERS 246 "WHAT Is THE MATTER HERE?" " 338 EXPLANATORY THE Colonel Mulberry Sellers here reintroduced to the public is the same person who appeared as Eschol Sellers in the first edition of the tale entitled The Gilded Age, years ago, and as Beriah Sellers in the subsequent editions of the same book, and final- ly as Mulberry Sellers in the drama played afterward by John T. Raymond. The name was changed from Eschol to Beriah to accommodate an Eschol Sellers who rose up out of the vasty deeps of uncharted space and preferred his request backed by threat of a libel suit then went his way appeased, and came no more. In the play Beriah had to be dropped to satisfy another member of the race, and Mulberry was substituted in the hope that the objectors would be tired by that time and let it pass unchallenged. So far it has occupied the field in peace ; therefore we chance it again, feeling reasonably safe, this time, under shelter of the statute of limitations. MARK TWAIN. HARTFORD, 1891. THE WEATHER IN THIS BOOK No weather will be found in this book. This is an attempt to pull a book through without weather. It being the first attempt of the kind in fictitious litera- ture, it may prove a failure, but it seemed worth the while of some dare-devil person to try it, and the author was in just the mood. Many a reader who wanted to read a tale through was not able to do it because of delays on account of the weather. Nothing breaks up an author's progress like having to stop every few pages to fuss-up the weather. Thus it is plain that persistent intrusions of weather are bad for both reader and author. Of course weather is necessary to a narrative of human experience. That is conceded. But it ought to be put where it will not be in the way; where it will not interrupt the flow of the narrative. And it ought to be the ablest weather that can be had, not igno- rant, poor-quality, amateur weather. Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article of it. The present author can do only a few trifling ordinary kinds of weather, and he cannot do those very good. So it has seemed wisest to borrow such weather as is necessary for the book from qualified and recognized experts giving credit, of course. This weather will be found over in the back part of the book, out of the way. See Appendix. The reader is requested to turn over and help himself from time to time as he goes along. THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT CHAPTER I IT is a matchless morning in rural England. On a fair hill we see a majestic pile, the ivied walls and towers of Cholmondeley Castle, huge relic and wit- ness of the baronial grandeurs of the Middle Ages. This is one of the seats of the Earl of Rossmore, KG., G.C.B., K.C.M.G., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., who possesses twenty-two thousand acres of English land, owns a parish in London with two thousand houses on its lease-roll, and struggles comfortably along on an income of two hundred thousand pounds a year. The father and founder of this proud old line was William the Conqueror his very self; the mother of it was not inventoried in history by name, she being merely a random episode and inconsequen- tial, like the tanner's daughter of Falaise. In a breakfast-room of the castle on this breezy fine morning there are two persons and the cooling remains of a deserted meal. One of these persons is the old lord, tall, erect, square-shouldered, white- haired, stern-browed, a man who shows character MARK TWAIN in every feature, attitude, and movement, and carries his seventy years as easily as most men carry fifty. The other person is his only son and heir, a dreamy- eyed young fellow, who looks about twenty-six but is nearer thirty. Candor, kindliness, honesty, sin- cerity, simplicity, modesty it is easy to see that these are cardinal traits of his character; and so when you have clothed him in the formidable com- ponents of his name, you somehow seem to be con- templating a lamb in armor; his name and style being the Honorable Kirkcudbright Llanover Mar- joribanks Sellers Viscount Berkeley of Cholmondeley Castle, Warwickshire. (Pronounced K'koobry Thla- nover Marshbanks Sellers Vycount Barkly of Chum- ly Castle, Warrikshr.) He is standing by a great window, in an attitude suggestive of respectful atten- tion to what his father is saying and equally respect- ful dissent from the positions and arguments offered. The father walks the floor as he talks, and his talk shows that his temper is away up toward summer heat. "Soft-spirited as you are, Berkeley, I am quite aware that when you have once made up your mind to do a thing which your ideas of honor and justice require you to do, argument and reason are (for the time being) wasted upon you yes, and ridicule, persuasion, supplication, and command as well. To my mind " "Father, if you will look at it without prejudice, without passion, you must concede that I am not doing a rash thing, a thoughtless, wilful thing, with nothing substantial behind it to justify it. 7 did not THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT create the American claimant to the earldom of Rossmore; I did not hunt for him, did not find him, did not obtrude him upon your notice. He found himself, he injected himself into our lives " "And has made mine a purgatory for ten years with his tiresome letters, his wordy reasonings, his acres of tedious evidence " "Which you would never read, would never con- sent to read. Yet in common fairness he was entitled to a hearing. That hearing would either prove he was the rightful earl in which case our course would be plain or it would prove that he wasn't in which case our course would be equally plain. I have read his evidences, my lord. I have conned them well, studied them patiently and thoroughly. The chain seems to be complete, no important link wanting. I believe he is the rightful earl." "And I a usurper a nameless pauper, a tramp! Consider what you are saying, sir." "Father, if he is the rightful earl, would you, could you that fact being established consent to keep his titles and his properties from him a day, an hour, a minute?" "You are talking nonsense nonsense lurid idiocy! Now listen to me. I will make a confession if you wish to call it by that name. I did not read those evidences because I had no occasion to I was made familiar with them in the time of this claimant's father and of my own father forty years ago. This fellow's predecessors have kept mine more or less familiar with them for close upon a hundred and fifty years. The truth is, the rightful heir did go to 3 MARK TWAIN America, with the Fairfax heir or about the same time but disappeared somewhere in the wilds of Virginia, got married, and began to breed savages for the Claimant market; wrote no letters home; was supposed to be dead; his younger brother softly took possession; presently the American did die, and straightway his eldest product put in his claim by letter letter still in existence and died before the uncle in possession found time or maybe inclination to answer. The infant son of that eldest product grew up long interval, you see and he took to writing letters and furnishing evidences. Well, suc- cessor after successor has done the same, down to the present idiot. It was a succession of paupers; not one of them was ever able to pay his passage to Eng- land or institute suit. The Fairfaxes kept their lord- ship alive, and so they have never lost it to this day, although they live in Maryland; their friend lost his by his own neglect. You perceive now that the facts in this case bring us to precisely this result : morally the American tramp is rightful earl of Rossmore; legally he has no more right than his dog. There now are you satisfied?" There was a pause; then the son glanced at the crest carved in the great oaken mantel, and said, with a regretful note in his voice: "Since the introduction of heraldic symbols, the motto of this house has been Suum cuique to every man his own. By your own intrepidly frank con- fession, my lord, it is become a sarcasm. If Simon Lathers" "Keep that exasperating name to yourself! For 4 'AND i AS USURPER A NAMELESS PAUPER, A TRAMP THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT ten years it has pestered my eye and tortured my ear; till at last my very footfalls time themselves to the brain-racking rhythm of Simon Lathers! Simon Lathers! Simon Lathers! And now, to make its presence in my soul eternal, immortal, imperishable, you have resolved to to what is it you have re- solved to do?" "To go to Simon Lathers in America and change places with him." "What ? Deliver the reversion of the earldom into his hands?" "That is my purpose." "Make this tremendous surrender without even trying the fantastic case in the Lords?" "Ye-s " with hesitation and some embarrass- ment. "By all that is amazing, I believe you are insane, my son. See here have you been training with that ass again that radical, if you prefer the term, though the words are synonymous Lord Tanzy of ToUmache?" The son did not reply, and the old lord continued : "Yes, you confess. That puppy, that shame to his birth and caste, who holds all hereditary lordships and privilege to be usurpation, all nobility a tinsel sham, all aristocratic institutions a fraud, all ine- qualities in rank a legalized crime and an infamy, and no bread honest bread that a man doesn't earn by his own work work, pah!" and the old patrician brushed imaginary labor-dirt from his white hands. "You have come to hold just those opinions yourself, I suppose," he added, with a sneer. 5 MARK TWAIN A faint flush in the young man's cheek told that the shot had hit and hurt, but he answered with dignity : "I have. I say it without shame I feel none. And now my reason for resolving to renounce my heirship without resistance is explained. I wish to retire from what to me is a false existence, a false position, and begin my life over again begin it right begin it on the level of mere manhood, unassisted by factitious aids, and succeed or fail by pure merit or the want of it. I will go to America, where all men are equal and all have an equal chance; I will live or die, sink or swim, win or lose as just a man that alone, and not a single helping gaud or fiction back of it." "Hear, hear!" The two men looked each other steadily in the eye a moment or two; then the elder one added, musingly, "Ab-so-lutely cra-zy ab-so- lutely!" After another silence, he said, as one who, long troubled by clouds, detects a ray of sunshine, "Well, there will be one satisfaction Simon Lathers will come here to enter into his own, and I will drown him in the horse-pond. The poor devil always so humble in his letters, so pitiful, so deferential; so steeped in reverence for our great line and lofty station; so anxious to placate us, so prayerful for recognition as a relative, a bearer in his veins of our sacred blood and withal so poor, so needy, so threadbare and pauper-shod as to raiment, so de- spised, so laughed at for his silly claimantship by the lewd American scum around him ach, the vulgar, crawling, insufferable tramp! To read one of his cringing, nauseating letters Well?" THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT This to a splendid flunky, all in inflamed plush and buttons and knee-breeches as to his trunk, and a glinting white frost-work of ground-glass paste as to his head, who stood with his heels together and the upper half of him bent forward, a salver in his hands. "The letters, my lord." My lord took them, and the servant disappeared. "Among the rest, an American letter. From the tramp, of course. Jove, but here's a change! No brown-paper envelope this time, filched from a shop and carrying the shop's advertisement in the corner. Oh no; a proper enough envelope with a most ostentatiously broad mourning border for his cat, perhaps, since he was a bachelor and fastened with red wax a batch of it as big as a half-crown and and our crest for a seal! motto and all. And the ignorant, sprawling hand is gone; he sports a secretary, evidently a secretary with a most confi- dent swing and flourish to his pen. Oh, indeed, our fortunes are improving over there our meek tramp has undergone a metamorphosis." "Read it, my lord, please." "Yes, this time I will. For the sake of the cat: 14,042 SIXTEENTH STREET, WASHINGTON, May 2. My Lord It is my painful duty to announce to you that the head of our illustrious house is no more The Right Honorable, The Most Noble, The Most Puissant Simon Lathers Lord Rossmore having departed this life ("Gone at last this is unspeakably precious news, my son ") at his seat in the environs of the hamlet of Duffy's Corners in the grand old State of Arkansas and his twin brother with him, both being crushed by a log at a smoke- 7 MARK TWAIN house raising, owing to carelessness on the part of all present, referable to over-confidence and gaiety induced by overplus of sour-mash ("Extolled be sour-mash, whatever that may be, eh, Berkeley?") five days ago, with no scion of our ancient race present to close his eyes and inter him with the honors due his historic name and lofty rank in fact, he is on the ice yet, him and his brother friends took up a collection for it. But I shall take immediate occasion to have their noble remains shipped to you ("Great heavens!") for interment, with due cere- monies and solemnities, in the family vault or mausoleum of our house. Meantime I shall put up a pair of hatchments on my house-front, and you will of course do the same at your several seats. I have also to remind you that by this sad disaster I, as sole heir, inherit and become seized of all the titles, honors, lands, and goods of our lamented relative, and must of necessity, painful as the duty is, shortly require at the bar of the Lords restitution of these dignities and properties now illegally enjoyed by your titular lordship. With assurance of my distinguished consideration and warm cousinly regard, I remain Your titular lordship's Most obedient servant, Mulberry Sellers Earl Rossmore. "Im-mense! Come, this one's interesting. Why, Berkeley, his breezy impudence is is why, it's colossal, it's sublime." "No, this one doesn't seem to cringe much." "Cringe why, he doesn't know the meaning of the word. Hatchments! To commemorate that sniveling tramp and his fraternal duplicate. And he is going to send me the remains. The late Claimant was a fool, but plainly this new one's a maniac. What a name! Mulberry Sellers there's music for you. Simon Lathers Mulberry Sellers Mulberry Sellers Simon Lathers. Sounds like machinery 8 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT working and churning. Simon Lathers, Mulberry Sel Are you going?" "If I have your leave, father." The old gentleman stood musing some time after his son was gone. This was his thought : "He is a good boy, and lovable. Let him take his own course as it would profit nothing to oppose him make things worse, in fact. My arguments and his aunt's persuasions have failed; let us see what America can do for us. Let us see what equality and hard times can effect for the mental health of a brain- sick young British lord. Going to renounce his lord- ship and be a man! Yas!" CHAPTER II COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS this was some days before he wrote his letter to Lord Rossmore was seated in his "library," which was also his "drawing-room," and was also his "picture- gallery," and likewise his "workshop." Sometimes he called it by one of these names, sometimes by another, according to occasion and circumstance. He was constructing what seemed to be some kind of a frail mechanical toy, and was apparently very much interested in his work. He was a white-headed man now, but otherwise he was as young, alert, buoyant, visionary, and enterprising as ever. His loving old wife sat near by, contentedly knitting and thinking, with a cat asleep in her lap. The room was large, light, and had a comfortable look, in fact, a homelike look, though the furniture was of a humble sort and not over-abundant, and the knickknacks and things that go to adorn a living-room not plenty and not costly. But there were natural flowers, and there was an abstract and unclassifiable something about the place which betrayed the presence in the house of somebody with a happy taste and an effective touch. Even the deadly chromos on the walls were some- how without offense; in fact, they seemed to bslong there and to add an attraction to the room a fasci- IQ THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT nation, anyway; for whoever got his eye on one of them was like to gaze and suffer till he died you have seen that kind of pictures. Some of these ter- rors were landscapes, and some libeled the sea, some were ostensible portraits, all were crimes. All the portraits were recognizable as dead Americans of dis- tinction, and yet, through labeling added by a daring hand, they were all doing duty here as "Earls of Rossmore." The newest one had left the works as Andrew Jackson, but was doing its best now as "Simon Lathers Lord Rossmore, Present Earl." On one wall was a cheap old railroad map of Warwick- shire. This had been newly labeled "The Rossmore Estates." On the opposite wall was another map, and this was the most imposing decoration of the establishment and the first to catch a stranger's attention, because of its great size. It had once borne simply the title SIBERIA: but now the word "FUTURE" had been written in front of that word. There were other additions in red ink many cities, with great populations set down, scattered over the vast country at points where neither cities nor populations exist to-day. One of these cities, with population placed at 1,500,000, bore the name " Liberty orloffskoizalinski," and there was a still more populous one, centrally located and marked "Capital," which bore the name "Freedomolov- naivanovich." The "mansion" the Colonel's usual name for the house was a rickety old two-story frame of consid- erable size, which had been painted, some time or other, but had nearly forgotten it. It was away out ii MARK TWAIN in the ragged edge of Washington, and had once been somebody's country place. It had a neglected yard around it, with paling fence that needed straighten- ing up in places, and a gate that would stay shut. By the door-post were several modest tin signs. "Col. Mulberry Sellers, Attorney at Law and Claim Agent," was the principal one. One learned from the others that the Colonel was a Materializer, a Hypno- tizer, a Mind-Cure dabbler, and so on. For he was a man who could always find things to do. A white-headed negro man, with spectacles and damaged white-cotton gloves, appeared in the pres- ence, made a stately obeisance, and announced: "Marse Washington Hawkins, suh." "Great Scott! Show him in Dan'l, show him in." The Colonel and his wife were on their feet in a moment, and the next moment were joyfully wringing the hands of a stoutish, discouraged-looking man whose general aspect suggested that he was fifty years old, but whose hair swore to a hundred. "Well, well, well, Washington, my boy, it is good to look at you again. Sit down, sit down, and make yourself at home. There, now why, you look per- fectly natural; aging a little, just a little, but you'd have known him anywhere, wouldn't you, Polly?" "Oh yes, Berry, he's just like his pa would have looked if he'd lived. Dear, dear, where have you dropped from? Let me see, how long is it since " "I should say it's all of fifteen years, Mrs. Sel- lers." "Well, well, how time does get away with us. Yes, and oh, the changes that " 12 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT There was a sudden catch of her voice and a trem- bling of the lip, the men waiting reverently for her to get command of herself and go on ; but after a little struggle she turned away, with her apron to her eyes, and softly disappeared. "Seeing you made her think of the children, poor thing dear, dear, they're all dead but the youngest. But banish care, it's no time for it now on with the dance, let joy be unconfined is my motto, whether there's any dance to dance, or any joy to unconfine you'll be the healthier for it every time every time, Washington it's my experience, and I've seen a good deal of this world. Come where have you disappeared to all these years, and are you from there now, or where are you from?" "I don't quite think you would ever guess, Colonel. Cherokee Strip." "My land!" "Sure as you live." "You can't mean it. Actually living out there?" "Well, yes, if a body may call it that; though it's a pretty strong term for 'dobies and jackass rab- bits, boiled beans and slapjacks, depression, withered hopes, poverty in all its varieties " "Louise out there?" "Yes, and the children." "Out there now?" "Yes, I couldn't afford to bring them with me." "Oh, I see; you had to come claim against the government. Make yourself perfectly easy I'll take care of that." "But it isn't a claim against the government." 13 MARK TWAIN "No? Want to be postmaster? That's all right. Leave it to me. I'll fix it." "But it isn't postmaster you're all astray yet." "Well, good gracious, Washington, why don't you come out and tell me what it is? What do you want to be so reserved and distrustful with an old friend like me for? Don't you reckon I can keep a se " "There's no secret about it you merely don't give me a chance to " "Now look here, old friend, I know the human race; and I know that when a man comes to Wash- ington, I don't care if it's from heaven, let alone Cherokee Strip, it's because he wants something. And I know that as a rule he's not going to get it; that he'll stay and try for another thing and won't get that; the same luck with the next and the next and the next; and keeps on till he strikes bottom, and is too poor and ashamed to go back, even to Cherokee Strip; and at last his heart breaks and they take up a collection and bury him. There don't interrupt me, I know what I'm talking about. Happy and prosperous in the Far West, wasn't I? You know that. Principal citizen of Hawkeye, looked up to by everybody, kind of an autocrat actually a kind of an autocrat, Washington. We'l, nothing would do but I must go Minister to St. James, the Governor and everybody insisting, you know, and so at last I consented no getting out of it, had to do it, so here I came. A day too late, Washington. Think of that what little things change the world's history yes, sir, the place had been filled. Well, there I 14 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT was, you see. I offered to compromise and go to Paris. The President was very sorry and all that, but that place, you see, didn't belong to the West, so there I was again. There was no help for it, so I had to stoop a little we all reach the day some time or other when we've got to do that,Washington, and it's not a bad thing for us, either, take it by and large and all around I had to stoop a little and offer to take Constantinople. Washington, consider this for it's perfectly true within a month I asked for China; within another month I begged for Japan ; one year later I was away down, down, down, supplicat- ing with tears and anguish for the bottom office in the gift of the Government of the United States Flint- Picker in the cellars of the War Department. And, by ; George, I didn't get it!" "Flint-Picker?" "Yes. Office established in the time of the Revolu- tion, last century. The musket-flints for the military posts were supplied from the capital. They do it yet ; for although the flint-arm has gone out and the forts have tumbled down, the decree hasn't been repealed been overlooked and forgotten, you see and so the vacancies where old Ticonderoga and others used to stand still get their six quarts of gun-flints a year just the same." Washington said, musingly, after a pause: "How strange it seems to start for Minister to England at twenty thousand a year and fail for Flint- Picker at" "Three dollars a week. It's human life, Washing- ton just an epitome of human ambition, and strug- 2 is MARK TWAIN gle, and the outcome; you aim for the palace and get drowned in the sewer." There was another meditative silence. Then Washington said, with earnest compassion in his voice: "And so, after coming here, against your inclina- tion, to satisfy your sense of patriotic duty and ap- pease a selfish public clamor, you get absolutely noth- ing for it." 1 ' Nothing ?" The Colonel had to get up and stand to get room for his amazement to expand. "Nothing, Washington? I ask you this: to be a Perpetual Member and the only Perpetual Member of a Diplo- matic Body accredited to the greatest country on earth do you call that nothing?" It was Washington's turn to be amazed. He was stricken dumb ; but the wide-eyed wonder, the rever- ent admiration expressed in his face were more elo- quent than any words could have been. The Colonel's wounded spirit was healed, and he resumed his seat pleased and content. He leaned forward and said, impressively: "What was due to a man who had become forever conspicuous by an experience without precedent in the history of the world? a man made permanently and diplomatically sacred, so to speak, by having been connected, temporarily, through solicitation, with every single diplomatic post in the roster of this government, from Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James, all the way down to Consul to a guano rock in the Strait of Sunda salary payable in guano which disappeared 16 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT by volcanic convulsion the day before they got down to my name in the list of applicants. Certainly something august enough to be answerable to the size of this unique and memorable experience was my due, and I got it. By the common voice of this com- munity, by acclamation of the people, that mighty utterance which brushes aside laws and legislation, and from whose decrees there is no appeal, I was named Perpetual Member of the Diplomatic Body representing the multifarious sovereignties and civili- zations of the globe near the republican court of the United States of America. And they brought me home with a torchlight procession." "It is wonderful, Colonel, simply wonderful." "It's the loftiest official position in the whole earth." "I should think so and the most commanding." ' ' You have named the word. Think of it. I frown, and there is war; I smile, and contending nations lay down their arms." "It is awful. The responsibility, I mean." "It is nothing. Responsibility is no burden to me; I am used to it; have always been used to it." "And the work the work! Do you have to at- tend all the sittings?" "Who, I ? Does the Emperor of Russia attend the conclaves of the governors of the provinces? He sits at home and indicates his pleasure." Washington was silent a moment, then a deep sigh escaped him. "How proud I was an hour ago; how paltry seems my little promotion now ! Colonel, the reason I came MARK . TWAIN to Washington is I am Congressional Delegate from Cherokee Strip!" The Colonel sprang to his feet, and broke out, with prodigious enthusiasm: "Give me your hand, my boy this is immense news! I congratulate you with all my heart. My prophecies stand confirmed. I always said it was in you. I always said you were born for high dis- tinction and would achieve it. You ask Polly if I didn't." Washington was dazed by this most unexpected demonstration. "Why, Colonel, there's nothing to it. That little, narrow, desolate, unpeopled, oblong streak of grass and gravel, lost in the remote wastes of the vast con- tinent why, it's like representing a billiard-table a discarded one." "Tut-tut, it's a great, it's a staving preferment, and just opulent with influence here." "Shucks, Colonel, I haven't even a vote." "That's nothing; you can make speeches." "No, I can't. The population's only two hun- dred" "That's all right, that's all right" "And they hadn't any right to elect me; we're not even a Territory, there's no Organic Act, the govern- ment hasn't any official knowledge of us whatever." "Never mind about that; I'll fix that. I'll rush the thing through ; I'll get you organized in no time." "Will you, Colonel? it's too good of you; but it's just your old sterling self, the same old ever- 18 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT faithful friend," and the grateful tears welled up in Washington's eyes. "It's just as good as done, my boy, just as good as done. Shake hands. We'll hitch teams together, you and I, and we'll make things hum!" CHAPTER III MRS. SELLERS returned now with her com- posure restored, and began to ask after Hawkins's wife, and about his children, and the number of them, and so on, and her examination of the witness resulted in a circumstantial history of the family's ups and downs and driftings to and fro in the Far West during the previous fifteen years. There was a message now from out back, and Colonel Sellers went out there in answer to it. Hawkins took this opportunity to ask how the world had been using the Colonel during the past half -generation. "Oh, it's been using him just the same; it couldn't change its way of using him if it wanted to, for he wouldn't let it." "I can easily believe that, Mrs. Sellers." "Yes, you see, he doesn't change, himself not the least little bit in the world; he's always Mulberry Sellers." "I can see that plain enough." "Just the same old scheming, generous, good- hearted, moonshiny, hopeful, no-account failure he always was, and still everybody likes him just as well as if he was the shiningest success." "They always did; and it was natural, because he was so obliging and accommodating, and had some- 20 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT thing about him that made it kind of easy to ask help of him, or favors you didn't feel shy, you know, or have that wish-you-didn't-have-to-try feel- ing that you have with other people." "It's just so yet; and a body wonders at it, too, because he's been shamefully treated, many times, by people that had used him for a ladder to climb up by, and then kicked him down when they didn't need him any more. For a time you can see he's hurt, his pride's wounded, because he shrinks away from that thing and don't want to talk about it and so I used to think now he's learned something and he'll be more careful hereafter but laws! in a couple of weeks he's forgotten all about it, and any selfish tramp out of nobody knows where can come and put up a poor mouth and walk right into his heart with his boots on." "It must try your patience pretty sharply some- times." "Oh no, I'm used to it; and I'd rather have him so than the other way. When I call him a failure, I mean to the world he's a failure; he isn't to me. I don't know as I want him different much different, anyway. I have to scold him some, snarl at him, you might even call it, but I reckon I'd do that just the same if he was different it's my make. But I'm a good deal less snarly and more contented when he's a failure than I am when he isn't." "Then he isn't always a failure," said Hawkins, brightening. "Him? Oh, bless you, no. He makes a strike, as he calls it, from time to time. Then's my time 21 MARK TWAIN to fret and fuss. For the money just flies first come first served. Straight off, he loads up the house with cripples and idiots and stray cats and all the different kinds of poor wrecks that other people don't want and he does, and then when the poverty comes again I've got to clear the most of them out or we'd starve; and that distresses him, and me the same, of course. Here's old Dan'l and old Jinny, that the sheriff sold South one of the times that we got bankrupted before the war they came wander- ing back after the peace, worn out and used up on the cotton plantations, helpless, and not another lick of w.ork left in their old hides for the rest of this earthly pilgrimage and we so pinched, oh, so pinched for the very crumbs to keep life in us, and he just flung the door wide, and the way he received them you'd have thought they had come straight down from heaven in answer to prayer. I took him one side and said, 'Mulberry, we can't have them we've nothing for ourselves we can't feed them.' He looked at me kind of hurt, and said, 'Turn them out? and they've come to me just as confident and trusting as as why, Polly, I must have bought that confidence some time or other a long time ago, and given my note, so to speak you don't get such things as a gift and how am I going to go back on a debt like that? And you see, they're so poor, and old, and friendless, and ' But I was ashamed by that time, and shut him off, and somehow felt a new courage in me, and so I said, softly, 'We'll keep them the Lord will provide.' He was glad, and started to blurt out one 22 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT of those over-confident speeches of his, but checked himself in time, and said, humbly, 'I will, anyway.' It was years and years and years ago. Well, you see those old wrecks are here yet." "But don't they do your housework?" "Laws! The idea. They would if they could, poor old things, and perhaps they think they do do some of it. But it's a superstition. Dan'l waits on the front door, and sometimes goes on an errand; and sometimes you'll see one or both of them letting on to dust around in here but that's because there's something they want to hear about and mix their gabble into. And they're always around at meals, for the same reason. But the fact is, we have to keep a young negro girl just to take care of them, and a negro woman to do the housework and help take care of them." "Well, they ought to be tolerably happy, I should think." "It's no name for it. They quarrel together pretty much all the time 'most always about re- ligion, because Danl's a Dunker Baptist and Jinny's a shouting Methodist, and Jinny believes in special Providences and Dan'l don't, because he thinks he's a kind of a free-thinker and they play and sing plantation hymns together, and talk and chatter just eternally and forever, and are sincerely fond of each other and think the world of Mulberry, and he puts up patiently with all their spoiled ways and foolish- ness, and so ah, well, they're happy enough, if it comes to that. And I don't mind I've got used to it. I can get used to anything, with Mulberry tg MARK TWAIN help ; and the fact is, I don't much care what happens, so long as he's spared to me." "Well, here's to him, and hoping he'll make an- other strike soon." "And rake in the lame, the halt, and the blind, and turn the house into a hospital again? It's what he would do. I've seen a plenty of that and more. No, Washington, I want his strikes to be mighty moderate ones the rest of the way down the vale." "Well, then, big strike or little strike, or no strike at all, here's hoping he'll never lack for friends and I don't reckon he ever will while there's people around who know enough to " "Him lack for friends!" and she tilted her head up with a frank pride "why, Washington, you can't name a man that's anybody that isn't fond of him. I'll tell you privately that I've had Satan's own time to keep them from appointing him to some office or other. They knew he'd no business with an office, just as well as I did, but he's the hardest man to refuse anything to a body you ever saw. Mul- berry Sellers with an office! laws goodness, you know what that would be like. Why, they'd come from the ends of the earth to see a circus like that. I'd just as lieves be married to Niagara Falls, and done with it. ' ' After a reflective pause she added having wandered back, in the interval, to the remark that had been her text: "Friends? oh, indeed, no man ever had more; and such friends: Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Johnston, Longstreet, Lee many's the time they've sat in that chair you're sitting in " Hawkins was out of it instantly, and contemplating 24 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT it with a reverential surprise, and with the awed sense of having trodden shod upon holy ground : "They!" he said. "Oh, indeed, yes, a many and a many a time." He continued to gaze at the chair, fascinated, magnetized; and for once in his life that continental stretch of dry prairie which stood for his imagination was afire, and across it was marching a slanting flame-front that joined its wide horizons together and smothered the skies with smoke. He was experi- encing what one or another drowsing, geographical- ly ignorant alien experiences every day in the year when he turns a dull and indifferent eye out of the car window and it falls upon a certain station-sign which reads, "Stratford-on-Avon"! Mrs. Sellers went gossiping comfortably along: "Oh, they like to hear him talk, especially if their load is getting rather heavy on one shoulder and they want to shift it. He's all. air, you know breeze, you may say and he freshens them up; it's a trip to the country, they say. Many a time he's made General Grant laugh and that's a tidy job, I can tell you; and as for Sheridan, his eye lights up and he listens to Mulberry Sellers the same as if he was artillery. You see, the charm about Mul- berry is, he is so catholic and unprejudiced that he fits in anywhere and everywhere. It makes him powerful good company, and as popular as scandal. You go to the White House when the President's holding a general reception some time when Mul- berry's there. Why, dear me, you can't tell which of them it is that's holding that reception." 25 MARK TWAIN "Well, he certainly is a remarkable man and he always was. Is he religious?" " Clear to his marrow does more thinking and reading on that subject than any other, except Russia and Siberia; thrashes around over the whole field, too; nothing bigoted about him." "What is his religion?" "He " She stopped, and was lost for a moment or two in thinking; then she said, with simplicity, "I think he was a Mohammedan or something last week." Washington started down-town now to bring his trunk, for the hospitable Sellerses would listen to no excuses; their house must be his home during the session. The Colonel returned presently and re- sumed work upon his plaything. It was finished when Washington got back. "There it is," said the Colonel, "all finished." "What is it for, Colonel?" ' ' Oh, it's just a trifle. Toy to amuse the children. ' ' Washington examined it. "It seems to be a puzzle." "Yes, that's what it is. I call it Pigs in the Clover. Put them in see if you can put them in the pen." After many failures Washington succeeded, and was as pleased as a child. "It's wonderfully ingenious, Colonel it's ever so clever. And interesting why, I could play with it all day. What are you going to do with it?" "Oh, nothing. Patent it and throw it aside." "Don't you do anything of the kind. There's money in that thing." 26 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT A compassionate look traveled over the Colonel's countenance, and he said: "Money yes; pin money; a couple of hundred thousand, perhaps. Not more." Washington's eyes blazed. "A couple of hundred thousand dollars! Do you call that pin money?" The Colonel rose and tiptoed his way across the room, closed a door that was slightly ajar, tiptoed his way to his seat again, and said, under his breath: "You can keep a secret?" Washington nodded his affirmative; he was too awed to speak. "You have heard of materialization materializa- tion of departed spirits?" Washington had heard of it. "And probably didn't believe in it; and quite right, too. The thing as practised by ignorant charlatans is unworthy of attention or respect where there's a dim light and a dark cabinet, and a parcel of sentimental gulls gathered together, with their faith and their shudders and their tears all ready, and one and the same fatty degeneration of protoplasm and humbug comes out and materializes himself into anybody you want, grandmother, grand- child, brother-in-law, Witch of Endor, John Milton, Siamese Twins, Peter the Great, and all such frantic nonsense no, that is all foolish and pitiful. But when a man that is competent brings the vast powers of science to bear, it's a different matter a totally different matter, you see. The specter that answers 27 MARK TWAIN that call has come to stay. Do you note the com- mercial value of that detail?" "Well, I the the truth is, that I don't quite know that I do. Do you mean that such, being permanent, not transitory, would give more general satisfaction, and so enhance the price of tickets to the show " "Show? Folly listen to me; and get a good grip on your breath, for you are going to need it. Within three days I shall have completed my method, and then let the world stand aghast, for it shall see marvels. Washington, within three days ten at the outside you shall see me call the dead of any century, and they will arise and walk. Walk? they shall walk forever, and never die again. Walk with all the muscle and spring of their pristine vigor." ' ' Colonel ! Indeed, it does take one's breath away. ' ' "Now do you see the money that's in it?" "I'm well, I'm not really sure that I do." ' ' Great Scott, look here ! I shall have a monopoly ; they'll all belong to me, won't they? Two thousand policemen in the city of New York. Wages, four dollars a day. I'll replace them with dead ones at half the money." "Oh, prodigious! I never thought of that. F-o-u-r thousand dollars a day. Now I do begin to see! But will dead policemen answer?" "Haven't they up to this time?" "Well, if you put it that way" "Put it any way you want to. Modify it to suit yourself, and my lads shall still be superior. They won't eat, they won't drink don't need those THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT things; they won't wink for cash at gambling-dens and unlicensed rum-holes; they won't spark the scullery maids; and, moreover, the bands of toughs that ambuscade them on lonely beats and cowardly shoot and knife- them will only damage the uniforms, and not live long enough to get more than a mo- mentary satisfaction out of that." "Why, Col', Kiel, if you can furnish policemen, then of course " "Certainly I can furnish any line of goods that's wanted. Take the army, for instance now twenty- five thousand men; expense, twenty- two millions a year. I will dig up the Romans, I will resurrect the Greeks, I will furnish the government, for ten mill- ions a year, ten thousand veterans drawn from the victorious legions of all the ages soldiers that will chase Indians year in and year out on materialized horses, and cost never a cent for rations or repairs. The armies of Europe cost two billions a year now I will replace them all for a billion. I will dig up the trained statesmen of all ages and all climes, and furnish this country with a Congress that knows enough to come in out of the rain a thing that's never happened yet since the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and never will happen till these practi- cally dead people are replaced with the genuine article. I will restock the thrones of Europe with the best brains and the best morals that all the royal sepulchers of all the centuries can furnish which isn't promising very much and I'll divide the wages and the civil list, fair and square, merely taking my half and" 29 MARK TWAIN "Colonel, if the half of this is true, there's millions in it millions." "Billions in it billions; that's what you mean. Why, look here; the thing is so close at hand, so imminent, so absolutely immediate, that if a man were to come to me now and say, Colonel, I am a little short, and if you could lend me a couple of billion dollars for Come in!" This in answer to a knock. An energetic-looking man bustled in with a big pocket-book in his hand, took a paper from it and presented it, with the curt remark: "Seventeenth and last call you want to out with that three dollars and forty cents this time without fail, Colonel Mulberry Sellers." The Colonel began to slap this pocket and that one, and feel here and there and everywhere, mut- tering: "What have I done with that wallet? let me see um not here, not there oh, I must have left it in the kitchen; I'll just run and " "No, you won't you'll stay right where you are. And you're going to disgorge, too this time." Washington innocently offered to go and look. When he was gone the Colonel said: "The fact is, I've got to throw myself on your indulgence just this once more, Suggs; you see, the remittances I was expecting " "Hang the remittances it's too stale it won't answer. Come!" The Colonel glanced about him in despair. Then his face lighted ; he ran to the wall and began to dust 30 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT off a peculiarly atrocious chromo with his handker- chief. Then he brought it reverently, offered it to the collector, averted his face, and said: "Take it, but don't let me see it go. It's the sole remaining Rembrandt that " "Rembrandt be damned; it's a chromo." "Oh, don't speak of it so, I beg you. It's the only really great original, the only supreme example, of that mighty school of art which " "Art! It's the sickest-looking thing I" The Colonel was already bringing another horror and tenderly dusting it. "Take this one too the gem of my collection the only genuine Fra Angelico that " "Illuminated liver-pad, that's what it is. Give it here good day people will think I've robbed a nigger barber-shop." As he slammed the door behind him the Colonel shouted, with an anguished accent: "Do please cover them up don't let the damp get at them. The delicate tints in the Angelico " But the man was gone. Washington reappeared, and said he had looked everywhere, and so had Mrs. Sellers and the servants, but in vain; and went on to say he wished he could get his eye on a certain man about this time no need to hunt up that pocket - book then. The Colonel's interest was awake at once. "What man?" "One-armed Pete they call him out there out in the Cherokee country, I mean. Robbed the bank in Tahlequah." 3 31 MARK TWAIN "Do they have banks in Tahlequah?" "Yes a bank, anyway. He was suspected of robbing it. Whoever did it got away with more than twenty thousand dollars. They offered a re- ward of five 'thousand. I believe I _saw that very man on my way east." "No is that so?" "I certainly saw a man on the train the first day I struck the railroad that answered the description pretty exactly at least, as to clothes and a lacking arm." "Why didn't you get him arrested and claim the reward?" "I couldn't. I had to get a requisition, of course. But I meant to stay by him till I got my chance." "Well?" "Well, he left the train during the night some time." "Oh, hang it, that's too bad!" "Not so very bad, either." "Why?" "Because he came down to Baltimore in the very train I was in, though I didn't know it in time. As we moved out of the station I saw him going toward the iron gate with a satchel in his hand." "Good; we'll catch him. Let's lay a plan." "Send description to the Baltimore police?" ' ' Why, what are you talking about ? No. Do you want them to get the reward?" "What shall we do, then?" The Colonel reflected. 33 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "I'll tell you. Put a personal in the Baltimore Sun. Word it like this: A. DROP ME A LINE, PETE "Hold on. Which arm has he lost?" "The right." "Good. Now then: A DROP ME A LINE, PETE, EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO write with your left hand. Address X. Y. Z., General Post-office, Washington. From YOU KNOW WHO. There that '11 fetch him." "But he won't know who will he?" "No, but he'll want to know, won't he?" "Why, certainly I didn't think of that. What made you think of it?" "Knowledge of human curiosity. Strong trait, very strong trait." "Now I'll go to my room and write it out and inclose a dollar and tell them to print it to the worth of that." CHAPTER IV *THHE day wore itself out. After dinner the two X friends put in a long and harassing evening trying to decide what to do with the five thousand dollars reward which they were going to get when they should find One- Armed Pete, and catch him, and prove him to be the right person, and extradite him, and ship him to Tahlequah in the Indian Territory. But there were so many dazzling openings for ready cash that they found it impossible to make up their minds and keep them made up. Finally, Mrs. Sellers grew very weary of it all, and said: "What is the sense in cooking a rabbit before it's caught?" Then the matter was dropped for the time being, and all went to bed. Next morning, being per- suaded by Hawkins, the Colonel made drawings and specifications, and went down and applied for a patent for his toy puzzle, and Hawkins took the toy itself and started out to see what chance there might be to do something with it commercially. He did not have to go far. In a small old wooden shanty which had once been occupied as a dwelling by some humble negro family he found a keen-eyed Yankee engaged in repairing cheap chairs and other second- hand furniture. This man examined the toy in- 34 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT differently; attempted to do the puzzle; found it not so easy as he had expected; grew more interested, and finally emphatically so; achieved a success at last, and asked: "Is it patented?" "Patent applied for." "That will answer. What do you want for it?" "What will it retail for?" "Well, twenty-five cents, I should think." "What will you give for the exclusive right?" "I couldn't give twenty dollars if I had to pay cash down; but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make it and market it, and pay you five cents royalty on each one." Washington sighed. Another dream disappeared; no money in the thing. So he said: "All right; take it at that. Draw me a paper." He went his way with the paper, and dropped the matter out of his mind dropped it out to make room for further attempts to think out the most promising way to invest his half of the reward in case a partnership investment satisfactory to both beneficiaries could not be hit upon. He had not been very long at home when Sellers arrived sodden with grief and booming with glad excitement working both these emotions success- fully, sometimes separately, sometimes together. He fell on Hawkins's neck sobbing, and said: "Oh, mourn with me, my frifcnd, mourn for my desolate house; death has smitten my last kinsman, and I am Earl of Rossmore congratulate me!" He turned to his wife, who had entered while this 35 MARK TWAIN was going on, put his arms about her, and said: "You will bear up, for my sake, my lady it had to happen, it was decreed." She bore up very well, and said: "It's no great loss. Simon Lathers was a poor, well-meaning, useless thing and no account, and his brother never was worth shucks." The rightful earl continued: "I am too much prostrated by these conflicting griefs and joys to be able to concentrate my mind upon affairs; I will ask our good friend here to break the news by wire or post to the Lady Gwendolen, and instruct her to " 11 What Lady Gwendolen?" "Our poor daughter, who, alas! " "Sally Sellers? Mulberry Sellers, are you losing your mind?" "There please do not forget who you are, and who I am; remember your own dignity, be con- siderate also of mine. It were best to cease from using my family name now, Lady Rossmore." "Goodness gracious! well, I never! What am I to call you, then?" "In private, the ordinary terms of endearment will still be admissible, to some degree; but in pub- lic it will be more becoming if your ladyship will speak to me as my lord, or your lordship, and of me as Rossmore, or the Earl, or his Lordship, and " "Oh, scat! I can't ever do it, Berry." "But, indeed, you must, my love we must live up to our altered position, and submit with what grace we may to its requirements." 36 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "Well, all right, have it your own way; I've never set my wishes against your commands yet, Mul my lord, and it's late to begin now, though to my mind it's the rottenest foolishness that ever was." "Spoken like my own true wife! There, kiss and be friends again." "But Gwendolen! I don't know how I am ever going to stand that name. Why, a body wouldn't know Sally Sellers in it. It's too large for her; land of like a cherub in an ulster, and it's a most out- landish sort of a name anyway, to my mind." "You'll not hear her find fault with it, my lady." "That's a true word. She takes to any kind of romantic rubbish like she was born to it. She never got it from me, that's sure. And sending her to that silly college hasn't helped the matter any just the other way." "Now hear her, Hawkins! Rowena-Ivanhoe Col- lege is the selectest and most aristocratic seat of learning for young ladies in our country. Under no circumstances can a girl get in there unless she is either very rich and fashionable or can prove four generations of what may be called American nobility. Castellated college - buildings towers and turrets and an imitation moat and everything about the place named out of Sir Walter Scott's books and redolent of royalty and state and style; and all the richest girls keep phaetons, and coachmen in livery, and riding-horses, with English grooms in plug hats and tight-buttoned coats, and top-boots, and a whip- handle without any whip to it, to ride sixty-three feet behind them " 37 MARK TWAIN "And they don't learn a blessed thing, Washington Hawkins, not a single blessed thing but showy rub- bish and un-American pretentiousness. But send for the Lady Gwendolen do; for I reckon the peer- age regulations require that she must come home and let on to go into seclusion and mourn for those Arkansas blatherskites she's lost." "My darling! Blatherskites? Remember no- blesse oblige." "There, there talk to me in your own tongue, Ross you don't know any other, and you only botch it when you try. Oh, don't stare it was a slip, and no crime; customs of a lifetime can't be dropped in a second. Rossmory the peculiar sharpness of its pang. The others 1x8 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT were painful enough, but that one cut to the quick when it came. Night after night he lay tossing to the music of the hideous snoring of the honest bread- winners until two and three o'clock in the morning, then got up and took refuge on the roof, where he sometimes got a nap and sometimes failed entirely. His appetite was leaving him, and the zest of life was going along with it. Finally, one day, being near the imminent verge of total discouragement, he said to himself and took occasion to blush privately when he said it, "If my father knew what my American name is he well, my duty to my father rather requires that I furnish him my name. I have no right to make his days and nights unhappy, I can do enough unhappiness for the family all by myself. Really he ought to know what my American name is." He thought over it awhile, and framed a cable- gram in his mind to this effect: "My American name is Howard Tracy." That wouldn't be suggesting anything. His father could understand that as he chose, and doubtless he would understand it as it was meant, as a dutiful and affectionate desire on the part of a son to make his old father happy for a moment. Continuing his train of thought, Tracy said to himself, "Ah, but if he should cable me to come home! I I couldn't do that I mustn't do that. I've started out on a mission, and I mustn't turn my back on it in cowardice. No, no, I couldn't go home, at at least I shouldn't want to go home." After a reflective pause: "Well, maybe perhaps it would be my duty to go in the circum- stances; he's very old, and he does need me by him 119 MARK TWAIN to stay his footsteps down the long hill that inclines westward toward the sunset of his life. Well, I'll think about that. Yes, of course it wouldn't be right to stay here. I if I well, perhaps I could just drop him a line and put it off a little while and satisfy him in that way. It would be well, it would mar everything to have him require me to come in- stantly. ' ' Another reflective pause then : ' 'And yet if he should do that I don't know but oh, dear me home! how good it sounds! and a body is excusable for wanting to see his home again, now and then, anyway." He went to one of the telegraph offices in the ave- nue and got the first end of what Barrow called the "usual Washington courtesy," where "they treat you as a tramp until they find out you're a Congressman, and then they slobber all over you." There was a boy of seventeen on duty there, tying his shoe. He had his foot on a chair and his back turned toward the wicket. He glanced over his shoulder, took Tracy's measure, turned back, and went on tying his shoe. Tracy finished writing his telegram and waited, still waited, and, still waited for that performance to finish, but there didn't seem to be any finish to it; so finally Tracy said: "Can't you take my telegram?" The youth looked over his shoulder and said, by his manner, not his words: "Don't you think you could wait a minute if you tried?" However, he got the shoe tied at last, and came and took the telegram, glanced over it, then looked up 120 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT surprised at Tracy. There was something in his look that bordered upon respect, almost reverence, it seemed to Tracy, although he had been so long with- out anything of this kind he was not sure that he knew the signs of it. The boy read the address aloud with pleased ex- pression in face and voice. "The Earl of Rossmore! Cracky! Do you know him?" "Yes." "Is that so? Does he know you?" "Well yes." "Well, I swear! Will he answer you?" "I think he will." "Will he, though? Where'll you have it sent?" "Oh, nowhere. I'll call here and get it. When shall I call?" "Oh, I don't know I'll send it to you. Where shall I send it? Give me your address; I'll send it to you soon's it comes." But Tracy didn't propose to do this. He had acquired the boy's admiration and deferential re- spect, and he wasn't wijjing to throw these precious things away, a result sure to follow if he should give the address of that boarding-house. So he said again that he would call and get the telegram, and went his way. He idled along, reflecting. He said to himself, ' ' There is something pleasant about being respected. I have acquired the respect of Mr. Allen and some of those others, and almost the deference of some of them on pure merit, for having thrashed Allen. 121 MARK TWAIN While their respect and their deference if it is deference is pleasant, a deference based upon a sham, a shadow, does really seem pleasanter still. It's no real merit to be in correspondence with an earl, and yet, after all, that boy makes me feel as if there was." The cablegram was actually gone home! The thought of it gave him an immense uplift. He walked with a lighter tread. His heart was full of happiness. He threw aside all hesitancies, and con- fessed to himself that he was glad through and through that he was going to give up this experiment and go back to his home again. His eagerness to get his father's answer began to grow now, and it grew with marvelous celerity after it began. He waited an hour, walking about, putting in his time as well as he could, but interested in nothing that came under his eye, and at last he presented himself at the office again and asked if any answer had come yet. The boy said: "No, no answer yet"; then glanced at the clock and added, "I don't think it's likely you'll get one to-day." "Why not?" "Well, you see it's getting pretty late. You can't always tell where'bouts a man is when he's on the other side, and you can't always find him just the minute you want him, and you see it's getting about six o'clock now, and over there it's pretty late at night. ' ' "Why, yes," said Tracy, "Ihadn't thought of that." "Yes, pretty late now half -past ten or eleven. Oh, yes, you probably won't get any answer to-night." 122 CHAPTER XIV SO Tracy went home to supper. The odors in that supper-room seemed more strenuous and more horrible than ever before, and he was happy in the thought that he was so soon to be free from them again. When the supper was over he hardly knew whether he had eaten any of it or not, and he cer- tainly hadn't heard any of the conversation. His- heart had been dancing all the time, his thoughts had been far away from these things, and in the visions of his mind the sumptuous appointments of his father's castle had risen before him without rebuke. Even the plushed flunky, that walking symbol of a sham inequality, had not been unpleasant to his dreaming view. After the meal Barrow said: "Come with me. I'll give you a jolly evening." "Very good. Where are you going?" "To my club." "What club is that?" "Mechanics' Debating Club." Tracy shuddered slightly. He didn't say any- thing about having visited that place himself. Somehow he didn't quite relish the memory of that time. The sentiments which had made his former visit there so enjoyable, and filled him with such enthusiasm, had undergone a gradual change, and 123 .- MARK TWAIN they had rotted away to such a degree that he couldn't contemplate another visit there with any- thing strongly resembling delight; in fact, he was a little ashamed to go. He didn't want to go there and find out by the rude impact of the thought of those people upon his reorganized condition of mind, how sharp the change had been. He would have preferred to stay away. He expected that now he should hear nothing except sentiments which would be a reproach to him in his changed mental attitude, and he rather wished he might be excused. And yet he didn't quite want to say that; he didn't want to show how he did feel, or show any disinclination to go ; and so he forced himself to go along with Barrow, privately purposing to take an early opportunity to get away. After the essayist of the evening had read his paper, the chairman announced that the debate would now be upon the subject of the previous meet- ing, "The American Press." It saddened the back- sliding disciple to hear this announcement. It brought up too many reminiscences. He wished he had happened upon some other subject. But the debate began, and he sat still and listened. In the course of the discussion one of the speakers a blacksmith named Tompkins arraigned all monarchs and all lords on the earth for their cold selfishness in retaining their unearned dignities. He said that no monarch and no son of a monarch, no lord and no son of a lord, ought to be able to look his fellow-man in the face without shame. Shame for consenting to keep his unearned titles, property, 124 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT and privileges at the expense of other people; shame for consenting to remain, on any terms, in dishonor- able possession of these things, which represented bygone robberies and wrongs inflicted upon the general people of the nation. He said: "If there were a lord or the son of a lord here I would like to reason with him, and try to show him how unfair and how selfish his position is. I would try to per- suade him to relinquish it, take his place among men on equal terms, earn the bread he eats, and hold of slight value all deference paid him because of arti- ficial position, all reverence not the just due of his own personal merits." Tracy seemed to be listening to utterances of his own made in talks with his radical friends in England. It was as if some eavesdropping phonograph had treasured up his words and brought them across the Atlantic to accuse him with them in the hour of his defection and retreat. Every word spoken by this stranger seemed to leave a blister on Tracy's con- science, and by the time the speech was finished he felt that he was all conscience and one blister. This man's deep compassion for the enslaved and op- pressed millions in Europe who had to bear with the contempt of that small class above them, throned upon shining heights whose paths were shut against them, was the very thing he had often uttered him- self. The pity in this man's voice and words was the very twin of the pity that used to reside in his own heart and come from his own lips when he thought of these oppressed peoples. The homeward tramp was accomplished in brood- 125 MARK TWAIN ing silence. It was a silence most grateful to Tracy's feelings. He wouldn't have broken it for anything; for he was ashamed of himself all the way through to his spine. He kept saying to himself: "How unanswerable it all is how absolutely un- answerable! It is basely, degradingly selfish to keep those unearned honors, and and oh, hang it, nobody but a cur " "What an idiotic damned speech that Tompkins made!" This outburst was from Barrow. It flooded Tracy's demoralized soul with waters of refreshment. These were the darlingest words the poor vacillating young apostate had ever heard for they white- washed his shame for him, and that is a good service to have when you can't get the best of all verdicts: self-acquittal. "Come up to my room and smoke a pipe, Tracy." Tracy had been expecting this invitation, and had had his declination all ready; but he was glad enough to accept now. Was it possible that a reasonable argument could be made against that man's deso- lating speech? He was burning to hear Barrow try it. He knew how to start him and keep him going; it was to seem to combat his positions a process effective with most people. "What is it you object to in Tompkins's speech, Barrow?" "Oh, the leaving out of the factor of human nature ; requiring another man to do what you wouldn't do yourself." "Do you mean " 126 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "Why, here's what I mean; it's very simple. Tompkins is a blacksmith; has a family; works for wages; and hard, too fooling around won't furnish the bread. Suppose it should turn out that by the death of somebody in England he is suddenly an earl income, half a million dollars a year. What would he do?" "Well, I I suppose he would have to decline to " "Man, he would grab it in a second!" "Do you really think he would?" "Think? I don't think anything about it, I know it." "Why?" "Why? Because he's not a fool." "So you think that if he were a fool, he " "No, I don't. Fool or no fool, he would grab it. Anybody would. Anybody that's alive. And I've seen dead people that would get up and go for it. I would myself." This was balm, this was healing, this was rest and peace and comfort. "But I thought you were opposed to nobilities?" "Transmissible ones, yes. But that's nothing. I'm opposed to millionaires, but it would be danger- ous to offer me the position." "You'd take it?" "I would leave the funeral of my dearest enemy to go and assume its burdens and responsibilities." Tracy thought awhile, then said: "I don't know that I quite get the bearings of your position. You say you are opposed to hereditary nobilities, and yet if you had the chance you would " 9 127 MARK TWAIN "Take one? In a minute I would. And there isn't a mechanic in that entire club that wouldn't. There isn't a lawyer, doctor, editor, author, tinker, loafer, railroad president, saint land, there isn't a human being in the United States that wouldn't jump at the chance!" "Except me," said Tracy, softly. "Except you!" Barrow could hardly get the words out, his scorn so choked him. And he couldn't get any further than that form of words; it seemed to dam his flow utterly. He got up and came and glared upon Tracy in a kind of outraged and unap- peasable way, and said again, "Except you!" He walked around him inspecting him from one point of view and then another, and relieving his soul now and then by exploding that formula at him: "Ex- cept you!" Finally he slumped down into his chair with the air of one who gives it up, and said: "He's straining his viscera and he's breaking his heart trying to get some low-down job that a good dog wouldn't have, and yet wants to let on that if he had a chance to scoop an earldom he wouldn't do it. Tracy, don't put this kind of a strain on me. Lately I'm not as strong as I was." "Well, I wasn't meaning to put a strain on you, Barrow; I was only meaning to intimate that if an earldom ever does fall in my way " "There I wouldn't give myself any worry about that if I was you. And, besides, I can settle what you would do. Are you any different from me?" "Well no." " "Are you any better than me?" 128 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "Oh er why, certainly not." ' ' Are you as good ? Come ! ' ' "Indeed, I the fact is you take me so sud- denly" "Suddenly? What is there sudden about it? It isn't a difficult question, is it? Or doubtful? Just measure us on the only fair lines the lines of merit and of course you'll admit that a journeyman chair- maker that earns his twenty dollars a week, and has had the good and genuine culture of contact with men, and care, and hardship, and failure, and suc- cess, and downs and ups and ups and downs, is just a trifle the superior of a young fellow like you, who doesn't know how to do anything that's valuable, can't earn his living in any secure and steady way, hasn't had any experience of life and its seriousness, hasn't any culture but the artificial culture of books, which adorns but doesn't really educate come! if I wouldn't scorn an earldom, what the devil right have you to do it?" Tracy dissembled his joy, though he wanted to thank the chair-maker for that last remark. Pres- ently a thought struck him, and he spoke up briskly and said: "But look here, I really can't quite get the hang of your notions your principles, if they are principles. You are inconsistent. You are opposed to aristocra- cies, yet you'd take an earldom if you could. Am I to understand that you don't blame an earl for being and remaining an earl?" "I certainly don't." "And you wouldn't blame Tompkins, or yourself, 129 MARK TWAIN or me, or anybody, for accepting an earldom if it was offered?" "Indeed, I wouldn't." "Well, then, whom would you blame?" "The whole nation any bulk and mass of popu- lation anywhere, in any country, that will put up with the infamy, the outrage, the insult of a heredi- tary aristocracy which they can't enter and on absolutely free and equal terms." "Come, aren't you beclouding yourself with dis- tinctions that are not differences?" "Indeed, I am not. I am entirely clear-headed about this thing. If I could extirpate an aristocratic system by declining its honors, then I should be a rascal to accept them. And if enough of the mass would join me to make the extirpation possible, then I should be a rascal to do otherwise than help in the attempt." "I believe I understand yes, I think I get the idea. You have no blame for the lucky few who nat- urally decline to vacate the pleasant nest they were born into ; you only despise the all-powerful and stupid mass of the nation for allowing the nest to exist." "That's it, that's it! You can get a simple thing through your head if you work at it long enough." "Thanks." "Don't mention it. And I'll give you some sound advice: when you go back, if you find your nation up and ready to abolish that hoary affront, lend a hand; but if that isn't the state of things and you get a chance at an earldom, don't you be a fool you take it." 130 Tracy responded with earnestness and enthusiasm : "As I live, I'lldoit!" Barrow laughed. ' ' I never saw such a fellow. I begin to think you've got a good deal of imagination. With you, the idlest fancy freezes into a reality at a breath. Why, you looked, then, as if it wouldn't astonish you if you did tumble into an earldom." Tracy blushed. Barrow added: "Earldom! Oh, yes, take it if it offers; but meantime we'll go on looking around, in a modest way, and if you get a chance to superintend a sausage- stuffer at six or eight dollars a week, you just trade off the earldom for a last year's almanac and stick to the sausage-stuffing." CHAPTER XV went to bed happy once more, at rest in 1 his mind once more. He had started out on a high emprise that was to his credit, he argued; he had fought the best fight he could, considering the odds against him that was to his credit; he had been defeated certainly there was nothing discredit- able in that. Being defeated, he had a right to retire with the honors of war and go back without prejudice to the position in the world's society to which he had been born. Why not ? Even the rabid republican chair-maker would do that. Yes, his con- science was comfortable once more. He woke refreshed, happy, and eager for his cable- gram. He had been born an aristocrat, he had been a democrat for a time, he was now an aristocrat again. He marveled to find that this final change was not merely intellectual, it had invaded his feeling; and he also marveled to note that this feeling seemed a good deal less artificial than any he had entertained in his system for a long time. He could also have noted, if he had thought of it, that his bearing had stiffened overnight, and that his chin had lifted itself a shade. Arrived in the basement, he was about to enter the breakfast-room when he saw old Marsh in the dim light of a corner of the hall, beckoning him with his 132 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT finger to approach. The blood welled slowly up in Tracy's cheek, and he said, with a grade of injured dignity almost ducal: "Is that for me?" "Yes." "What is the purpose of it?" "I want to speak to you in private." This spot is private enough for me." Marsh was surprised ; and not particularly pleased. He approached and said: "Oh, in public, then, if you prefer. Though it hasn't been my way." The boarders gathered to the spot, interested. ' ' Speak out, ' ' said Tracy. ' ' What is it you want ?" "Well, haven't you er forgot something?" "I? I'm not aware of it." "Oh, you're not? Now you stop and think a minute." "I refuse to stop and think. It doesn't interest me. If it interests you, speak out." "Well, then," said Marsh, raising his voice to a slightly angry pitch, "you forgot to pay your board yesterday if you're bound to have it public." Oh, yes; this heir to an annual million or so had been dreaming and soaring, and had forgotten that pitiful three or four dollars. For penalty he must have it coarsely flung in his face in the presence of these people people in whose countenances was already beginning to dawn an uncharitable enjoy- ment of the situation. "Is that all! Take your money and give your terrors a rest." MARK TWAIN Tracy's hand went down into his pocket with angry decision. But it didn't come out. The color began to ebb out of his face. The countenances about him showed a growing interest; and some of them a heightened satisfaction. There was an uncomfortable pause; then he forced out, with difficulty, the words: "I've been robbed!" Old Marsh's eyes flamed up with Spanish fire, and he exclaimed: "Robbed, is it? That's your tune? It's too old been played in this house too often; everybody plays it that can't get work when he wants it, and won't work when he can get it. Trot out Mr. Allen, some- body, and let him take a toot at it. It's his turn next ; he forgot, too, last night. I'm laying for him." One of the negro women came scrambling down stairs as pale as a sorrel horse with consternation and excitement: "Misto Marsh. Misto Allen's skipped out!" "What!" "Yes-sah, and cleaned out his room clean; tuck bofe towels en de soap!" "You lie, you hussy!" "It's jes' so, jes' as I tells you en Misto Sumner's socks is gone, en Misto Naylor's yuther shirt." Mr. Marsh was at boiling-point by this time. He turned upon Tracy. "Answer up now when are you going to settle?" "To-day since you seem to be in a hurry." "To-day, is it? Sunday and you out of work? I like that. Come where are you going to get the money?" THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT Tracy's spirit was rising again. He proposed to impress these people. "I am expecting a cablegram from home." Old Marsh was caught out, with the surprise of it. The idea was so immense, so extravagant, that he couldn't get his breath at first. When he did get it, it came rancid with sarcasm. "A cablegram think of it, ladies and gents, he's expecting a cablegram! He's expecting a cablegram this duffer, this scrub, this bilk ! From his father eh? Yes without a doubt. A dollar or two a word oh, that's nothing they don't mind a little thing like that this kind's fathers don't. Now his father is er well, I reckon his father " "My father is an English earl!" The crowd fell back aghast aghast at the sublim- ity of the young loafer's "cheek." Then they burst into a laugh that made the windows rattle. Tracy was too angry to realize that he had done a foolish thing. He said: "Stand aside, please. I " "Wait a minute, your lordship," said Marsh, bow- ing low; "where is your lordship going?" "For the cablegram. Let me pass." "Excuse me, your lordship, you'll stay right where you are." "What do you mean by that?" "I mean that I didn't begin to keep boarding-house yesterday. It means that I am not the kind that can be taken in by every hack-driver's son that comes loafing over here because he can't bum a living at home. It means that you can't skip out on any such ' ' MARK TWAIN Tracy made a step toward the old man, but Mrs. Marsh sprang between, and said: "Don't, Mr. Tracy, please." She turned to her husband and said, ' ' Do bridle your tongue. What has he done to be treated so ? Can't you see he has lost his mind with trouble and distress ? He's not responsible. ' ' "Thank your kind heart, madam, but I've not lost my mind; and if I can have the mere privilege of stepping to the telegraph-office " "Well, you can't!" cried Marsh. " or sending " ' ' Sending ! That beats everything. If there's any- body that's fool enough to go on such a chuckle- headed errand " "Here comes Mr. Barrow he will go for me. Barrow " A brisk fire of exclamation broke out: "Say, Barrow, he's expecting a cablegram!" "Cablegram from his father, you know!" "Yes cablegram from the wax-rigger!" "And say, Barrow, this fellow's an earl take off your hat, pull down your vest!" "Yes, he's come off and forgot his crown that he wears Sundays. He's cabled over to his poppy to send it." "You step out and get that cablegram, Barrow; his majesty's a little lame to-day." "Oh, stop," cried Barrow; "give the man a chance." He turned, and said with some severity: "Tracy, what's the matter with you? What kind of foolishness is this you've been talking ? You ought to have more sense." THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "I've not been talking foolishness; and if you'll go to the telegraph-office " "Oh, don't talk so. I'm your friend in trouble and out of it, before your face and behind your back, for anything in reason: but you've lost your head, you see, and this moonshine about a cablegram " "/'// go there and ask for it!" "Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Brady. Here, I'll give you a written order for it. Fly now and fetch it. We'll soon see!" Brady flew. Immediately the sort of quiet began to steal over the crowd which means dawning doubt, misgiving; and might be translated into the words, "Maybe he is expecting a cablegram maybe he has got a father somewhere maybe we've been just a little too fresh, just a shade too 'previous'!" Loud talk ceased; then the mutterings and low murmur- ings and whisperings died out. The crowd began to crumble apart. By ones and twos the fragments drifted to the breakfast-table. Barrow tried to bring Tracy in; but he said: "Not yet, Barrow presently." Mrs. Marsh and Hattie tried, offering gentle and kindly persuasions; but he said: "I would rather wait till he comes." Even old Marsh began to have suspicions that maybe he had been a trifle too "brash," as he called it in the privacy of his soul, and he pulled himself together and started toward Tracy with invitation in his eyes ; but Tracy warned him off with a gesture which was quite positive and eloquent. Then fol- lowed the stillest quarter of an hour which had ever MARK TWAIN been known in that house at that time of day. It was so still, and so solemn withal, that when some- body's cup slipped from his fingers and landed in his plate the shock made people start, and the sharp sound seemed as indecorous there and as out of place as if a coffin and mourners were imminent and being waited for. And at last when Brady's feet came clat- tering down the stairs the sacrilege seemed unbear- able. Everybody rose softly and turned toward the door, where stood Tracy; then, with a common im- pulse, moved a step or two in that direction, and stopped. While they gazed young Brady arrived, panting, and put into Tracy's hand sure enough an envelope. Tracy fastened a bland, victorious eye upon the gazers, and kept it there till one by one they dropped their eyes, vanquished and embar- rassed. Then he tore open the telegram and glanced at its message. The yellow paper fell from his fingers and fluttered to the floor, and his face turned white. There was nothing there but one word: "Thanks." The humorist of the house, the tall, raw-boned Billy Nash, caulker from the navy yard, was standing in the rear of the crowd. In the midst of the pathetic silence that was now brooding over the place and moving some few hearts there toward compassion, he began to whimper, then he put his handkerchief to his eyes and buried his face in the neck of the bashf ul- est young fellow in the company, a navy-yard black- smith, shrieked, "Oh, pappy, how could you!" and began to bawl like a teething baby, if one may 138 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT imagine a baby with the energy and the devastating voice of a jackass. So perfect was the imitation of a child's cry, and so vast the scale of it, and so ridiculous the aspect of the performer, that all gravity was swept from the place as if by a hurricane, and almost everybody there joined in the crash of laughter provoked by the exhibition. Then the small mob began to take its revenge revenge for the discomfort and apprehen- sion it had brought upon itself by its own too rash freshness of a little while before. It guyed its poor victim, baited him, worried him, as dogs do with a cornered cat. The victim answered back with defi- ances and challenges which included everybody, and which only gave the sport new spirit and variety; but when he changed his tactics and began to single out individuals and invite them by name, the fun lost its funniness and the interest of the show died out, along with the noise. Finally Marsh was about to take an innings, but Barrow said : "Never mind now leave him alone. You've no account with him but a money account. I'll take care of that myself." The distressed and worried landlady gave Barrow a fervently grateful look for his championship of the abused stranger; and the pet of the house, a very prism in her cheap but ravishing Sunday rig, blew him a kiss from the tips of her fingers and said, with the darlingest smile and a sweet little toss of her head : "You're the only man here, and I'm going to set my cap for you, you dear old thing!" 139 MARK TWAIN "For shame, Puss! How you talk! I never saw such a child!" It took a good deal of argument and persuasion that is to say, petting, under these disguises to get Tracy to entertain the idea of breakfast. He at first said he would never eat again in that house; and added that he had enough firmness of character, he trusted, to enable him to starve like a man when the alternative was to eat insult with his bread. When he had finished his breakfast, Barrowtook him to his room, furnished him a pipe, and said, cheerily : "Now, old fellow, take in your battle-flag out of the wet; you're not in the hostile camp any more. You're a little upset by your troubles, and that's natural enough, but don't let your mind run on them any more than you can help; drag your thoughts away from your troubles by the ears, by the heels, or any other way, so you manage it ; it's the healthi- est thing a body can do; dwelling on troubles is deadly, just deadly and that's the softest name there is for it. You must keep your mind amused you must, indeed." "Oh, miserable me!" "Don't! There's just pure heart-break in that tone. It's just as I say; you've got to get right down to it and amuse your mind, as if it was salvation." "They're easy words to say, Barrow, but how am I going to amuse, entertain, divert a mind that finds itself suddenly assaulted and overwhelmed by disas- ter of a sort not dreamed of and not provided for? No-no, the bare idea of amusement is repulsive to my feelings. Let us talk of deaths and funerals." 140 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "No not yet. That would be giving up the ship. We'll not give up the ship yet. I'm going to amuse you; I sent Brady out for the wherewithal before you finished breakfast." "You did? What is it?" "Come, this is a good sign curiosity. Oh, there's hope for you yet." CHAPTER XVI BRADY arrived with a box, and departed, after saying: "They're finishing one up, but they'll be along as soon as it's done." Barrow took a frameless oil portrait a foot square from the box, set it up in a good light, without com- ment, and reached for another, taking a fugitive glance at Tracy meantime. The stony solemnity in Tracy's face remained as it was, and gave out no sign of interest. Barrow placed the second portrait beside the first, and stole another glance while reaching for a third. The stone image softened a shade. No. 3 forced the ghost of a smile, No. 4 swept indifference wholly away, and No. 5 started a laugh which was still in good and hearty condition when No. 14 took its place in the row. "Oh, you're all right yet," said Barrow. "You see, you're not past amusement." The pictures were fearful as to color, and atrocious as to drawing and expression; but the feature which squelched animosity and made them funny was a feature which could not achieve its full force in a single picture, but required the wonder-working as- sistance of repetition. One loudly dressed mechanic in stately attitude, with his hand on a cannon, ashore, 142 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT and a ship riding at anchor in the offing this is merely odd; but when one sees the same cannon and the same ship in fourteen pictures in a row, and a different mechanic standing watch in each, the thing gets to be funny. "Explain explain these aberrations," said Tracy. "Well, they are not the achievement of a single intellect, a single talent it takes two to do these miracles. They are collaborations; the one artist does the figure, the other the accessories. The figure-artist is a German shoemaker with an untaught passion for art, the other is a simple-hearted old Yankee sailor-man whose possibilities are strictly limited to his ship, his cannon, and his patch of petrified sea. They work these things up from twen- ty-five cent tintypes; they get six dollars apiece for them, and they can grind out a couple a day when they strike what they call a boost that is, an inspiration." "People actually pay money for these calumnies?" "They actually do and quite willingly, too. And these abortionists could double their trade and work the women in if Captain Saltmarsh could whirl a horse in, or a piano, or a guitar, in place of his cannon. The fact is, he fatigues the market with that cannon. Even the male market, I mean. These fourteen in the procession are not all satisfied. One is an old "independent" fireman, and he wants an engine in place of the cannon; another is a mate of a tug, and wants a tug in place of the ship and so on, and so on. But the captain can't make a tug that is deceptive, and a fire-engine is many flights beyond his power." 10 143 MARK TWAIN" < "This is a most extraordinary form of robbery. I never have heard of anything like it. It's interest- ing." "Yes, and so are the artists. They are perfectly honest men, and sincere. And the old sailor-man is full of sound religion, and is as devoted a student of the Bible and misquoter of it as you can find any- where. I don't know a better man or kinder-hearted old soul than Saltmarsh, although he does swear a little sometimes." "He seems to be perfect. I want to know him, Barrow." ' ' You'll have tne chance. I guess I hear them com- ing now. We'll draw them out on their art, if you like. The artists arrived and shook hands with great heartiness. The German was forty and a little fleshy, with a shiny bald head and a kindly face and deferential manner. Captain Saltmarsh was sixty, tall, erect, powerfully built, with coal-black hair and whiskers, and he had a well-tanned complexion, and a gait and countenance that were full of command, confidence, and decision. His horny hands and wrists were covered with tattoo-marks, and when his lips parted his teeth showed up white and blemishless. His voice was the effortless deep bass of a church organ, and would disturb the tranquillity of a gas flame fifty yards away. "They're wonderful pictures," said Barrow. "We've been examining them." "It is very bleasant dot you like dem," said Han- f del, the German, greatly pleased. "Und you, Herr Tracy, you haf peen bleased mit dem, too, alretty?" 144 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "I can honestly say I have never seen anything just like them before." "Schon!" cried the German, delighted. "You hear, Captain? Here is a chentleman, yes, vot abbre- ciate unser aart." The Captain was charmed, and said : "Well, sir, we're thankful for a compliment yet, though they're not as scarce now as they used to be before we made a reputation." "Getting the reputation is the uphill time in most things, Captain." "It's so. It ain't enough to know how to reef a gasket, you got to make the mate know you know it. That's reputation. The good word, said at the right time, that's the word that makes us; and evil be to him that evil thinks, as Isaiah says." "It's very relevant, and hits the point exactly," said Tracy. "Where did you study art, Captain?" "I haven't studied; it's a natural gift." "He is born mit dose cannon in him. He tondt haf to do noding, his chenius do all de vork. Of he is asleep, und take a pencil in his hand, out come a cannon. Py crashus, of he could do a clavier, of he could do a guitar, of he could do a vash-tub, it is a fortune; heiliger Yohanniss, it is yoost a fortune!" "Well, it is an immense pity that the business is hindered and limited in this unfortunate way." The Captain grew a trifle excited himself now. "You've said it, Mr. Tracy! Hindered? well, I should say so. Why, look here. This fellow here, No. n, he's a hackman a flourishing hackman, I may say. He wants his hack in this picture. Wants US MARK TWAIN it where the cannon is. I got around that difficulty by telling him the cannon's our trade-mark, so to speak proves that the picture's our work, and I was afraid if we left it out people wouldn't know for certain if it was a Saltmarsh-Handel now you wouldn't yourself " ' ' What, Captain ? You wrong yourself, indeed you do. Any one who has once seen a genuine Saltmarsh- Handel is safe from imposture forever. Strip it, flay it, skin it out of every detail but the bare color and expression, and that man will still recognize it, still stop to worship " "Oh, how it makes me feel to hear dose expres- sions!" "still say to himself again, as he had said a hun- dred times before, the art of the Saltmarsh-Handel is an art apart; there is nothing in the heavens above or in the earth beneath that resembles it " ' ' Py chiminy , nur horen Sie einmal ! In my life day haf I never heard so brecious worts." "So I talked him out of the hack, Mr. Tracy, and he let up on that, and said put in a hearse, then because he's chief mate of a hearse, but don't own it stands a watch for wages, you know. But I can't do a hearse any more than I can a hack; so here we are becalmed, you see. And it's the same with women and such. They come and they want a little johnry picture " "It's the accessories that make it a genre f " "Yes cannon, or cat, or any little thing like that, that you heave in to whoop up the effect. We could do a prodigious trade with the women if we could 146 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT foreground the things they like, but they don't give a damn for artillery. Mine's the lack," continued the Captain, with a sigh. "Andy's end of the business is all right I tell you, he's an artist from way back!" "Yoost hear dot old man! He always talk 'poud me like dot," purred she pleased German. ' ' Look at his work yourself ! Fourteen portraits in a row. And no two of them alike." "Now that you speak of it, it is true; I hadn't noticed it before. It is very remarkable. Unique, I suppose." "I should say so. That's the very thing about Andy he discriminates. Discrimination's the thief of time forty-ninth Psalm; but that ain't any mat- ter; it's the honest thing, and it pays in the end." "Yes, he certainly is great in that feature, one is obliged to admit it; but now mind, I'm not really criticizing don't you think he is just a trifle over- strong in technique?" The Captain's face was knocked expressionless by this remark. It remained quite vacant while he muttered to himself: "Technique technique poly- technique pyrotechnique; that's it, likely fire- works too much color." Then he spoke up with serenity and confidence, and said: ' "Well, yes, he does pile it on pretty loud; but they all like it, you know fact is, it's the life of the busi- ness. Take that No. 9 there Evans the butcher. He drops into the stoodio as sober-colored as any- thing you ever see; now look at him. You can't tell him from scarlet-fever. Well, it pleases that butcher to death. I'm making a study of a sausage- wreath to MARK TWAIN hang on the cannon, and I don't really reckon I can do it right; but if I can, we can break the butcher." "Unquestionably your confederate I mean your your fellow-craftsman is a great colorist " "Oh, dankeschon! " "in fact, a quite extraordinary colorist; a color- ist, I make bold to say, without imitator here or abroad and with a most bold and effective touch, a touch like a battering-ram, and a manner so peculiar and romantic and extraneous and ad libitum and heart-searching that that he he is an impression- ist, I presume?" "No," said the Captain, simply, "he is a Presby- terian." "It accounts for it all all there's something divine about his art soulful, unsatisfactory, yearn- ing, dim-hearkening on the void horizon, vague- murmuring, to the spirit out of ultra-marine dis- tances and far-sounding cataclysms of uncreated space oh, if he if he has he ever tried distemper?" The Captain answered up, with energy : ' ' Not if he knows himself ! But his dog has, and ' * "Oh, no, it vas not my dog." "Why, you said it was your dog." "Oh, no, Captain, I" "It was a white dog, wasn't it, with his tail docked, and one ear gone, and "Dot's him, dot's him! der fery dog. Wy, py Chorge, dot dog he vould eat baint yoost de same like" "Well, never mind that now Vast heaving I never saw such a man. You start him on that dog 148 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT and he'll dispute a year. Blamed if I him keep it up a level two hours and a half." "Why, Captain!" said Barrow. "I guess that must be hearsay." "No, sir, no hearsay about it he disputed with me." "I don't see how you stood it." "Oh, you've got to if you run with Andy. But it's the only fault he's got." "Ain't you afraid of acquiring it?" "Oh, no," said the Captain, tranquilly; "no danger of that, I reckon." The artists presently took their leave. Then Bar- row put his hands on Tracy's shoulders and said: "Look me in the eye, my boy. Steady, steady. There it's just as I thought hoped, anyway; you're all right, thank goodness. Nothing the matter with your mind. But don't do that again even for fun. It isn't wise. They wouldn't have believed you if you'd been an earl's son. Why, they couldn't don't you know that? What ever possessed you to take such a freak? But never mind about that; let's not talk of it. It was a mistake; you see that your- self." "Yes it was a mistake." "Well, just drop it out of your mind; it's no harm; we all make them. Pull your courage together, and don't brood, and don't give up. I'm at your back, and we'll pull through, don't you be afraid." When he was gone, Barrow walked the floor a good while, uneasy in his mind. He said to himself, "I'm troubled about him. He never would have made a 149 MARK TWAIN break like that if he hadn't been a little off his bal- ance. But I know what being out of work and no prospect ahead can do for a man. First it knocks the pluck out of him and drags his pride in the dirt; worry does the rest, and his mind gets shaky. I must talk to these people. No if there's any hu- manity in them and there is, at bottom they'll be easier on him if they think his troubles have disturbed his reason. But I've got to find him some work; work's the only medicine for his disease. Poor devil! away off here, and not a friend." CHAPTER XVII THE moment Tracy was alone his spirits vanished away, and all the misery of his situation was manifest to him. To be moneyless and an object of the chair-maker's charity this was bad enough; but his folly in proclaiming himself an earl's son to that scoffing and unbelieving crew, and, on top of that, the humiliating result the recollection of these things was a sharper torture still. He made up his mind that he would never play earl's son again before a doubtful audience. His father's answer was a blow he could not under- stand. At times he thought his father imagined he could get work to do in America without any trouble, and was minded to let him try it and cure himself of his radicalism by hard, cold, disenchanting experi- ence. That seemed the most plausible theory, yet he could not content himself with it. A theory that pleased him better was that this cablegram would be followed by another, of a gentler sort, requiring him to come home. Should he write and strike his flag and ask for a ticket home? Oh, no; that he couldn't ever do at least, not yet. That cablegram would come, it certainly would. So he went from one telegraph-office to another every day for nearly a week, and asked if there was a cablegram for How- MARK TWAIN ard Tracy. No, there wasn't any. So they answered him at first. Later, they said it before he had a chance to ask. Later still they merely shook their heads impatiently as soon as he came in sight. After that he was ashamed to go any more. He was down in the lowest depths of despair now, for the harder Barrow tried to find work for him the more hopeless the possibilities seemed to grow. At last he said to Barrow: ' ' Look here. I want to make a confession. I have got down now to where I am not only willing to acknowledge to myself that I am a shabby creature and full of false pride, but am willing to acknowledge it to you. Well, I've been allowing you to wear yourself out hunting for work for me when there's been a chance open to me all the time. Forgive my pride what was left of it. It is all gone now, and I've come to confess that if those ghastly artists want another confederate I'm their man for at last I am dead to shame." "No? Really, can you paint?" "Not as badly as they. No, I don't claim that, for I am not a genius; in fact, I am a very indifferent amateur, a slouchy dabster, a mere artistic sarcasm; but drunk or asleep I can beat those buccaneers." "Shake! I want to shout! Oh, I tell you, I am immensely delighted and relieved. Oh, just to work that is life ! No matter what the work is that's of no consequence. Just work itself is bliss when a man's been starving for it. I've been there! Come right along, we'll hunt the old boys up. Don't you feel good? I tell you 7 do." 152 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT The freebooters were not at home. But their "works" were displayed in profusion all about the little ratty studio. Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front it was Balaklava come again. "Here's the uncontented hackman, Tracy. Buckle to deepen the sea-green to turf, turn the ship into a hearse. Let the boys have a taste of your quality." The artists arrived just as the last touch was put on. They stood transfixed with admiration. "My souls, but she's a stunner, that hearse! The hackman will just go all to pieces when he sees that won't he, Andy?" "Oh, it is sphlennid, sphlennid! Herr Tracy, why haf you not said you vas a so sublime aartist? Lob' Gott, of you had lif 'd in Paris you would be a Free de Rome, dot's vot's de matter!" The arrangements were soon made. Tracy was taken into full and equal partnership, and he went straight to work, with dash and energy, to recon- structing gems of art whose accessories had failed to satisfy. Under his hand, on that and succeeding days, artillery disappeared and the emblems of peace and commerce took its place cats, hacks, sausages, tugs, fire-engines, pianos, guitars, rocks, gardens, flower-pots, landscapes whatever was wanted, he flung it in; and the more out of place and absurd the required object was, the more joy he got out of fabricating it. The pirates were delighted, the cus- tomers applauded, the sex began to flock in, great was the prosperity of the firm. Tracy was obliged to confess to himself that there was something about I S3 MARK TWAIN work even such grotesque and humble work as this which most pleasantly satisfied a something in his nature which had never been satisfied before, and also gave him a strange new dignity in his own private view of himself. The Unqualified Member from Cherokee Strip was in a state of deep dejection. For a good while now he had been leading a sort of life which was calculated to kill; for it had consisted in regularly alternating days of brilliant hope and black disappointment. The brilliant hopes were created by the magician Sellers, and they always promised that now he had got the trick sure, and would effectively influence that mate- rialized cowboy to call at the Towers before night. The black disappointments consisted in the persist- ent and monotonous failure of these prophecies. At the date which this history has now reached, Sellers was appalled to find that the usual remedy was inoperative, and that Hawkins's low spirits re- fused, absolutely to lift. Something must be done, he reflected; it was heart-breaking, this woe, this smileless misery, this dull despair that looked out from his poor friend's face. Yes, he must be cheered up. He mused awhile, then he saw his way. He said, in his most conspicuously casual vein: "Er-uh by the way, Hawkins, we are feeling disappointed about this thing the way the mate- rializee is acting, I mean we are disappointed; you concede that?" "Concede it? Why, yes, if you like the term." "Very well; so far, so good. Now for the basis of THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT the feeling. It is not that your heart, your affections are concerned; that is to say, it is not that you want the materializee Itself. You concede that?" "Yes, I concede that, too cordially." "Very well, again; we are making progress. To sum up : The feeling, it is conceded, is not engendered by the mere conduct of the materializee; it is con- ceded that it does not arise from any pang which the personality of the materializee could assuage. Now, then," said the earl, with the light of triumph in his eye, "the inexorable logic of the situation narrows us down to this: our feeling has its source in the money-loss involved. Come isn't that so?" ' ' Goodness knows I concede that with all my heart." "Very well. When you've found out the source of a disease, you've also found out what remedy is re- quired just as in this case. In this case money is required. And only money." The old, old seduction was in that airy, confident tone and those significant words usually called preg- nant words in books. The old answering signs of faith and hope showed up in Hawkins's countenance, and he said : 4 ' Only money ? Do you mean that you know a way to" ' "Washington, have you the impression that I have no resources but those I allow the public and my inti- mate friends to know about?" "Well, I er " "Is it likely, do you think, that a man moved by nature and taught by experience to keep his affairs to himself, and a cautious and reluctant tongue in his MARK TWAIN head, wouldn't be thoughtful enough to keep a few resources in reserve for a rainy day, when he's got as many as I have to select from?" "Oh, you make me feel so much better already, Colonel!" "Have you ever been in my laboratory?" "Why, no." "That's it. You see, you didn't even know that I had one. Come along. I've got a little trick there that I want to show you. I've kept it perfectly quiet, not fifty people know anything about it. But that's my way, always been my way. Wait till you're ready, that's the idea; and when you're ready, zzip! let her go!" "Well, Colonel, I've never seen a man that I've had such unbounded confidence in as you. When you say a thing right out, I always feel as if that ends it ; as if that is evidence, and proof, and every- thing else." The old earl was profoundly pleased and touched. "I'm glad you believe in me, Washington; not everybody is so just." ' ' I always have believed in you ; and I always shall as long as I live." "Thank you, my boy. You sha'n't repent it. And you can't." Arrived in the "laboratory," the earl continued, "Now, cast your eye around this room what do you see? Apparently a junk-shop; appar- ently a hospital connected with a patent-office in reality, the mines of Golconda in disguise! Look at that thing there. Now what would you take that thing to be?" THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "I don't believe I could ever imagine." "Of course you couldn't. It's my grand adapta- tion of the phonograph to the marine service. You store up profanity in it for use at sea. You know that sailors don't fly around worth a cent unless you swear at them so the mate that can do the best job of swearing is the most valuable man. In great emergencies his talent saves the ship. But a ship is a large thing, and he can't be everywhere at once; so there have been times when one mate has lost a ship which could have been saved if they had had a hundred. Prodigious storms, you know. Well, a ship can't afford a hundred mates; but she can afford a hundred Cursing Phonographs, and distrib- ute them all over the vessel and there, you see, she's armed at every point. Imagine a big storm, and a hundred of my machines all cursing away at once splendid spectacle, splendid! you couldn't hear yourself think. Ship goes through that storm per- fectly serene she's just as safe as she'd be on shore." "It's a wonderful idea. How do you prepare the thing?" "Load it simply load it." "How?" "Why, you just stand over it and swear into it." "That loads it, does it?" "Yes; because every word it collars it keeps keeps it forever. Never wears out. Any time you turn the crank, out it '11 come. In times of great peril you can reverse it, and it '11 swear backwards. That makes a sailor hump himself!" "Oh, I see. Who loads them? the mate?" MARK TWAIN "Yes, if he chooses. Or I'll furnish them already loaded. I can hire an expert for seventy-five dollars a month who will load a hundred and fifty phonographs in one hundred and fifty hours, and do it easy. And an expert can furnish a stronger article, of course, than the mere average uncultivated mate could. Then, you see, all the ships of the world will buy them ready loaded for I shall have them loaded in any language a customer wants. Hawkins, it will work the grandest moral reform of the nineteenth century. Five years from now all the swearing will be done by machinery you won't ever hear a profane word come from human lips on a ship. Millions of dollars have been spent by the churches in the effort to abolish profanity in the commercial marine. Think of it my name will live forever in the affections of good men as the man who, solitary and alone, accomplished this noble and elevating reform." "Oh, it is grand and beneficent and beautiful. How did you ever come to think of it ? You have a wonderful mind. How did you say you loaded the machine?" "Oh, it's no trouble perfectly simple. If you want to load it up loud and strong, you stand right over it and shout. But if you leave it open and all set, it '11 eavesdrop, so to speak that is to say, it will load itself up with any sounds that are made within six feet of it. Now I'll show you how it works. I had an expert come and load this one up yesterday. Hello, it's been left open it's too bad still I reckon it hasn't had much chance to collect irrelevant stuff. All you do is to press this button in the floor so." 158 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT The phonograph began to sing in a plaintive voice: There is a boarding-house far far away, Where they have ham and eggs three times a day. "Hang it, that ain't it. Somebody's been singing around here." The plaintive song began again, mingled with a low, gradually rising wail of cats slowly warming up toward a fight: Oh, how the boarders yell, When they hear that dinner-bell They give that landlord (momentary outburst of terrific cat -fight which drowns out one word) Three times a day. (Renewal of furious cat-fight for a moment. The plaintive voice on a high, fierce key, "Scat, you devils!" and a racket as of flying missiles.) "Well, never mind let it go. I've got some sailor profanity down in there somewhere, if I could get to it. But it isn't any matter ; you see how the machine works." Hawkins responded, with enthusiasm: "Oh, it works admirably! I know there's a hun- dred fortunes in it." "And mind, the Hawkins family get their share, Washington." "Oh, thanks, thanks; you are just as generous as ever. Ah, it's the grandest invention of the age!" "Ah, well, we live in wonderful times. The ele- MARK TWAIN ments are crowded full of beneficent forces always have been and ours is the first generation to turn them to account and make them work for us. Why, Hawkins, everything is useful nothing ought ever to be wasted. Now look at sewer-gas, for instance. Sewer-gas has always been wasted heretofore; no- body tried to save up sewer-gas you can't name me a man. Ain't that so? You know perfectly well it's so." "Yes, it is so but I never er I don't quite see why a body " "Should want to save it up? Well, I'll tell you. Do you see this little invention here? it's a decom- poser I call it a decomposer. I give you my word of honor that if you show me a house that produces a given quantity of sewer-gas in a day, I'll engage to set up my decomposer there and make that house pro- duce a hundred times that quantity of sewer-gas in less than half an hour." "Dear me, but why should you want to?" "Want to? Listen, and you'll see. My boy, for illuminating purposes and economy combined, there's nothing in the world that begins with sewer-gas. And really it don't cost a cent. You put in a good inferior article of plumbing such as you find every- where and add my decomposer, and there you are. Just use the ordinary gas -pipes and there your expense ends. Think of it. Why, Major, in five years from now you won't see a house lighted with anything but sewer-gas. Every physician I talk to recommends it, and every plumber." "But isn't it dangerous?" 1 60 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "Oh, yes, more or less, but everything is coal- gas, candles, electricity there isn't anything that ain't." "It lights up well, does it?" "Oh, magnificently." "Have you given it a good trial?" "Well, no, not a first-rate one. Polly's prejudiced, and she won't let me put it in here; but I'm playing my cards to get it adopted in the President's house, and then it '11 go don't you doubt it. I shall not need this one for the present, Washington; you may take it down to some boarding-house and give it a trial if you like." CHAPTER XVIII WASHINGTON shuddered slightly at the sug- gestion; then his face took on a dreamy look and he dropped into a trance of thought. After a little Sellers asked him what he was grinding in his mental mill. "Well, this. Have you got some secret project in your head which requires a Bank of England back of it to make it succeed?" The Colonel showed lively astonishment, and said : "Why, Hawkins, are you a mind-reader?" "I? I never thought of such a thing." "Well, then, how did you happen to drop on to that idea in this curious fashion? It's just mind- reading that's what it is, though you may not know it. Because I have got a private project that requires a Bank of England at its back. How could you divine that? "What was the process? This is inter- esting." "There wasn't any process. A thought like this happened to slip through my head by accident: How much would make you or me comfortable? A hundred thousand. Yet you are expecting two or three of these inventions of yours to turn out some billions of money and you are wanting them to do that. If you wanted ten millions, I could understand 169 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT that it's inside the human limits. But billions! That's clear outside the limits. There must be a definite project back of that somewhere." The earl's interest and surprise augmented with every word, and when Hawkins finished he said, with strong admiration: "It's wonderfully reasoned out, Washington, it certainly is. It shows what I think is quite extraor- dinary penetration. For you've hit it; you've dri- ven the center, you've plugged the bull's-eye of my dream. Now I'll tell you the whole thing, and you'll understand it. I don't need to ask you to keep it to yourself, because you'll see that the project will pros- per all the better for being kept in the background till the right time. Have you noticed how many pamphlets and books I've got lying around relating to Russia?" "Yes, I think most anybody would notice that anybody who wasn't dead." "Well, I've been posting myself a good while. That's a great and splendid nation, and deserves to be set free." He paused; then added, in a quite matter-of-fact way, "When I get this money I'm going to set it free." "Great guns!" "Why, what makes you jump like that?" "Dear me, when you are ^oing to drop a remark under a man's chair that is likely to blow him out through the roof, why don't you put some expression, some force, some noise into it that will prepare him? You shouldn't flip out such a gigantic thing as this in that colorless kind of a way. You do jolt a person up 163 MARK TWAIN so. Go on now, I'm all right again. Tell me all about it. I'm all interest yes, and sympathy, too.'* "Well, I've looked the ground over, and concluded that the methods of the Russian patriots, while good enough, considering the way the boys are hampered, are not the best at least, not the quickest. They are trying to revolutionize Russia from within; that's pretty slow, you know, and liable to interruption all the time, and is full of perils for the workers. Do you know how Peter the Great started his army? He didn't start it on the family premises under the noses of the Strelitzes; no, he started it away off yonder, privately only just one regiment, you know, and he built to that. The first thing the Strelitzes knew, the regiment was an army, their position was turned, and they had to take a walk. Just that little idea made the biggest and worst of all the despotisms the world has seen. The same idea can wnmake it. I'm going to prove it. I'm going to get out to one side and work my scheme the way Peter did." "This is mighty interesting, Rossmore. What is it you are going to do?" "I am going to buy Siberia and start a republic." "There bang you go again without giving any notice! Going to buy it?" "Yes, as soon as I get the money. I don't care what the price is, I shall take it. I can afford it, and I will. Now, then, consider this and you've never thought of it, I'll warrant. Where is the place where there is twenty-five times more manhood, pluck, true heroism, unselfishness, devotion to high and noble ideals, adoration of liberty, wide education, and 164 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT brains, per thousand of population, than any other domain in the whole world can show?" "Siberia!" "Right." "It is true ; it certainly is true, but I never thought of it before." "Nobody ever thinks of it. But it's so, just the same. In those mines and prisons are gathered to- gether the very finest and noblest and capablest multitude of human beings that God is able to create. Now if you had that kind of a population to sell, would you offer it to a despotism? No, the despotism has no use for it; you would lose money. A despotism has no use for anything but human cat- tle. But suppose you want to start a republic?" "Yes, I see. It's just the material for it." "Well, I should say so! There's Siberia, with just the very finest and choicest material on the globe for a republic, and more coming more coming all the time, don't you see! It is being daily, weekly, monthly recruited by the most perfectly devised system that has ever been invented perhaps. By this system the whole of the hundred millions of Russia are being constantly and patiently sifted, sifted, sifted by myriads of trained experts, spies appointed by the emperor personally; and whenever they catch a man, woman, or child that has got any brains or education or character they ship that person straight to Siberia. It is admirable, it is wonderful. It is so searching and so effective that it keeps the general level of Russian intellect and education down to that of the Czar." 165 MARK TWAIN "Come, that sounds like exaggeration." "Well, it's what they say, anyway. But I think, myself, it's a lie. And it doesn't seem right to slander a whole nation that way, anyhow. Now, then, you see what the material is, there in Siberia, for a republic." He paused, and his breast began to heave and his eye to burn under the impulse of strong emotion. Then his words began to stream forth with constantly increasing energy and fire, and he rose to his feet as if to give himself larger freedom. "The minute I organize that republic, the light of liberty, intelligence, justice, humanity, bursting from it, flooding from it, flaming from it, will con- centrate the gaze of the whole astonished world as upon the miracle of a new sun; Russia's countless multitudes of slaves will rise up and march, march ! eastward, with that great light transfiguring their faces as they come, and far back of them you will see what will you see? a vacant throne in an empty land! It can be done, and by God I will doit!" He stood a moment bereft of earthly conscious- ness by his exaltation; then consciousness returned, bringing him a slight shock, and he said, with grave earnestness : "I must ask you to pardon me, Major Hawkins. I have never used that expression before, and I beg you will forgive it this time." Hawkins was quite willing. "You see, Washington, it is an error which I am by nature not liable to. Only excitable people, im- pulsive people, are exposed to it. But the circum- THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT i stances of the present case I being a democrat by birth and preference, and an aristocrat by inheri- tance and relish " The earl stopped suddenly, his frame stiffened, and he began to stare speechless through the curtainless window. Then he pointed, and gasped out a single rapturous word: "Look!" "What is it, Colonel?" "No!" "Sure as you're born. Keep perfectly still. I'll apply the influence I'll turn on all my force. I've brought It thus far I'll fetch It right into the house. You'll see." He was making all sorts of passes in the air with his hands. "There! Look at that. I've made It^smile! See?" Quite true. Tracy, out for an afternoon stroll, had come unexpectedly upon his family arms dis- played upon this shabby house-front. The hatch- ments made him smile; which was nothing they had made the neighborhood cats do that. "Look, Hawkins, look! I'm drawing It over!" "You're drawing It sure, Rossmore. If I ever had any doubts about materialization, they're gone now, and gone for good. Oh, this is a joyful day!" Tracy was sauntering over to read the door-plate. Before he was half-way over he was saying to himself, "Why, manifestly these are the American Claimant's quarters." 167 MARK TWAIN "It's coming coming right along. I'll slide down and pull It in. You follow after me." Sellers, pale and a good deal agitated, opened the door and confronted Tracy. The old man could not at once get his voice; then he pumped out a scattering and hardly coherent salutation, and fol- lowed it with: "Walk in, walk right in, Mr. er " "Tracy Howard Tracy." "Tracy thanks walk right in, you're ex- pected." Tracy entered, considerably puzzled, and said: "Expected? I think there must be some mistake." "Oh, I judge not," said Sellers, who, noticing that Hawkins had arrived, gave him a sidewise glance intended to call his close attention to a dramatic effect which he was proposing to produce by his next remark. Then he said, slowly and impressively: "I am You Know Who." To the astonishment of both conspirators the re- mark produced no dramatic effect at all; for the new-comer responded, with a quite innocent and unembarrassed air : "No, pardon me. I don't know who you are. I only suppose but no doubt correctly that you are the gentleman whose title is on the door-plate." "Right, quite right sit down, pray sit down." The earl was rattled, thrown off his bearings, his head was in a whirl. Then he noticed Hawkins standing apart and staring idiotically at what to him was the apparition of a defunct man, and a new idea was born to him. He said to Tracy, briskly : 168 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "But a thousand pardons, dear sir; I am forgetting courtesies due to a guest and stranger. Let me in- troduce my friend General Hawkins General Haw- kins, our new Senator Senator from the latest and grandest addition to the radiant galaxy of sovereign States, Cherokee Strip" (to himself, "that name will shrivel him up!" but it didn't in the least, and the Colonel resumed the introduction piteously dis- heartened and amazed) "Senator Hawkins, Mr. Howard Tracy, of er " "England." "England! Why, that's im " "England, yes, native of England." "Recently from there?" "Yes, quite recently." Said the Colonel to himself, "This phantom lies like an expert. Purifying this kind by fire don't work. I'll sound him a little further, give him another chance or two to work his gift." Then aloud, with deep irony: "Visiting our great country for recreation and amusement, no doubt. I suppose you find that traveling in the majestic expanses of our Far West is" "I haven't been West, and haven't been devoting myself to amusement with any sort of exclusiveness, I assure you. In fact, to merely live, an artist has got to work, not play." "Artist!" said Hawkins to himself, thinking of the rifled bank; "that is a name for it!" "Are you an artist?" asked the Colonel. And added to himself, "Now I'm going to catch him." 169 MARK TWAIN "In a humble way, yes." "What line?" pursued the sly veteran. "Oils." "I've got him!" said Sellers to himself. Then aloud, "This is fortunate. Could I engage you to. restore some of my paintings that need that attention?" "I shall be very glad. Pray let me see them." No shuffling, no evasion, no embarrassment, even under this crucial test. The Colonel was nonplussed. He led Tracy to a chromo which had suffered damage in a former owner's hands through being used as a lamp-mat, and said, with a flourish of his hand toward the picture: "This del Sarto " "Is that a del Sarto?" The Colonel bent a look of reproach upon Tracy, allowed it to sink home, then resumed as if there had been no interruption: "This del Sarto is perhaps the only original of that sublime master in our country. You see, yourself, that the work is of such exceeding delicacy that the risk could er would you mind giving me a little example of what you can do before we " "Cheerfully, cheerfully. I will copy one of these marvels." Water-color materials relics of Miss Sally's college life were brought. Tracy said he was better in oils, but would take a chance with these. So he was left alone. He began his work, but the attractions of the place were too strong for him, and he got up and went drifting about, fascinated; also amazed. 170 CHAPTER XIX MEANTIME the earl and Hawkins were holding a troubled and anxious private consultation. The earl said: "The mystery that bothers me is, Where did It get its other arm?" "Yes; it worries me, too. And another thing troubles me the apparition is English. How do you account for that, Colonel?" "Honestly, I don't know, Hawkins, I don't really know. It is very confusing and awful." "Don't you think maybe we've waked up the wrong one?" "The wrong one? How do you account for the clothes?" "The clothes are right, there's no getting around it. What are we going to do ? We can't collect, as I see. The reward is for a one-armed American. This is a two-armed Englishman." "Well, it may be that that is not objectionable. You see, it isn't less than is called for; it is more, and so" But he saw that this argument was weak, and dropped it. The friends sat brooding over their per- plexities some time in silence. Finally the earl's face began to glow with an inspiration, and he said, impressively: 171 MARK TWAIN "Hawkins, this materialization is a grander and nobler science than we have dreamed of. We have little imagined what a solemn, and stupendous thing we have done. The whole secret is perfectly clear to me now, clear as day. Every man is made up oj heredities, long-descended atoms and particles of his ancestors. This present materialization is incom- plete. We have only brought it down to perhaps the beginning of this century." "What do you mean, Colonel?" cried Hawkins, filled with vague alarms by the old man's awe- compelling words and manner. "This : We've materialized this burglar's ancestor !" "Oh, don't don't say that. It's hideous." "But it's true, Hawkins; I know it. Look at the facts. This apparition is distinctly English note that. It uses good grammar note that. It is an artist note that. It has the manners and carriage of a gentleman note that. Where's your cowboy? Answer me that." "Rossmore, this is dreadful it's too dreadful to think of!" "Never resurrected a rag of that burglar but the clothes, not a solitary rag of him but the clothes." "Colonel, do you really mean " The Colonel brought his fist down with emphasis, and said: "I mean exactly this: This materialization was immature, the burglar has evaded us; this is nothing but a damned ancestor!" He rose and walked the floor in great excitement. Hawkins said, plaintively : 172 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "It's a bitter disappointment bitter." "I know it. I know it, Senator; I feel it as deeply as anybody could. But we've got to submit on moral grounds. I need money, but God knows I am not poor enough or shabby enough to be an accessory to the punishing of a man's ancestor for crimes com- mitted by that ancestor's posterity." "But, Colonel!" implored Hawkins, "stop and think; don't be rash; you know it's the only chance we've got to get the money; and, besides, the Bible itself says posterity to the fourth generation shall be punished for the sins and crimes committed by ancestors four generations back that hadn't any- thing to do with them; and so it's only fair to turn the rule around and make it work both ways." The Colonel was struck with the strong logic of this position. He strode up and down, and thought it painfully over. Finally he said: "There's reason in it; yes, there's reason in it. And so, although it seems a piteous thing to sweat this poor ancient devil for a burglary he hadn't the least hand in, still if duty commands I suppose we must give him up to the authorities." "7 would," said Hawkins, cheered and relieved; "I'd give him up if he was a thousand ancestors compacted into one." "Lord bless me, that's just what he is!" said Sellers, with something like a groan; "it's exactly what he is; there's a contribution in him from every ancestor he ever had. In him there's atoms of priests, soldiers, crusaders, poets, and sweet and gracious women all kinds and conditions of folk MARK TWAIN who trod this earth in old, old centuries, and vanished out of it ages ago, and now by act of ours they are summoned from their holy peace to answer for gut- ting a one-horse bank away out on the borders of Cherokee Strip, and it's just a howling outrage!" "Oh, don't talk like that, Colonel; it takes the heart all out of me, and makes me ashamed of the part I am proposing to " "Wait I've got it!" "A saving hope? Shout it out, I am perishing.'* "It's perfectly simple; a child would have thought of it. He is all right, not a flaw in him, as far as I have carried the work. If I've been able to bring him as far as the beginning of this century, what's to stop me now? I'll go on and materialize him down to date." "Land, I never thought of that!" said Hawkins, all ablaze with joy again. "It's the very thing. What a brain you have got! And will he shed the superfluous arm?" "He-will." "And lose his English accent?" "It will wholly disappear. He will speak Cherokee Strip and other forms of profanity." "Colonel, maybe he'll confess!" ' ' Confess ? Merely that bank robbery ?' ' ' ' Merely ? Yes, but why ' merely ' ? " The Colonel said, in his most impressive manner: "Hawkins, he will be wholly under my command. I will make him confess every crime he ever com- mitted. There must be a thousand. Do you get the idea?" THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "Well not quite." "The rewards will come to us." "Prodigious conception! I never saw such a head for seeing with a lightning glance all the outlying ramifications and possibilities of a central idea." "It is nothing; it comes natural to me. When his time is out in one jail he goes to the next and the next, and we shall have nothing to do but collect the rewards as he goes along. It is a perfectly steady income as long as we live, Hawkins. And much better than other kinds of investments, because he is indestructible." "It looks it really does look the way you say; it does, indeed." "Look? why, it is. It will not be denied that I have had a pretty wide and comprehensive financial experience, and I do not hesitate to say that I con- sider this one of the most valuable properties I have ever controlled." "Do you really think so?" "I do, indeed." "Oh, Colonel, the wasting grind and grief of poverty! If we could realize immediately. I don't mean sell it all, but sell part enough, you know, to" "See how you tremble with excitement. That comes of lack of experience*. My boy, when you have been familiar with vast operations as long as I have you'll be different. Look at me. Is my eye dilated? Do you notice a quiver anywhere? Feel my pulse: plunk plunk plunk same as if I were asleep. And yet, what is passing through my calm, 13 175 MARK TWAIN cold mind? A procession of figures which would make a financial novice drunk just the sight of them. Now it is by keeping cool, and looking at a thing all around, that a man sees what's really in it, and saves himself from the novice's unfailing mistake the one you've just suggested eagerness to realize. Listen to me. Your idea is to sell a part of him for ready cash. Now mine is guess." "I haven't an idea. What is it?" "Stock him of course." "Well, I should never have thought of that." "Because you are not a financier. Say he has committed a thousand crimes. Certainly that's a low estimate. By the look of him, even in his un- finished condition, he has committed all of a mill- ion. But call it only a thousand to be perfectly safe; five thousand reward, multiplied by a thousand, gives us a dead sure cash basis of what? Five million dollars!" "Wait let me get my breath." "And the property indestructible. Perpetually fruitful perpetually; for a property with his dis- position will go on committing crimes and winning rewards." "You daze me, you make my head whirl!" "Let it whirl, it won't do any harm. Now that matter is all fixed leave it alone. I'll get up the company and issue the stock, all in good time. Just leave it in my hands. I judge you don't doubt my ability to work it up for all it is worth." "Indeed, I don't. I can say that with truth." "All right, then. That's disposed of. Every- 176 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT thing in its turn. We old operators go by order and system no helter-skelter business with us. What's the next thing on the docket? The carrying on of the materialization the bringing it down to date. I will begin on that at once. I think " "Look here, Rossmore. You didn't lock It in. A hundred to one It has escaped!" "Calm yourself as to that; don't give yourself any uneasiness." "But why shouldn't It escape?" "Let It, if It wants to. What of it?" "Well, / should consider it a pretty serious calamity." "Why, my dear boy, once in my power, always in my power. It may go and come freely. I can produce It here whenever I want It, just by the exercise of my will." "Well, I am truly glad to hear that, I do assure you." "Yes, I shall give It all the painting It wants to do, and we and the family will make It as comfortable and contented as we can. No occasion to restrain Its movements. I hope to persuade It to remain pretty quiet, though, because a materialization which is in a state of arrested development must of neces- sity be pretty soft and flabby and substanceless, and er by the way, I wonder where JEt^cpmes from?" "How? What do you mean?"/ The earl pointed significantly and interrogatively toward the sky. Hawkins started; then settled into deep reflection; finally shook his head sorrow- fully and pointed downward. 177 MARK TWAIN "What makes you think so, Washington?" "Well, I hardly know, but really you can see yourself that he doesn't seem to be pining for his last place." "It's well thought! Soundly deduced. We've done that Thing a favor. But I believe I will pump It a little, in a quiet way, and find out if we are right." "How long is it going to take to finish him off and fetch him down to date, Colonel?" "I wish I knew, but I don't. I am clear knocked out by this new detail this unforeseen necessity of working a subject down gradually from his condition of ancestor to his ultimate result as posterity. But I'll make him hump himself, anyway." "Rossmore!" "Yes, dear. We're in the laboratory. Come Hawkins is here. Mind now, Hawkins he's a sound, living human being to all the family don't forget that. Here she comes." "Keep your seats, I'm not coming in. I just wanted to ask, who is it that's painting down there?" 1 ' That ? Oh, that's a young artist ; young English- man named Tracy; very promising favorite pupil of Hans Christian Andersen or one of the other old masters Andersen I'm pretty sure it is; he's going to half-sole some of our old Italian masterpieces. Been talking to him?" "Well, only a word. I stumbled right in on him without expecting anybody was there. I tried to be polite to him; offered him a snack" (Sellers de- 178 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT livered a large wink to Hawkins from behind his hand), "but he declined, and said he wasn't hungry " (another sarcastic wink) ; "so I brought some apples" (double wink), "and he ate a couple of " "What!" And the Colonel sprang some yards toward the ceiling, and came down quaking with astonishment. Lady Rossmore was smitten dumb with amaze- ment. She gazed at the sheepish relic of Cherokee Strip, then at her husband, and then at the guest again. Finally she said: "What is the matter with you, Mulberry?" He did not answer immediately. His back was turned; he was bending over his chair, feeling the seat of it. But he answered next moment, and said: "Ah, there it is; it was a tack." The lady contemplated him doubtfully a moment, then said, pretty snappishly : "All that for a tack! Praise goodness it wasn't a shingle nail ; it would have landed you in the Milky Way. I do hate to have my nerves shook up so." And she turned on her heel and went her way. As soon as she was safely out, the Colonel said in a suppressed voice: "Come we must see for ourselves. It must be a mistake." They hurried softly down and peeped in. Sellers whispered, in a sort of despair: ' ' It is eating ! What a grisly spectacle ! Hawkins, it's horrible! Take me away I can't stand it." They tottered back to the laboratory. CHAPTER XX TRACY made slow progress with his work, for his mind wandered a good deal. Many things were puzzling him. Finally a light burst upon him all of a sudden seemed to, at any rate and he said to himself, "I've got the clue at last this man's mind is off its balance; I don't know how much, but it's off a point or two, sure; off enough to explain this mess of perplexities, anyway. These dreadful chro- mos which he takes for old masters; these villainous portraits which to his frantic mind represent Ross- mores; the hatchments; the pompous name of this ramshackle old crib Rossmore Towers; and that odd assertion of his, that I was expected. How could I be expected? that is, Lord Berkeley. He knows by the papers that that person was burned up in the New Gadsby. Why, hang it, he really doesn't know whom he was expecting; for his talk showed that he was not expecting an Englishman, or yet an artist, yet Fanswer his requirements notwith- standing. He seems sufficiently satisfied with me. Yes, he is a little off; in fact, I am afraid he is a good deal off, poor old gentleman. But he's interesting all people in about his condition are, I suppose. I hope he'll like my work; I would like to come every day and study him. And when I write my father 1 80 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT ah, that hurts! I mustn't get on that subject; it isn't good for my spirits. Somebody coming I must get to work. It's the old gentleman again. He looks bothered. Maybe my clothes are sus- picious; and they are for an artist. If my con- science would allow me to make a change but that is out of the question. I wonder what he's making those passes in the air for with his hands. I seem to be the object of them. Can he be trying to mes- merize me? I don't quite like it. There's some- thing uncanny about it." The Colonel muttered to himself, "It has an effect on him, I can see it myself. That's enough for one time, I reckon. He's not very solid yet, I suppose, and I might disintegrate him. I'll just put a sly question or two at him now, and see if I can find out what his condition is and where he's from." He approached and said, affably: "Don't let me disturb you, Mr. Tracy; I only want to take a little glimpse of your work. Ah, that's fine that's very fine, indeed. You are doing it elegantly. My daughter will be charmed with this. May I sit down by you?" "Oh, do; I shall be glad." "It won't disturb you? I mean, won't dissipate your inspirations?" Tracy laughed and said they were not ethereal enough to be very easily discommoded. The Colonel asked a number of cautious and well- considered questions questions which seemed pretty odd and flighty to Tracy but the answers con- veyed the information desired apparently, for the 181 MARK TWAIN Colonel said to himself, with mixed pride and grat- ification : "It's a good job as far as I've got with it. He's solid. Solid, and going to last; solid as the real thing. It's wonderful rwonderful. I believe I could petrify him." After a little he asked, warily: "Do you prefer being here, or or there?" "There? Where?" ' ' Why er where you've been ?" Tracy's thought flew to his boarding-house, and he answered with decision: "Oh, here, much!" The Colonel was startled, and said to himself, "There's no uncertain ring about that. It indicates where lie's been to, poor fellow. Well, I am satisfied now. I'm glad I got him out." He sat thinking and thinking, and watching the brush go. At length he said to himself, "Yes, it- certainly seems to account for the failure of my endeavors in poor Berkeley's case. He went in the other direction. Well, it's all right. He's better off." Sally Sellers entered from the street now, looking her divinest, and the artist was introduced to her. It was a violent case of mutual love at first sight, though neither party was entirely aware of the fact, perhaps. The Englishman made this irrelevant re- mark to himself: "Perhaps he is not insane, after all." Sally sat down and showed an interest in Tracy's work which greatly pleased him, and a benevolent forgiveness of it which convinced him that the girl's nature was cast in a large mold, 183 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT Sellers was anxious to report his discoveries to Hawkins; so he took his leave, saying that if the two "young devotees of the colored Muse" thought they could manage without him, he would go and look after his affairs. The artist said to himself, "I think he is a little eccentric, perhaps, but that is all." He reproached himself for having injuriously judged a man without giving him any fair chance to show what he really was. Of course the stranger was very soon at his ease and chatting along comfortably. The average American girl possesses the valuable qualities of naturalness, honesty, and inoffensive straightfor- wardness; she is nearly barren of troublesome con- ventions and artificialities; consequently, her pres- ence and her ways are unembarrassing, and one is acquainted with her and on the pleasantest terms with her before he knows how it came about. This new acquaintanceship friendship, indeed pro- gressed swiftly; and the unusual swiftness of it and the thoroughness of it are sufficiently evidenced and established by one noteworthy fact that within the first half-hour both parties had ceased to be con- scious of Tracy's clothes. Later this consciousness was reawakened; it was then apparent to Gwendolen that she was almost reconciled to them, and it was apparent to Tracy that he wasn't. The reawakening was brought about by Gwendolen's inviting the ar- tist to stay to dinner. He had to decline because he wanted to live now that is, now that there was something to live for and he could not survive in those clothes at a gentleman's table. He thought he 183 MARK TWAIN knew that. But he went away happy, for he saw that Gwendolen was disappointed. And whither did he go? He went straight to a slop-shop and bought as neat and reasonably well- fitting a suit of clothes as an Englishman could be persuaded to wear. He said to himself, but at his conscience "I know it's wrong; but it would be wrong not to do it; and two wrongs do not make a right." This satisfied him, and made his heart light. Perhaps it will also satisfy the reader if he can make out what it means. The old people were troubled about Gwendolen at dinner, because she was so distraught and silent. If they had noticed, they would have found that she was sufficiently alert and interested whenever the talk stumbled upon the artist and his work; but they didn't notice, and so the chat would swap around to some other subject, and then somebody would pres- ently be privately worrying about Gwendolen again, and wondering if she were not well, or if something had gone wrong in the millinery line. Her mother offered her various reputable patent medicines and tonics with iron and other hardware in them, and her father even proposed to send out for wine, relent- less prohibitionist and head of the order in the District of Columbia as he was, but these kindnesses were all declined thankfully, but with decision. At bedtime, when the family were breaking up for the night, she privately looted one of the brushes, saying to herself, "It's the one he has used the most." The next morning Tracy went forth wearing his 184 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT new suit, and equipped with a pink in his button- hole a daily attention from Puss. His whole soul was full of Gwendolen Sellers, and this condition was an inspiration, art-wise. All the morning his brush pawed nimbly away at the canvases, almost without his awarity (awarity, in this sense, being the sense of being aware, though disputed by some authori- ties), turning out marvel upon marvel, in the way of decorative accessories to the portraits, with a felicity and celerity which amazed the veterans of the firm and fetched out of them continuous explo- sions of applause. Meantime Gwendolen was losing her morning and many dollars. She supposed Tracy was coming in the forenoon a conclusion which she had jumped to without outside help. So she tripped down-stairs every little while from her work-parlor to arrange the brushes and things over again and see if he had arrived. And when she was in her work-parlor it was not profitable, but just the other way as she found out to her sorrow. She had put in her idle moments during the last little while back in designing a particularly rare and capable gown for herself, and this morning she set about making it up; but she was absent-minded, and made an irremediable botch of it. When she saw what she had done she knew the reason of it and the meaning of it, and she put her work away from her and said she would accept the sign. And from that time forth she came no more away from the Audience Chamber, but remained there and waited. After luncheon she waited again. A whole hour. Then a great joy welled up in her 185 MARK TWAIN heart, for she saw him coming. So she flew back upstairs thankful, and could hardly wait for him to miss the principal brush, which she had mislaid down there, but knew where she had mislaid it. However, all in good time, the others were called in and couldn't find the brush, and then she was sent for, and she couldn't find it herself for some little time; but then she found it when the others had gone away to hunt in the kitchen and down cellar and in the woodshed, and all those other places where people look for things whose ways they are not familiar with. So she gave him the brush, and re- marked that she ought to have seen that everything was ready for him, but it hadn't seemed necessary, because it was so early that she wasn't expecting but she stopped there, surprised at herself for what she was saying; and he felt caught and ashamed, and said to himself, "I knew my impatience would drag me here before I was expected and betray me, and that is just what it has done; she sees straight through me and is laughing at me inside, of course." Gwendolen was very much pleased on one account, and a little the other way in another; pleased with the new clothes and the improvement which they had achieved; less pleased by the pink in the buttonhole. Yesterday's pink had hardly interested her; this one was just like it, but somehow it had got her imme- diate attention, and kept it. She wished she could think of some way of getting at its history in a properly colorless and indifferent way. Presently she made a venture. She said: "Whatever a man's age may be, he can reduce it 186 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT several years by putting a bright-colored flower in his buttonhole. I have often noticed that. Is that your sex's reason for wearing a boutonni&re?" "I fancy not, but certainly that reason would be a sufficient one. I've never heard of the idea before." "You seem to prefer pinks. Is it on account of the color, or the form?" "Oh, no," he said, simply, "they are given to me. I don't think I have any preference." "They are given to him," she said to herself, and she felt a coldness toward that pink. "I wonder who it is, and what she is like." The flower began to take up a good deal of room; it obtruded itself everywhere; it intercepted all views, and marred them; it was becoming exceedingly annoying and conspicuous for a little thing. "I wonder if he cares for her." That thought gave her a quite definite pain. CHAPTER XXI SHE had made everything comfortable for the artist; there was no further pretext for staying. So she said she would go now, and asked him to summon the servants in case he should need any- thing. She went away unhappy, and she left un- happiness behind her; for she carried away all the sunshine. The time dragged heavily for both now. He couldn't paint for thinking of her; she couldn't design or millinerize with any heart for thinking of him. Never before had painting seemed so empty to him, never before had millinerizing seemed so void of interest to her. She had gone without repeating that dinner invitation an almost unendurable dis- appointment to him. On her part well, she was suffering, too; for she had found she couldn't invite him. It was not hard yesterday, but it was impossi- ble to-day. A thousand innocent privileges seemed to have been niched from her unawares in the past twenty-four hours. To-day she felt strangely ham- pered, restrained of her liberty. To-day she couldn't propose to herself to do anything or say anything concerning this young man without being instantly paralyzed into non-action by the fear that he might "suspect." Invite him to dinner to-day? It her shiver to think of it. 188 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT And so her afternoon was one long fret broken at intervals. Three times she had to go down-stairs on errands that is, she thought she had to go down- stairs on errands. Thus, going and coming, she had six glimpses of him in the aggregate, without seeming to look in his direction; and she tried to endure these electric ecstasies without showing any sign, but they fluttered her up a good deal, and she felt that the naturalness she was putting on was overdone and quite too frantically sober and hysterically calm to deceive. The painter had his share of the rapture; he had his six glimpses, and they smote him with waves of pleasure that assaulted him, beat upon him, washed over him deliciously, and drowned out all con- sciousness of what he was doing with his brush. So there were six places in his canvas which had to be done over again. At last Gwendolen got some peace of mind by sending word to the Thompsons, in the neighborhood, that she was coming there to dinner. She wouldn't be reminded, at that table, that there was an absentee who ought to be a presentee a word which she meant to look out in the dictionary at a calmer time. About this time the old earl dropped in for a chat with the artist, and invited him to stay to dinner. Tracy cramped down his joy and gratitude by a sudden and powerful exercise of all his forces; and he felt that now that he was going to be close to Gwendolen, and hear her voice and watch her face during several precious hours, earth had nothing valuable to add to his life for the present. 189 MARK TWAIN The earl said to himself, "This specter can eat apples, apparently. We shall find out now if that is a specialty. I think, myself, it's a specialty. Apples, without doubt, constitute the spectral limit. It was the case with our first parents. No, I am wrong at least, only partly right. The line was drawn at apples, just as in the present case, but it was from the other direction." The new clothes gave him a thrill of pleasure and pride. He said to himself, "I've got part of him down to date, any- way." Sellers said he was pleased with Tracy's work; and he went on and engaged him to restore his old masters, and said he should also want him to paint his portrait and his wife's and possibly his daughter's. The tide of the artist's happiness was at flood now. The chat flowed pleasantly along while Tracy painted and Sellers carefully unpacked a picture which he had brought with him. It was a chromo; a new one, just out. It was the smirking, self-satisfied portrait of a man who was inundating the Union with adver- tisements inviting everybody to buy his specialty, which was a three-dollar shoe or a dress-suit or some- thing of that kind. The old gentleman rested the chromo flat upon his lap and gazed down tenderly upon it, and became silent and meditative. Pres- ently Tracy noticed that he was dripping tears on it. This touched the young fellow's sympathetic nature, and at the same time gave him the painful sense of being an intruder upon a sacred privacy, an observer of emotions which a stranger ought not to witness. But this pity rose superior to other con- 190 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT siderations, and compelled him to try to comfort the old mourner with kindly words and a show of friendly interest. He said: "I am very sorry is it a friend whom " "Ah, more than that, far more than that a relative, the dearest I had on earth, although I was never permitted to see him. Yes, it is young Lord Berkeley, who perished so heroically in the awful confla Why, what is the matter?" "Oh, nothing, nothing. It was a little startling to be so suddenly brought face to face, so to speak, with a person one has heard so much talk about. Is it a good likeness?" "Without doubt, yes. I never saw him, but you can easily see the resemblance to his father," said Sellers, holding up the chromo, and glancing from it to the chromo misrepresenting the Usurping Earl, and back again with an approving eye. "Well, no I am not sure that I make out the likeness. It is plain that the Usurping Earl there has a great deal of character and a long face like a horse's, whereas his heir here is smirky, moon-faced, and characterless." "We are all that way in the beginning all the line," said Sellers, undisturbed. "We all start as moon-faced fools, then later we tadpole along into horse-faced marvels of intellect and character. It is by that sign and by that fact that I detect the resemblance here, and know this portrait to be genuine and perfect. Yes, all our family are fools at first." "This young man seems to meet the hereditary requirement, certainly." .*3 191 MARK TWAIN "Yes, yes, he was a fool, without any doubt. Examine the face, the shape of the head, the expres- sion. It's all fool, fool, fool, straight through." "Thanks," said Tracy, involuntarily. "Thanks?" "I mean for explaining it to me. Go on, please." "As I was saying, fool is printed all over the face. A body can even read the details." "What do they say?" "Well, added up, he is a wobbler." "A which?" "Wobbler. A person that's always taking a firm stand about something or other kind of a Gibraltar stand, he thinks, for unshakable fidelity and ever- lastingness and then, inside of a little while, he begins to wobble; no more Gibraltar there; no, sir, a mighty ordinary commonplace weakling wobbling around on stilts. That's Lord Berkeley to a dot, you can see it look at that sheep! But why are you blushing like sunset? Dear sir, have I un- wittingly offended in some way?" "Oh, no indeed, no indeed. Far from it. But it always makes me blush to hear a man revile his own blood. ' ' He said to himself, * ' How strangely his vagrant and unguided fancies have hit upon the truth. By accident he has described me. I am that contemptible thing. When I left England I thought I knew myself ; I thought I was a very Frederick the Great for resolution and staying capacity; whereas in truth I am just a Wobbler, simply a Wobbler. Well after all, it is at least creditable to have high ideals and give birth to lofty resolutions ; I will allow 192 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT myself that comfort." Then he said, aloud, "Could this sheep, as you call him, breed a great and self- sacrificing idea in his head, do you think? Could he meditate such a thing, for instance, as the renuncia- tion of the earldom and its wealth and its glories, and voluntary retirement to the ranks of the commonalty, there to rise by his own merit or remain forever poor and obscure?" "Could he? Why, look at him look at this simpering, self-righteous mug! There is your an- swer. It's the very thing he would think of. And he would start in to do it, too." "And then?" "He'd wobble." "And back down?" "Every time." "Is that to happen with all my I mean would that happen to all his high resolutions?" "Oh, certainly certainly. It's the Rossmore of it." "Then this creature was fortunate to die! Sup- pose, for argument's sake, that I was a Rossmore, and" "It can't be done." "Why?" "Because it's not a supposable case. To be a Rossmore at your age you'd have to be a fool, and you're not a fool. And you'd have to be a Wobbler, whereas anybody that is an expert in reading char- acter can see at a glance that when you set your foot down once, it's there to stay; an earthquake can't wobble it." He added to himself, "That's enough 193 MARK TWAIN to say to him, but it isn't half strong enough for the facts. The more I observe him now the more re- markable I find him. It is the strongest face I have ever examined. There is almost superhuman firm- ness here, immovable purpose, iron steadfastness of will. A most extraordinary young man." He presently said, aloud: "Some time I want to ask your advice about a little matter, Mr. Tracy. You see, I've got that young lord's remains my goodness, how you jump !" "Oh, it's nothing, pray go on. You've got his remains?" "Yes." "Are you sure they are his, and not somebody else's?" "Oh, perfectly sure. Samples, I mean. Not all of him." "Samples?" "Yes in baskets. Some time you will be going home; and if you wouldn't mind taking them along " "Who? I?" "Yes certainly. I don't mean now ; but after a while; after but look here, would you like to see them?" "No! Most certainly not. I don't want to see them." "Oh, very well. I only thought Heyo, where are you going, dear?" "Out to dinner, papa." Tracy was aghast. The Colonel said, in a disap- pointed voice: 194 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "Well, I'm sorry. Sho, I didn't know she was going out, Mr. Tracy." Gwendolen's face began to take on a sort of apprehensive What-have-I-done expression. "Three old people to one young one well, it isn't a good team, that's a fact." Gwendolen's face betrayed a dawning hopefulness, and she said, with a tone of reluctance which hadn't the hall- mark on it : "If you prefer, I will send word to the Thompsons that I" "Oh, is it the Thompsons? That simplifies it sets everything right. We can fix it without spoil- ing your arrangements, my child. You've got your heart set on " "But, papa, I'd just as soon go there some other " "No, I won't have it. You are a good, hard-work- ing, darling child, and your father is not the man to disappoint you when you " "But, papa, I" "Go along, I won't hear a word. We'll get along, dear." Gwendolen was ready to cry with vexation. But there was nothing to do but start; which she was about to do when her father hit upon an idea which filled him with delight because it so deftly covered all the difficulties of the situation, and made things smooth and satisfactory: "I've got it, my love, so that you won't be robbed of your holiday, and at the same time we'll be pretty satisfactorily fixed for a good time here. You send Belle Thompson here perfectly beautiful creature, Tracy, per-fectly beautiful. I want you to 195 see that girl; why, you'll just go mad you'll go mad inside of a minute. Yes, you send her right along, Gwendolen, and tell her Why, she's gone!" He turned she was already passing out at the gate. He muttered, "I wonder what's the matter; I don't know what her mouth's doing, but I think her shoul- ders are swearing. Well," said Sellers, blithely, to Tracy, "I shall miss her parents always miss the children as soon as they're out of sight; it's only a natural and wisely ordained partiality; but you'll be all right, because Miss Belle will supply the youthful element for you and to your entire content; and we old people will do our best, too. We shall have a good enough time. And you'll have a chance to get better acquainted with Admiral Hawkins. That's a rare character, Mr. Tracy one of the rarest and most engaging characters the world has produced. You'll find him worth studying. I've studied him ever since he was a child, and have always found him developing. I realty consider that one of the main things that have enabled me to master the dif- ficult science of character - reading was the vivid interest I always felt in that boy, and the baffling inscrutabilities of his ways and inspirations." Tracy was not hearing a word. His spirits were gone, he was desolate. "Yes, a most wonderful character. Concealment that's the basis of it. Always the first thing you want to do is to find the keystone a man's character is built on then you've got it. No misleading and apparently inconsistent peculiarities can fool you then. What do you read on the Senator's surface? ig6 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT Simplicity a kind of rank and protuberant simplic- ity; whereas, in fact, that's one of the deepest minds in the world. A perfectly honest man an abso- lutely honest and honorable man and yet, without doubt, the profoundest master of dissimulation the world has ever seen." "Oh, it's devilish!" This was wrung from the unlistening Tracy by the anguished thought of what might have been if only the dinner arrangements hadn't got mixed. "No, I shouldn't call it that," said Sellers, who was now placidly walking up and down the room with his hands under his coat-tails and listening to him- self talk. "One could quite properly call it devilish in another man, but not in the Senator. Your term is right, perfectly right I grant that; but the ap- plication is wrong. It makes a great difference. Yes, he is a marvelous character. I do not suppose that any other statesman ever had such a colossal sense of humor, combined with the ability to totally conceal it. I may except George Washington and Cromwell, and perhaps Robespierre, but I draw the line there. A person not an expert might be in Judge Hawkins's company a lifetime and never find out he had any more sense of humor than a cemetery." A deep-drawn, yard-long sigh from the distraught and dreaming artist, followed by a murmured "Miserable, oh, miserable!" "Well, no, I shouldn't say that about it, quite. On the contrary, I admire his ability to conceal his humor even more if possible than I admire the gift itself, stupendous as it is. Another thing General 197 MARK TWAIN Hawkins is a thinker; a keen, logical, exhaustive, analytical thinker perhaps the ablest of modern times. That is, of course, upon themes suited to his size, like the glacial period, and the correlation of forces, and the evolution of the Christian from the caterpillar any of those things; give him a subject according to his size, and just stand back and watch him think! Why, you can see the place rock! Ah, yes, you must know him; you must get on the inside of him. Perhaps the most extraordinary mind since Aristotle." Dinner was kept waiting for a while for Miss Thompson, but as Gwendolen had not delivered the invitation to her the waiting did no good, and the household presently went to the meal without her. Poor old Sellers tried everything his hospitable soul could devise to make the occasion an enjoyable one for the guest, and the guest tried his honest best to be cheery and chatty and happy for the old gentle- man's sake; in fact, all hands worked hard in the interest of a mutual good time, but the thing was a failure from the start; Tracy's heart was lead in his bosom; there seemed to be only one prominent fea- ture in the landscape, and that was a vacant chair; he couldn't drag his mind away from Gwendolen and his hard luck; consequently, his distractions allowed deadly pauses to slip in every now and then when it was his turn to say something, and of course this disease spread to the rest of the conversation wherefore, instead of having a breezy sail in sunny waters, as anticipated, everybody was bailing out and praying for land. What could the matter be? Tracy 198 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT alone could have told, the others couldn't even invent a theory. Meanwhile they were having a similarly dismal time at the Thompson house; in fact, a twin experi- ence. Gwendolen was ashamed of herself for allow- ing her disappointment to so depress her spirits, and make her so strangely and profoundly miserable; but feeling ashamed of herself didn't improve the matter any; it only seemed to aggravate the suffering. She explained that she was not feeling very well, and everybody could see that this was true; so she got sincere sympathy and commiseration; but that didn't help the case. Nothing helps that kind of a case. It is best to just stand off and let it fester. The moment the dinner was over the girl excused herself, and she hurried home, feeling unspeakably grateful to get away from that house and that intol- erable captivity and suffering. Will he be gone? The thought arose in her brain but took effect in her heels. She slipped into the house, threw off her things, and made straight for the dining-room. She stopped and listened. Her father's voice with no life in it; presently her mother's no life in that; a considerable vacancy, then a sterile remark from Washington Hawkins. Another silence; then, not Tracy's, but her father's voice again. t "He's gone," she said to herself, despairingly, and listlessly opened the door and stepped within. "Why, my child," cried the mother, "how white you are! Are you has anything " "White?" exclaimed Sellers. "It's gone like a 199 MARK TWAIN flash; 'twasn't serious. Already she's as red as the soul of a watermelon! Sit down, dear, sit down goodness knows you're welcome. Did you have a good time? We've had great times here immense. Why didn't Miss Belle come? Mr. Tracy is not feeling well, and she'd have made him forget it." She was content now; and out from her happy eyes there went a light that told a secret to another pair of eyes there and got a secret in return. In just that infinitely small fraction of a second those two great confessions were made, received, and perfectly under- stood. All anxiety, apprehension, uncertainty, van- ished out of these young people's hearts and left them filled with a great peace. Sellers had had the most confident faith that with the new reinforcement victory would be at this last moment snatched from the jaws of defeat, but it was an error. The talk was as stubbornly disjointed as ever. He was proud of Gwendolen, and liked to show her off, even against Miss Belle Thompson, and here had been a great opportunity, and what had she made of it? He felt a good deal put out. It vexed him to think that this Englishman, with the traveling Briton's everlasting disposition to generalize whole mountain ranges from single sample-grains of sand, would jump to the conclusion that American girls were as dumb as himself generalizing the whole tribe from this single sample, and she at her poorest, there being nothing at that table to inspire her, give her a start, keep her from going to sleep. He made up his mind that for the honor of the country he would bring these two together again over the social ffOQ THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT board before long. There would be a different result another time, he judged. He said to himself, with a deep sense of injury, "He'll put in his diary they all keep diaries he'll put in his diary that she was miraculously uninteresting dear, dear, but wasn't she ! I never saw the like and yet looking as beau- tiful as Satan, too and couldn't seem to do any- thing but paw bread-crumbs, and pick flowers to pieces, and look fidgety. And it isn't any better here in the Hall of Audience. I've had enough; I'll haul down my flag; the others may fight it out if they want to." He shook hands all around and went off to do some work which he said was pressing. The idolaters were the width of the room apart, and apparently uncon- scious of each other's presence. The distance got shortened a little now. Very soon the mother with- drew. The distance narrowed again. Tracy stood before a chromo of some Ohio politician which had been retouched and chain-mailed for a crusading Rossmore, and Gwendolen was sitting on the sofa not far from his elbow, artificially absorbed in exam- ining a photograph -album that hadn't any photo- graphs in it. The "Senator" still lingered. He was sorry for the young people; it had been a dull evening for them. In the goodness of his heart he tried to make it pleasant for them now; tried to remove the ill impression necessarily left by the general defeat; tried to be chatty, even tried to be gay. But the responses were sickly, there was no starting any enthusiasm; he would give it up and quit it was 201 MARK TWAIN a day specially picked out and consecrated to fail- ures. But when Gwendolen rose up promptly and smiled a glad smile, and said, with thankfulness and blessing, "Must you go?" it seemed cruel to desert, and he sat down again. He was about to begin a remark when when he didn't. We have all been there. He didn't know how he knew his concluding to stay longer had been a mistake, he merely knew it; and knew it for dead certain, too. And so he bade good night and went mooning out, wondering what he could have done that changed the atmosphere that way. As the door closed behind him those two were standing side by side, looking at that door looking at it in a waiting, second-counting, but deeply grateful kind of way. And the instant it closed they flung their arms about each other's necks, and there, heart to heart and lip to lip "Oh, my God, she's kissing It!" Nobody heard this remark, because Hawkins, who bred it, only thought it; he didn't utter it. He had turned the moment he had closed the door, and had pushed it open a little, intending to re-enter and ask what ill-advised thing he had done or said, and apologize for it. But he didn't re-enter; he stag- gered off stunned, terrified, distressed. CHAPTER XXII FIVE minutes later he was sitting in his room, with his head bowed within the circle of his arms, on the table final attitude of grief and despair. His tears were flowing fast, and now and then a sob broke upon the stillness. Presently he said: "I knew her when she was a little child and used to climb about my knees ; I love her as I love my own, and now oh, poor thing, poor thing, I cannot bear it! she's gone and lost her heart to this mangy materialized Why didn't we see that that might happen? But how could we? Nobody could; nobody could ever have dreamed of such a thing. You couldn't expect a person would fall in love with a wax-work. And this one doesn't even amount to that." He went on grieving to himself, and now and then giving voice to his lamentations. "It's done, oh, it's done, and there's no help for it, no undoing the miserable business. If I had the nerve, I would kill It. But that wouldn't do any good. She loves It; she thinks It's genuine and authentic. If she lost It she would grieve for It just as she would for a real person. And who's to break it to the family? Not I I'll die first. Sellers is the 203 MARK TWAIN best human being I ever knew, and I wouldn't any more think of oh, dear, why, it '11 break his heart when he finds it out. And Polly's, too. This comes of meddling with such infernal matters! But for this the creature would still be roasting in Sheol, where It belongs. How is it that these people don't smell the brimstone? Sometimes I can't come into the same room with him without nearly suffocating." After a while he broke out again: "Well, there's one thing sure. The materializing has got to stop right where it is. If she's got to marry a specter, let her marry a decent one out of the Mid- dle Ages, like this one not a cowboy and a thief such as this protoplasmic tadpole's going to turn into if Sellers keeps on fussing at It. It costs five thousand dollars cash and shuts down on the incor- porated company to stop the works at this point, but Sally Sellers's happiness is worth more than that." He heard Sellers coming, and got himself to rights. Sellers took a seat, and said: "Well, I've got to confess I'm a good deal puzzled. It did certainly eat, there's no getting around it. Not eat, exactly, either, but It nibbled; nibbled in an appetiteless way, but still It nibbled; and that's just a marvel. Now the question is, What does It do with those nibblings? That's it what does It do with them? My idea is that we don't begin to know all there is to this stupendous discovery yet. But time will show time and science give us a chance, and don't get impatient." But he couldn't get Hawkins interested; couldn't 204 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT make him talk to amount to anything; couldn't drag him out of his depression. But at last he took a turn that arrested Hawkins's attention. "I'm coming to like him, Hawkins. He is a per- son of stupendous character absolutely gigantic. Under that placid exterior is concealed the most dare-devil spirit that was ever put into a man; he's just a Clive over again. Yes, I'm all admiration for him on account of his character, and liking naturally follows admiration, you know. I'm coming to like him immensely. Do you know, I haven't the heart to degrade such a character as that down to the burglar estate for money or for anything else; and I've come to ask if you are willing to let the reward go and leave this poor fellow " "Where he is?" "Yes not bring him down to date." "Oh, there's my hand; and my heart's in it, too!" "I'll never forget you for this, Hawkins," said the old gentleman, in a voice which he found it hard to control. "You are making a great sacrifice for me, and one which you can ill afford, but I'll never forget your generosity, and if I live you shall not suffer for it, be sure of that." Sally Sellers immediately and vividly realized that she was become a new being; a being of a far higher and worthier sort than she had been such a little while before; an earnest being, in place of a dreamer; and supplied with a reason for her presence in the world, where merely a wistful and troubled curiosity flbout it had existed before. So great and so com- 205 MARK TWAINi prehensive was the change which had been wrought that she seemed to herself to be a real person who had lately been a shadow; a something, which had lately been a nothing; a purpose, which had lately been a fancy; a finished temple, with the altar-fires lit and the voice of worship ascending, where before had been but an architect's confusion of arid 'work- ing plans, unintelligible to the passing eye and prophesying nothing. "Lady" Gwendolen! The pleasantness of that sound was all gone; it was an offense to her ear now. She said: "There that sham belongs to the past; I will not be called by it any more." "I may call you simply Gwendolen? You will allow me to drop the formalities straightway and name you by your dear first name without additions ?" She was dethroning the pink and replacing it with a rosebud. ' ' There that is better. I hate pinks some pinks. Indeed, yes, you are to call me by my first name with- out additions that is well, I don't mean without additions entirely, but " It was as far as she could get. There was a pause; his intellect was struggling to comprehend; presently it did manage to' catch the idea in time to save embarrassment all around, and he said, gratefully: "Dear Gwendolen! I may say that?" "Yes part of it. But don't kiss me when I am talking; it makes me forget what I was going to say. You can call me s by part of that form, but not the last part. Gwendolen is not my name." 206 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "Not your name?" This in a tone of wonder and surprise. "The girl's soul was suddenly invaded by a creepy apprehension, a quite definite sense of suspicion and alarm. She put his arms away from her, looked searchingly in his eye, and said : "Answer me truly, on your honor. You are not seeking to marry me on account of my rank? " The shot almost knocked him through the wall, he was so little prepared for it. There was some- thing so finely grotesque about the question and its parent suspicion that he stopped to wonder and admire, and thus was he saved from laughing. Then, without wasting precious time, he set about the task of convincing her that he had been lured by herself alone, and had fallen in love with her only, not her title and position; that he loved her with all his heart, and could not love her more if she were a duchess, or less if she were without home, name, or family. She watched his face wistfully, eagerly, hopefully, translating his words by its expression; and when he had finished there was gladness in her heart a tumultuous gladness, indeed, though out- wardly she was calm, tranquil, even judicially aus- tere. She prepared a surprise for him now, calcu- lated to put a heavy strain upon those disinterested protestations of his; and thus she delivered it, burn- ing it away word by word as the fuse burns down to a bombshell, and watching to see how far the explo- sion would lift him. "Listen and do not doubt me for I shall speak 14 20,7 MARK TWAIN the exact truth. Howard Tracy, I am no more an earl's child than you are!" To her joy and secret surprise also it never phased him. He was ready this time, and saw his chance. He cried out, with enthusiasm, "Thank Heaven for that!" and gathered her to his arms. To express her happiness was almost beyond her gift of speech. "You make me the proudest girl in all the earth," she said, with her head pillowed on his shoulder. "I thought it only natural that you should be dazzled by the title maybe even unconsciously, you being English and that you might be deceiving yourself in thinking you loved only me, and find you didn't love me when the deception was swept away; so it makes me proud that the revelation stands for nothing and that you do love just me, only me oh, prouder than any words can tell!" " It is only you, sweetheart ; I never gave one envy- ing glance toward your father's earldom. That is utterly true, dear Gwendolen." "There you mustn't call me that. I hate that false name. I told you it wasn't mine. My name is Sally Sellers or Sarah, if you like. From this time I banish dreams, visions, imaginings, and will no more of them. I am going to be myself my genuine self, my honest self, my natural self, clear and clean of sham and folly and fraud, and worthy of you. There is no grain of social inequality be- tween us; I, like you, am poor; I, like you, am with- out position or distinction; you are a struggling artist; I am that, too, in my humbler way. Our 208 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT bread is honest bread ; we work for our living. Hand in hand we will walk hence to the grave, helping each other in all ways, living for each other, being and remaining one in heart and purpose, one in hope and aspiration, inseparable to the end. And though our place is low, judged by the world's eye, we will make it as high as the highest in the great essentials of honest work for what we eat and wear, and conduct above reproach. We live in a land, let us be thank- ful, where this is all-sufficient, and no man is better than his neighbor by the grace of God, but only by his own merit." Tracy tried to break in, but she stopped him, and kept the floor herself. "I am not through yet. I am going to purge myself of the last vestiges of artificiality and pre- tense, and then start fair on your own honest level, and be worthy mate to you thenceforth. My father honestly thinks he is an earl. Well, leave him his dream; it pleases him, and does no one any harm. It was the dream of his ancestors before him. It has made fools of the house of Sellers for generations, and it made something of a fool of me, but took no deep root. I am done with it now, and for good. Forty-eight hours ago I was privately proud of being the daughter of a pinchbeck earl, and thought the proper mate for me must be a man of like degree; but to-day oh, how grateful I am for your love, which has healed my sick brain and restored my sanity ! I could make oath that no earl's son in all the world" "Oh well, but but " 200 MARK TWAIN "Why, you look like a person in a panic. What is it? What is the matter?" "Matter? Oh, nothing nothing. I was only go- ing to say" but in his flurry nothing occurred to him to say for a moment ; then by a lucky inspiration he thought of something entirely sufficient for the occasion, and brought it out with eloquent force: "Oh, how beautiful you are! You take my breath away when you look like that." It was well conceived, well timed and cordially delivered and it got its reward. "Let me see. Where was I? Yes, my father's earldom is pure moonshine. Look at those dreadful things on the wall. You have of course supposed them to be portraits of his ancestors, earls of Ross- more. Well, they are not. They are chromos of distinguished Americans all moderns; but he has carried them back a thousand years by relabeling them. Andrew Jackson there is doing what he can to be the late American earl; and the newest treasure in the collection is supposed to be the young English heir I mean the idiot with the crape; but in truth it's a shoemaker, and not Lord Berkeley at all." "Are you sure?" "Why, of course I am. He wouldn't look like that." "Why?" "Because his conduct in his last moments, when the fire was sweeping around him, shows that he was a man. It shows that he was a fine, high-souled young creature." Tracy was strongly moved by these compliments, 2IO THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT and it seemed to him that the girl's lovely lips took on a new loveliness when they were delivering them. He said, softly : "It is a pity he could not know what a gracious impression his behavior was going to leave with the dearest and sweetest stranger in the land of " "Oh, I almost loved him! Why, I think of him every day. He is always floating about in my mind. ' ' Tracy felt that this was a little more than was necessary. He was conscious of the sting of jealousy. He said: "It is quite right to think of him at least, now and then that is, at intervals in perhaps an admiring way but it seems to me that " ' ' Howard Tracy, are you jealous of that dead man ?' ' He was ashamed and at the same time not ashamed. He was jealous and at the same time he was not jealous. In a sense the dead man was himself; in that case compliments and affection lavished upon that corpse went into his own till and were clear profit. But in another sense the dead man was not himself; and in that case all compli- ments and affection lavished there were wasted, and a sufficient basis for jealousy. A tiff was the result of the dispute between the two. Then they made it up, and were more loving than ever. As an affec- tionate clincher of the reconciliation, Sally declared that she had now banished Lord Berkeley from her mind; and added, "And in order to make sure that he shall never make trouble between us again, I will teach myself to detest that name and all that have ever borne it or ever shall bear it." 211 MARK TWAIN This inflicted another pang, and Tracy was minded to ask her to modify that a little just on general principles, and as practice in not overdo- ing a good thing but perhaps he might better leave things as they were and not risk bringing on an- other tiff. He got away from that particular, and sought less tender ground for conversation. "I suppose you disapprove wholly of aristocracies and nobilities, now that you have renounced your title and your father's earldom?" "Real ones? Oh, dear, no; but I've thrown aside our sham one for good." This answer fell just at the right time and just in the right place to save the poor, unstable young man from changing his political complexion once more. He had been on the point of beginning to totter again, but this prop shored him up and kept him from floundering back into democracy and re- renouncing aristocracy. So he went home glad that he had asked the fortunate question. The girl would accept a little thing like a genuine earldom; she was merely prejudiced against the brummagem article. Yes, he could have his girl and have his earldom, too; that question was a fortunate stroke. Sally went to bed happy, too; and remained happy, deliriously happy, for nearly two hours; but at last, just as she was sinking into a contented and luxurious unconsciousness, the shady devil who lives and lurks and hides and watches inside of human beings and is always waiting for a chance to do the proprietor a malicious damage, whispered to her soul and said, "That question had a harmless look, 212 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT but what was back of it? what was the secret motive of it? what suggested it?" The shady devil had knifed her, and could retire now and take a rest; the wound would attend to business for him. And it did. Why should Howard Tracy ask that question? If he was not trying to marry her for the sake of her rank, what should suggest that question to him? Didn't he plainly look gratified when she said her objections to aristocracy had their limitations? Ah, he is after that earldom, that gilded sham itjsn't poor me he wants. So she argued, in anguish and tears. Then she argued the opposite theory, but made a weak, poor business of it, and lost the case. She kept the arguing up, one side and then the other, the rest of the night, and at last fell asleep at dawn; fell in the fire at dawn, one may say; for that kind of sleep resembles fire, and one comes out of it with his brain baked and his physical forces fried out of him. CHAPTER XXIII TRACY wrote his father before he sought li///> fot/i. He wrote a letter which he believed would g-et better treatment than his cablegram received, for it contained what ought to be welcome news: namely, that he had tried equality and working for a living; had made a fight which he could find no reason to be ashamed of, and in the matter of earning a living had proved that he was able to do it; but that on the whole he had arrived at the conclusion that he could not reform the world single-handed, and was willing to retire from the conflict with the fair degree of honor which he had gained, and was also willing to return home and resume his position and be content with it and thankful for it for the future, leaving further experiment of a missionary sort to other young people needing the chastening and quelling persuasions of experience, the only logic sure to convince a diseased imagination and restore it to rugged health. Then he approached the subject of marriage with the daughter of the American Claim- ant with a good deal of caution and much pains- taking art. He said praiseful and appreciative things about the girl, but didn't dwell upon that detail or make it prominent. The thing which he made prominent was the opportunity now so happily THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT afforded to reconcile York and Lancaster, graft the \ irring roses upon one stem, and end forever a crying injustice which had already lasted far too long. One could infer that he had thought this thing all out and chosen this way of making all things fair and right because it was sufficiently fair and considerably wiser than the renunciation scheme which he had brought with him from England. One could infer that, but he didn't say it. In fact, the more he read his letter over, the more he got to inferring it himself. When the old earl received that letter the first part of it filled him with a grim and snarly satisfac- tion; but the rest of it brought a snort or two out of him that could be translated differently. He wasted no ink in this emergency, either in cablegrams or letters; he promptly took ship for America to look into the matter himself. He had stanchly held his grip all this long time, and given no sign of the hunger at his heart to see his son; hoping for the cure of his insane dream, and resolute that the process should go through all the necessary stages without assuaging telegrams or other nonsense from home, and here was victory at last victory, but stupidly marred by this idiotic marriage project. Yes, he would step over and take a hand in this matter himself. During the first ten days following the mailing of the letter Tracy's spirits had no idle time; they were always climbing up into the clouds or sliding down into the earth as deep as the law of gravitation reached. He was intensely happy or intensely 215 MARK TWAIN miserable by turns, according to Miss Sally's moods. He never could tell when the mood was going to change, and when it changed he couldn't tell what it was that had changed it. Sometimes she was so in love with him that her love was tropical, torrid, and she could find no language fervent enough for its expression; then suddenly, and without warning or any apparent reason, the weather would change, and the victim would find himself adrift among the icebergs and feeling as lonesome and friendless as the north pole. It sometimes seemed to him that a man might better be dead than exposed to these devas- tating varieties of climate. The case was simple. Sally wanted to believe that Tracy's preference was disinterested; so she was always applying little tests of one sort or another, hoping and expecting that they would bring out evidence which would confirm or fortify her belief. Poor Tracy did not know that these experiments were being made upon him, consequently he walked promptly into all the traps the girl set for him. These traps consisted in apparently casual references to social distinction, aristocratic title and privilege, and such things. Often Tracy responded to these references heedlessly and not much caring what he said, provided it kept the talk going and prolonged the seance. He didn't suspect that the girl was watching his face and listening for his words as one who watches the judge's face and listens for the words which will restore him to home and friends and freedom, or shut him away from the sun and human companionship forever. He didn't suspect that his 216 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT careless words were being weighed, and so he often delivered sentence of death when it would have been just as handy and all the same to him to pronounce acquittal. Daily he broke the girl's heart, nightly he sent her to the rack for sleep. He couldn't under- stand it. Some people would have put this and that together and perceived that the weather never changed until one particular subject was introduced, and that then it always changed. And they would have looked further, and perceived that that subject was always introduced by the one party, never the other. They would have argued then that this was done for a purpose. If they could not find out what that pur- pose was in any simpler or easier way they would ask. But Tracy was not deep enough or suspicious enough to think of these things. He noticed only one particular: that the weather was always sunny when a visit began. No matter how much it might cloud up later, it always began with a clear sky. He couldn't explain this curious fact to himself; he merely knew it to be a fact. The truth of the matter was that by the time Tracy had been out of Sally's sight six hours she was so famishing for a sight of him that her doubts and suspicions were all consumed away in the fire of that longing, and so always she came into his presence as surprisingly radiant and joyous as she wasn't when she went out of it. In circumstances like these a growing portrait runs a good many risks. The portrait of Sellers, by Tracy, was fighting along day by day through this MARK TWAIN mixed weather, and daily adding to itself ineradicable signs of the checkered life it was leading. It was the happiest portrait, in spots, that was ever seen; but in other spots a damned soul looked out from it; a soul that was suffering all the different kinds of dis- tress there are, from stomach-ache to rabies. But Sellers liked it. He said it was just himself all over a portrait that sweated moods from every pore, and no two moods alike. He said he had as many different kinds of emotions in him as a jug. It was a kind of a deadly work of art, maybe, but it was a starchy picture for show; for it was life-size, full length, and represented the American earl in a peer's scarlet robe, with the three ermine bars indic- ative of an earl's rank, and on the gray head an earl's coronet tilted just a wee bit to one side in a most gallus and winsome way. When Sally's weather was sunny the portrait made Tracy chuckle, but when her weather was overcast it disordered his mind and stopped the circulation of his blood. Late one night when the sweethearts had been having a flawless visit together, Sally's interior devil began to work his specialty, and soon the conver- sation was drifting toward the customary rock- Presently, in the midst of Tracy's serene flow of talk, he felt a shudder which he knew was not his shudder, but exterior to his breast although imme- diately against it. After the shudder came sobs: Sally was crying. "Oh, my darling, what have I done what have I said? It has happened again! What have I done to wound you?" 218 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT She disengaged herself from his arms and gave him a look of deep reproach. "What have you done? I will tell you what you have done. You have unwittingly revealed oh, for the twentieth time, though I could not believe it, would not believe it ! that it is not me you love, but that foolish sham, my father's imitation earldom; and you have broken my heart!" "Oh, my child, what are you saying? I never dreamed of such a thing!" "Oh, Howard! Howard! the things you have tit- tered when you were forgetting to guard your tongue have betrayed you!" "Things I have uttered when I was forgetting to guard my tongue? These are hard words. When have I remembered to guard it? Never in one instance. It has no office but to speak the truth. It needs no guarding for that." "Howard, I have noted your words and weighed them when you were not thinking of their significance and they have told me more than you. meant they should." ' "Do you mean to say you have answered the trust I had in you by using it as an ambuscade from which you could set snares for my unsuspecting tongue and be safe from detection while you did it? You have not done this surely you have not done this thing. Oh, one's enemy could not do it!" This was an aspect of the girl's conduct which she had not clearly perceived before. Was it treachery ? Had she abused a trust? The thought crimsoned her cheeks with shame and remorse. 219 MARK TWAIN "Oh, forgive me," she said; "I did not know what I was doing. I have been so tortured you will for- give me, you must; I have suffered so much, and I am so sorry and so humble; you do forgive me, don't you? Don't turn away, don't refuse me; it is only my love that is at fault, and you know I love you love you with all my heart; I couldn't bear to oh, dear, dear, I am so miserable, and I never meant any harm, and I didn't see where this insanity was carrying me, and how it was wronging and abusing the dearest heart in all the world to me and and oh, take me in your arms again; I have no other refuge, no other home and hope!" There was reconciliation again immediate, per- fect, all-embracing and with it utter happiness. This would have been a good time to adjourn. But no, now that the cloud-breeder was revealed at last, now that it was manifest that all the sour weather had come from this girl's dread that Tracy was lured by her rank and not herself, he resolved to lay that ghost immediately and permanently by furnishing the best possible proof that he couldn't have had back of him at any time the suspected motive. So he said: "Let me whisper a little secret in your ear a secret which I have kept shut up in my breast all this time. Your rank couldn't ever have been an enticement. I am son and heir to an English earl!" The girl stared at him one, two, three moments, maybe a dozen then her lips parted. "You?" she said, and moved away from him, still gazing at him in a kind of blank amazement. 220 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "Why why, certainly I am. Why do you act like this? What have I done now?" "What have you done? You have certainly made a most strange statement. You must see that yourself." "Well," with a timid little laugh, "it may be a strange enough statement; but of what consequence is that if it is true?" "If it is true. You are already retiring from it." "Oh, not for a moment! You should not say that. I have not deserved it. I have spoken the truth; why do you doubt it?" Her reply was prompt. "Simply because you didn't speak it earlier." "Oh!" It wasn't a groan exactly, but it was an intelligible enough expression of the fact that he saw the point and recognized that there was reason in it. "You have seemed to conceal nothing from me that I ought to know concerning yourself, and you were not privileged to keep back such a thing as this from me a moment after after well, after you had determined to pay your court to me." "It's true, it's true, I know it! But there were circumstances in in the way circumstances which" She waved the circumstances aside. "Well, you see," he said, pleadingly, "you seemed so bent on our traveling the proud path of honest labor and honorable poverty that I was terrified that is, I was afraid of of well, you know how you talked." 221 MARK TWAIN "Yes, I know how I talked. And I also know that before the talk was finished you inquired how I stood as regards aristocracies, and my answer was calcu- lated to relieve your fears." He was silent awhile. Then he said, in a dis- couraged way: "I don't see any way out of it. It was a mistake. That is in truth all it was, just a mistake. No harm was meant, no harm in the world. I didn't see how it might some time look. It is my way. I don't seem to see far." The girl was almost disarmed for a moment. Then she flared up again. "An earl's son! Do earls' sons go about working in lowly callings for their bread and butter?" ' ' God knows they don't ! I have wished they did. " "Do earls' sons sink their degree in a country like this, and come sober and decent to sue for the hand of a born child of poverty when they can go drunk, profane, and steeped in dishonorable debt and buy the pick and choice of the millionaires' daughters of America? You an earl's son! Show me the signs." "I thank God I am not able if those are the signs. But yet I am an earl's son and heir. It is all I can say. I wish you would believe me, but you will not. I know no way to persuade you." She was about to soften again, but his closing remark made her bring her foot down with smart vexation, and she cried out: ' ' Oh, you drive all patience out of me ! Would you have one believe that you haven't your proofs at hand, and yet are what you say you are? You do 222 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT not put your hand in your pocket now f or you have nothing there. You make a claim like this, and then venture to travel without credentials. These are simply incredibilities. Don't you see that yourself?'* He cast about in his mind for a defense of some kind or other hesitated a little, and then said, with difficulty and diffidence: "I will tell you just the truth, foolish as it will seem to you to anybody, I suppose but it is the truth. I had an ideal call it a dream, a folly, if you will but I wanted to renounce the privileges and unfair advantages enjoyed by the nobility and wrung from the nation by force and fraud, and purge myself of my share of those crimes against right and reason by thenceforth comrading with the poor and humble on equal terms, earning with my own hands the bread I ate, and rising by my own merit if I rose at afl." The young girl scanned his face narrowly while he spoke; and there was something about his simplic- ity of manner and statement which touched her touched her almost to the danger-point; but she set her grip on the yielding spirit and choked it to qui- escence; it could not be wise to surrender to com- passion or any kind of sentiment yet ; she must ask one or two more questions. Tracy was reading her face ; and what he read there lifted his drooping hopes a little. "An earl's son to do that! Why, he were a man! A man to love! oh, more, a man to worship!" "Why, I" "But he never lived! He is not born, he will not ^S 22$ MARK TWAIN be born. The self-abnegation that could do that even in utter folly, and hopeless of conveying benefit to any, beyond the mere example could be mistaken for greatness; why, it would be greatness in this cold age of sordidideals ! Amoment wait let me finish; I have one question more. Your father is earl of what ? ' ' "Rossmore and I am Viscount Berkeley." The fat was in the fire again. The girl.felt so out- raged that it was difficult for her to speak. "How can you venture such a brazen thing! You know that he is dead, and you know that I know it. Oh, to rob the living of name and honors for a selfish and temporary advantage is crime enough, but to rob the defenseless dead why, it is more than crime: it degrades crime!" "Oh, listen to me just a word don't turn away like that. Don't go don't leave me so stay one moment. On my honor " "Oh, on your honor!" "On my honor I am what I say ! And I will prove it, and you will believe, I know you will. I will bring you a message a cablegram " "When?" "To-morrow next day " "Signed 'Rossmore'?" "Yes signed ' Rossmore.' " "What will that prove?" "What will it prove? What should it prove?" "If you force me to say it possibly the presence of a confederate somewhere." This was a hard blow, and staggered him. He said, dejectedly: 224 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "It is true. I did not think of it. Oh, my God, I do not know any way to do; I do everything wrong. You are going ? and you won't say even good night or good-by ? Ah, we have not parted like this before. ' ' "Oh, I want to run and no, go now." A pause then she said, "You may bring the message when it comes." "Oh, may I? God bless you." He was gone; and none too soon; her lips were al- ready quivering, and now she broke down. Through her sobbings her words broke from time to time. "Oh, he is gone. I have lost him, I shall never see him any more. And he didn't kiss me good-by; never even offered to force a kiss from me, and he knowing it was the very, very last, and I expecting he would, and never dreaming he would treat me so after all we have been to each other. Oh, oh, oh, oh, what shall I do, what shall I do? He is a dear, poor, miserable, good-hearted, transparent liar and humbug, but oh, I do love him so !" After a little she broke into speech again. "How dear he is! and I shall miss him so, I shall miss him so ! Why won't he ever think to forge a message and fetch it? but no, he never will, he never thinks of anything; he's so honest and simple it wouldn't ever occur to him. Oh, what did possess him to think he could succeed as a fraud and he hasn't the first requisite except duplicity that I can see. Oh, dear, I'll go to bed and g*ve it all up. Oh, I wish I had told him to come and tell me whenever he didn't get any tele- gram and now it's all my own fault if I never see him again. How my eyes must look!" 225 CHAPTER XXIV NEXT day, sure enough, the cablegram didn't come. This was an immense disaster ; for Tracy couldn't go into the presence without that ticket, although it wasn't going to possess any value as evidence. But if the failure of the cablegram on that first day may be called an immense disaster, where is the dictionary that can turn out a phrase sizable enough to describe the tenth day's failure? Of course every day that the cablegram didn't come made Tracy all of twenty-four hours more ashamed of himself than he was the day before, and made Sally fully twenty -four hours more certain than ever that he not only hadn't any father anywhere, but hadn't even a confederate and so it followed that he was a double-dyed humbug, and couldn't be oth- erwise. These were hard days for Barrow and the art firm. All these had their hands full trying to com- fort Tracy. Barrow's task was particularly hard, because he was made a confidant in full, and there- fore had to humor Tracy's delusion that he had a father, and that the father was an earl, and that he was going to send a cablegram. Barrow early gave up the idea of trying to convince Tracy that he hadn't any father, because this had such a bad effect 226 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT on the patient, and worked up his temper to such an alarming degree. He had tried, as an experiment, letting Tracy think he had a father; the result was so good that he went further, with proper caution, and tried letting him think his father was an earl; this wrought so well that he grew bold, and tried letting him think he had two fathers, if he wanted to, but he didn't want to, so Barrow withdrew one of them and substituted letting him think he was go- ing to get a cablegram which Barrow judged he wouldn't, and was right; but Barrow worked the ca- blegram daily for all it was worth, and it was the one thing that kept Tracy alive; that was Barrow's opinion. And these were bitter, hard days for poor Sally, and mainly delivered up to private crying. She kept her furniture pretty damp, and so caught cold, and the dampness and the cold and the sorrow together undermined her appetite, and she was a pitiful enough object, poor thing! Her state was bad enough, as per statement of it above quoted; but all the forces of nature and circumstance seemed con- spiring to make it worse and succeeding. For in- stance, the morning after her dismissal of Tracy, Hawkins and Sellers read in the Associated Press despatches that a toy puzzle called Pigs in the Clover had come into sudden favor within the past few weeks, and that from the Atlantic to the Pacific all the populations of all the States had knocked off work to play with it, and that the business of the country had now come to a standstill by conse- quence; that judges, lawyers, burglars, parsons, 227 MARK TWAIN thieves, merchants, mechanics, murderers, women, children, babies everybody, indeed, could be seen from morning till midnight absorbed in one deep project and purpose, and only one: to pen those pigs, work out that puzzle successfully; that all gaiety, all cheerfulness, had departed from the nation, and in its place care, preoccupation, and anxiety sat upon every countenance, and all faces were drawn, dis- tressed, and furrowed with the signs of age and trouble, and marked with the still sadder signs of mental decay and incipient madness; that factories were at work night and day in eight cities, and yet to supply the demand for the puzzle was thus far impossible. Hawkins was wild with joy, but Sellers was calm. Small matters could not disturb his serenity. He said: "That's just the way things go. A man invents a thing which could revolutionize the arts, produce mountains of money, and bless the earth, and who will bother with it or show any interest in it? and so you are just as poor as you were before. But you invent some worthless thing to amuse yourself with, and would throw it away if let alone, and all of a sudden the whole world makes a snatch for it and out crops a fortune. Hunt up that Yankee and collect, Hawkins half is yours, you know. Leave me to potter at my lecture." This was a temperance lecture. Sellers was head chief in the Temperance camp, and had lectured, now and then, in that interest, but had been dis- satisfied with his efforts ; wherefore he was now about to try a new plan. After much thought he had con- 228 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT eluded that a main reason why his lectures lacked fire or something was that they were too transpar- ently amateurish ; that is to say, it was probably too plainly perceptible that the lecturer was trying to tell people about the horrid effects of liquor when he didn't really know anything about those effects ex- cept from hearsay, since he had hardly ever tasted an intoxicant in his life. His scheme now was to prepare himself to speak from bitter experience. Hawkins was to stand by with the bottle, calculate the doses, watch the effects, make notes of results, and otherwise assist in the preparation. Time was short, for the ladies would be along about noon that is to say, the temperance organization called the Daughters of Siloam and Sellers must be ready to head the procession. The time kept slipping along Hawkins did not return Sellers could not venture to wait longer; so he attacked the bottle himself, and proceeded to note the effects. Hawkins got back at last ; took one com- prehensive glance at the lecturer, and went down and headed off the procession. The ladies were grieved to hear that the champion had been taken suddenly ill and violently so, but glad to hear that it was hoped he would be out again in a few days. As it turned out, the old gentleman didn't turn over or show any signs of life worth speaking of for twenty-four hours. Then he asked after the pro- cession, and learned what had happened about it. He was sorry; said he had been "fixed" for it. He remained abed several days, and his wife and daughter took turns in sitting with him and minis- 229 MARK TWAIN tering to his wants. Often he patted Sally's head and tried to comfort her. "Don't cry, my child, don't cry so; you know your old father did it by mistake, and didn't mean a bit of harm; you know he wouldn't intentionally do anything to make you ashamed for the world; you know he was trying to do good, and only made the mistake through ignorance, not knowing the right doses and Washington not there to help. Don't cry so, dear, it breaks my old heart to see you, and think I've brought this humiliation on you, and you so dear to me and so good. I won't ever do it again, indeed I won't; now be comforted, honey, that's a good child." But when she wasn't on duty at the beds : de the crying went on just the same; then the mother would try to comfort her, and say: "Don't cry, dear, he never meant any harm; it was all one of those happens that you can't guard against when you are trying experiments that way. You see, I don't cry. It's because I know him so well. I could never look anybody in the face again if he had got into such an amazing condition as that a-purpose; but, bless you, his intention was pure and high, and that makes the act pure, though it was higher than was necessary. We're not humili- ated, dear; he did it under a noble impulse, and we don't need to be ashamed. There, don't cry any more, honey." Thus the old gentleman was useful to Sally during several days as an explanation of her tearfulness. She felt thankful to him for the shelter he was 230 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT affording her, but often said to herself, "It's a shame to let him see in my crying a reproach as if he could ever do anything that could make me reproach him ! But I can't confess; I've got to go on using him for a pretext; he's the only one I've got in the world, and I do need one so much." As soon as Sellers was out again, and found that stacks of money had been placed in bank for him and Hawkins by the Yankee, he said, "Now we'll soon see who's the Claimant and who's the Authentic. I'll just go over there and warm up that House of Lords." During the next few days he and his wife were so busy with preparations for the voyage that Sally had all the privacy she needed, and all the chance to cry that was good for her. Then the old pair left for New York and England. Sally had also had a chance to do another thing. That was, to make up her mind that life was not worth living upon the present terms. If she must give up her impostor and die, doubtless she must submit ; but might she not lay her whole case before some disinterested person first, and see if there wasn't perhaps some saving way out of the matter? She turned this idea over in her mind a good deal. In her first visit with Hawkins after her parents were gone, the talk fell upon Tracy, and she was impelled to set her case before the statesman and take his counsel. So she poured out her heart, and he listened with painful solicitude. She concluded, pleadingly, with: "Don't tell me he is an impostor. I suppose he is, but doesn't it look to you as if he isn't? You are cool, you know, and outside; and so, maybe it can 231 MARK TWAIN look to you as if he isn't one, when it can't to me. Doesn't it look to you as if he isn't? Couldn't you can't it look to you that way for for my sake?" The poor man was troubled, but he felt obliged to keep in the neighborhood of the truth. He fought around the present detail a little while, then gave it up, and said he couldn't see his way to clearing Tracy. "No," he said; "the truth is, he's an impostor." "That is, you you feel a little certain, but not entirely oh, not entirely, Mr. Hawkins!" "It's a pity to have to say it I do hate to say it but I don't think anything about it, I know he's an impostor." "Oh, now, Mr. Hawkins, you can't go that far. A body can't really know it, you know. It isn't proved that he's not what he says he is." Should he come out and make a clean breast of the whole wretched business? Yes at least, the most of it it ought to be done. So he set his teeth and went at the matter with determination, but purposing to spare the girl one pain that of knowing that Tracy was a criminal. "Now I am going to tell you a plain tale; one not- pleasant for me to tell or for you to hear, but we've got to stand it. I know all about that fellow, and I know he is no earl's son." The girl's eyes flashed, and she said: "I don't care a snap for that go on!" This was so wholly unexpected that it at once ob- structed the narrative; Hawkins was not even sure that he had heard aright. He said: "I don't know that I quite understand. Do you 232 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT mean to say that if he was all right and proper otherwise, you'd be indifferent about the earl part of the business?" "Absolutely." ' ' You'd be entirely satisfied with him, and wouldn't care for his not being an earl's son that being an earl's son wouldn't add any value to him?" "Not the least value that I would care for. Why, Mr. Hawkins, I've gotten over all that day-dreaming about earldoms and aristocracies and all such non- sense, and am become just a plain ordinary nobody and content with it; and it is to him I owe my cure. And as to anything being able to add a value to him, nothing can do that. He is the whole world to me, just as he is ; he comprehends all the values there are then how can you add one?" "She's pretty far gone." He said that to himself. He continued, still to himself, "I must change my plan again; I can't seem to strike one that will stand the requirements of this most variegated emergency five minutes on a stretch. Without making this fellow a criminal, I believe I will invent a name and a character for him calculated to disenchant her. If it fails to do it, then I'll know that the next lightest thing to do will be to help her to her fate, poor thing, not hinder her." Then he said aloud : "Well, Gwendolen" "I want to be called Sally." ' ' I'm glad of it ; I like it better myself. Well, then, I'll tell you about this man Snodgrass." "Snodgrass! Is that his name?" MARK TWAIN 1 ' Yes Snodgrass. The other 's his nom de plume. ' ' "It's hideous?" "I know it is, but we can't help our names." "And that is truly his real name and not Howard Tracy?" Hawkins answered, regretfully: "Yes; it seems a pity." The girl sampled the name musingly once or twice : "Snodgrass! Snodgrass! No, I could not endure that. I could not get used to it. No, I should call him by his first name. What is his first name?" "His er his initials are S. M." "His initials? I don't care anything about his initials. I can't call him by his initials. What do they stand for?" "Well, you see, his father was a physician, and he he well, he was an idolator of his profession, and he well, he was a very eccentric man, and " "What do they stand for? What are you shuffling about?" "They well, they stand for Spinal Meningitis. His father being a phy " "I never heard such an infamous name! Nobody can ever call a person that a person they love. I wouldn't call an enemy by such a name. It sounds like an epithet." After a moment she added, with a kind of consternation, "Why, it would be my name! Letters would come with it on." "Yes Mrs. Spinal Meningitis Snodgrass." "Don't repeat it don't; I can't bear it. Was the father a lunatic?" "No, that is not charged." 234 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "I am glad of that, because that is transmissible. What do you think was the matter with him, then?" "Well, I don't really know. The family used to run a good deal to idiots, and so, maybe " "Oh, there isn't any maybe about it. This one was an idiot." "Well, yes he could have been. He was sus- pected." ' ' Suspected !" said Sally, with irritation. ' ' Would one suspect there was going to be a dark time if he saw the constellations fall out of the sky ? But that is enough about the idiot, I don't take any interest in idiots; tell me about the son." "Very well, then; this one was the eldest, but not the favorite. His brother, Zylobalsamum " "Wait give me a chance to realize that. It is perfectly stupefying. Zylo what did you call it?" ' ' Zylobalsamum. ' ' "I never heard such a name. It sounds like a disease. Is it a disease?" "No, I don't think it's a disease. It's either Scriptural or " "Well, it's not Scriptural." "Then it's anatomical. I knew it was one or the other. Yes, I remember now; it is anatomical. It's a ganglion a nerve center it is what is called the Zylobalsamum process." "Well, go on; and if you come to any more of them, omit the names; they make one feel so uncom- fortable." . "Very well, then. As I said, this one was not a favorite in the family, and so he was neglected in 235 MARK TWAIN every way never sent to school, always allowed to associate with the worst and coarsest characters, and so of course he has grown up a rude, vulgar, ignorant, dissipated ruffian, and " "He? It's no such thing! You ought to be more generous than to make such a statement as that about a poor young stranger who who why, he is the very opposite of that! He is considerate, courteous, obliging, modest, gentle, refined, culti- vated oh, for shame! how can you say such things about him?" "I don't blame you, Sally indeed, I haven't a word of blame for you for being blinded by your affection blinded to these minor defects which are so manifest to others who " "Minor defects? Do you call these minor defects? What are murder and arson, pray?" "It is a difficult question to answer straight off and of course estimates of such things vary with environment. With us, out our way, they would not necessarily attract as much attention as with you, yet they are often regarded with disapproval " "Murder and arson are regarded with disap- proval?" "Oh, frequently." "With disapproval! Who are those Puritans you are talking about? But wait how did you come to know so much about this family? Where did you get all this hearsay evidence?" "Sally, it isn't hearsay evidence. That is the serious part of it. I knew that family personally." This was a surprise. 236 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "You? You actually knew them?" "Knew Zylo, as we used to call him, and knew his father, Dr. Snodgrass. I didn't know your own Snodgrass, but have had glimpses of him from time to time, and I heard about him all the time. He was the common talk, you see, on account of his " "On account of his not being a house-burner or an assassin, I suppose. That would have made him commonplace. Where did you know these people?" "In Cherokee Strip." "Oh, how preposterous! There are not enough people in Cherokee Strip to give anybody a reputa- tion, good or bad. There isn't a quorum. Why, the whole population consists of a couple of wagon-loads of horse thieves." Hawkins answered, placidly: "Our friend was one of those wagon-loads." Sally's eyes burned, and her breath came quick and fast, but she kept a fairly good grip on her anger, and did not let it get the advantage of her tongue. The statesman sat still and waited for developments. He was content with his work. It was as handsome a piece of diplomatic art as he had ever turned out, he thought; and now let the girl make her own choice. He judged she would let her specter go; he hadn't a doubt of it, in fact; but anyway let the choice be made, and he was ready to ratify it and offer no further hindrance. Meantime Sally had thought her case out and made up her mind. To the Major's disappointment the verdict was against him. Sally said: "He has no friend but me, and I will not desert 237 MARK TWAIN him now. I will not marry him if his moral char- acter is bad; but if he can prove that it isn't, I will and he shall have the chance. To me he seems utterly good and dear; I've never seen anything about him that looked otherwise except, of course, his calling himself an earl's son. Maybe that is only vanity, and no real harm when you get to the bottom of it. I do not believe he is any such person as you have painted him. I want to see him. I want you to find him and send him to me. I will implore him to be honest with me, and tell me the whole truth, and not be afraid." "Very well; if that is your decision, I will do it. But, Sally, you know he's poor, and " "Oh, I don't care anything about that. That's neither here nor there. Will you bring him to me?" "I'll do it. When?" "Oh, dear, it's getting toward dark now, and so you'll have to put it off till morning. But you will find him in the morning, won't you? Promise." "I'll have him here by daylight." "Oh, now you're your own old self again and lovelier than ever!" "I couldn't ask fairer than that. Good-by, dear." Sally mused a moment alone; then said, earnestly, "I love him in spite of his name!" and went about her affairs with a light heart. CHAPTER XXV HAWKINS went straight to the telegraph-office and disburdened his conscience. He said to himself, "She's not going to give this galvanized cadaver up, that's plain. Wild horses can't pull her away from him. I've done my share; it's for Sellers to take an innings now." So he sent this message to New York: Come back. Hire special train. She's going to marry the materializee. Meantime a note came to Rossmore Towers to say that the Earl of Rossmore had just arrived from England, and would do himself the pleasure of calling in the evening. Sally said to herself, "It is a pity he didn't stop in New York; but it's no matter; he can go up to-morrow and see my father. He has come over here to tomahawk papa very likely, or buy out his claim. This thing would have excited me a while back, but it has only one interest for me now, and only one value. I can say to to Spine, Spiny, Spinal I don't like any form of that name ! I can say to him to-morrow, 'Don't try to keep it up any more, or I shall have to tell you whom I have been talking with last night, and then you will be embarrassed." MARK TWAIN Tracy couldn't know he was to be invited for the morrow, or he might have waited. As it was, he was too miserable to wait any longer; for his last hope a letter had failed him. It was fully due to-day; it had not come. Had his father really flung him away? It looked so. It was not like his father, but it surely looked so. His father was a rather tough nut, in truth, but had never been so with his son still, this implacable silence had a calamitous look. Anyway, Tracy would go to the Towers and then what? He didn't know; his head was tired out with thinking he wouldn't think about what he must do or say let it all take care of itself. So that he saw Sally once more he would be satisfied, happen what might; he wouldn't care. He hardly knew how he got to the Towers, or when. He knew and cared for only one thing he was alone with Sally. She was kind, she was gentle, there was moisture in her eyes, and a yearning some- thing in her face and manner which she could not wholly hide but she kept her distance. They talked. By and by she said, watching his downcast countenance out of the corner of her eye: "It's so lonesome with papa and mamma gone. I try to read, but I can't seem to get interested in any book. I try the newspapers, but they do put such rubbish in them! You take up a paper and start to read something you think's interesting, and it goes on and on and on about how somebody well, Dr. Snodgrass, for instance " Not a movement from Tracy, not the quiver of a muscle. Sally was amazed what command of 240 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT himself he must have! Being disconcerted, she paused so long that Tracy presently looked up wearily and said: "Well?" "Oh, I thought you were not listening. Yes, it goes on and on about this Dr. Snodgrass till you are so tired, and then about his younger son the favorite son Zylobalsamum Snodgrass " Not a sign from Tracy, whose head was droop- ing again. What supernatural self-possession ! Sally fixed her eye on him and began again, resolved to blast him out of his serenity this time if she knew how to apply the dynamite that is concealed in certain forms of words when those words are prop- erly loaded with unexpected meanings. "And next it goes on and on and on about the eldest son not the favorite, this one and how he is neglected in his poor barren boyhood, and allowed to grow up unschooled, ignorant, coarse, vulgar, the comrade of the community's scum, and become in his completed manhood a rude, profane, dissipated ruffian " That head still drooped! Sally rose, moved softly and solemnly a step or two, and stood before Tracy his head came slowly up, his meek eyes met her intense ones then she finished, with deep impress- iveness : " named Spinal Meningitis Snodgrass!" Tracy merely exhibited signs of increased fatigue. The girl was outraged by this iron indifference and callousness, and cried out: "What are you made of?" 241 MARK TWAIN "I? Why?" "Haven't you any sensitiveness? Don't these things touch any poor remnant of delicate feeling in you?" "N-no," he said, wonderingly, "they don't seem to. Why should they?" "Oh, dear me, how can you look so innocent, and foolish, and good, and empty, and gentle, and all that, right in the hearing of such things as those! Look me in the eye straight in the eye. There, now then, answer me without a flinch. Isn't Dr. Snodgrass your father, and isn't Zylobalsamum your brother " (here Hawkins was about to enter the room, but changed his mind upon hearing these words, and elected for a walk down-town, and so glided swiftly away), "and isn't your name Spinal Meningitis, and isn't your father a doctor and an idiot, like all the family for generations, and doesn't he name all his children after poisons and pestilences and abnormal anatomical eccentricities of the human body? An- swer me, some way or somehow and quick. Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it and see me going mad before your face with suspense?" "Oh, I wish I could do do I wish I could do something, anything that would give you peace again and make you happy; but I know of nothing I know of no way. I have never heard of these awful people before." "What? Say it again!" "I have never never in my life till now." "Oh, you do look so honest when you say that! 243 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT It must be true surely you couldn't look that way, you wouldn't look that way if it were not true would you?" "I couldn't and wouldn't. It is true. Oh, let us end this suffering take me back into your heart and confidence " "Wait one more thing. Tell me you told that falsehood out of mere vanity and are sorry for it; that you're not expecting to ever wear the coronet of an earl " "Truly I am cured cured this very day I am not expecting it!" "Oh, now you are mine! I've got you back in the beauty and glory of your unsmirched poverty and your honorable obscurity, and nobody shall ever take you from me again but the grave! And if " "De Earl of Rossmore, fum Englan'!" "My father!" The young man released the girl and hung his head. The old gentleman stood surveying the couple the one with a strongly complimentary right eye, the other with a mixed expression done with the left. This is difficult, and not often resorted to. Pres- ently his face relaxed into a kind of constructive gentleness, and he said to his son: "Don't you think you could embrace me, too?" The young man did it with alacrity. "Then you are the son of an earl, after all," said Sally, reproachfully. "Yes, I" "Then I won't have you!" "Oh, but you know " 243 MARK TWAIN "No, I will not. You've told me another fib." "She's right. Go away and leave us. I want to talk with her." Berkeley was obliged to go. But he did not go far. He remained on the premises. At midnight the conference between the old gentleman and the young girl was still going blithely on, but it presently drew to a close, and the former said: "I came all the way over here to inspect you, my dear, with the general idea of breaking off this match if there were two fools of you, but as there's only one, you can have him if you'll take him." "Indeed, I will, then May I kiss you?" ' ' You may. Thank you. Now you shall have that privilege whenever you are good." Meantime Hawkins had long ago returned and slipped up into the laboratory. He was rather disconcerted to find his late invention, Snodgrass, there. The news was told him: that the English Rossmore was come, "and I'm his son, Viscount Berkeley, not Howard Tracy any more." Hawkins was aghast. He said: "Good gracious, then you're dead!" "Dead?" "Yes, you are we've got your ashes." "Hang those ashes, I'm tired of them; I'll give them to my father." Slowly and pain r ully the statesman worked the truth into his head that this was really a flesh-and- blood young man, and not the insubstantial resur- rection he and Sellers had so long supposed him to be. Then he said, with feeling : 244 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT "I'm so glad; so glad on Sally's account, poor thing. We took you for a departed materialized bank thief from Tahlequah. This will be a heavy blow to Sellers." Then he explained the whole matter to Berkeley, who said: ' ' Well, the Claimant must manage to stand the blow, severe as it is. But he'll get over the disappointment. ' ' "Who the Colonel? He'll get over it the minute he invents a new miracle to take its place. And he's already at it by this time. But look here what do you suppose became of the man you've been representing all this time?" "I don't know. I saved his clothes it was all I could do. I am afraid he lost his life." "Well, you must have found twenty or thirty thousand dollars in those clothes in money or cer- tificates of deposit." "No, I found only five hundred and a trifle. I borrowed the trifle and banked the five hundred." "What '11 we do about it?" "Return it to the owner." "It's easy said, but not easy to manage. Let's leave it alone till we get Sellers's advice. And that reminds me. I've got to run and meet Sellers and explain who you are not and who you are, or he'll come thundering in here to stop his daughter from marrying a phantom. But suppose your father came over here to break off the match?" "Well, isn't he down-stairs getting acquainted with Sally? That's all safe." So Hawkins departed to meet and prepare the Sellerses. 245 MARK TWAIN Rossmore Towers saw great times and late hours during the succeeding week. The two earls were such opposites in nature that they fraternized at once. Sellers said privately that Rossmore was the most extraordinary character he had ever met a man just made out of the condensed milk of human kindness, yet with the ability to totally hide the fact from any but the most practised character-reader; a man tfhose whole being was sweetness, patience, and charity, yet with a cunning so profound, an ability so marvelous in the acting of a double part, that many a person of considerable intelligence might live with him for centuries and never suspect the presence in him of these characteristics. Finally there was a quiet wedding at the Towers, instead of a big one at the British Embassy, with the militia and the fire brigades and the temperance organizations on hand in torchlight procession, as at first proposed by one of the earls. The art firm and Barrow were present at the wedding, and the tinner and Puss had been invited, but the tinner was ill and Puss was nursing him for they were en- gaged. The Sellerses were to go to England with their new allies for a brief visit, but when it was time to take the train from Washington the Colonel was missing. Hawkins was going as far as New York with the party, and said he would explain the matter on the road. The explanation was in a letter left by the Colonel in Hawkins's hands. In it he promised to join Mrs. Sellers later in England, and then went on to say : 240 "FINALLY THERE WAS A QUIET WEDDING AT THE TOWERS' THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT The truth is, my dear Hawkins, a mighty idea has been born to me within the hour, and I must not even stop to say good-by to my dear ones. A man's highest duty takes precedence of all minor ones, and must be attended to with his best prompt- ness and energy, at whatsoever cost to his affections or his convenience. And first of all a man's duties is his duty to his own honor he must keep that spotless. Mine is threatened. When I was feeling sure of my imminent future solidity, I forwarded to the Czar of Russia perhaps prematurely an offer for the purchase of Siberia, naming a vast sum. Since then an episode has warned me that the method by which I was expecting to acquire this money materialization upon a scale of limitless magnitude is marred by a taint of temporary uncertainty. His imperial majesty may accept my offer at any moment. If this should occur now, I should find myself pain- fully embarrassed in fact, financially inadequate. I could not take Siberia. This would become known, and my credit would suffer. Recently my private hours have been dark indeed, but the sun shines again now; I see my way; I shall be able to meet my obligation, and without having to ask an extension of the stipulated time, I think. This grand new idea of mine the sublimest I have ever conceived will save me whole, I am sure. I am leaving for San Francisco this moment to test it by the help of the great Lick telescope. Like all of my more notable discoveries and inventions, it is based upon hard, practical scientific laws; all other bases are unsound, and hence un- trustworthy. In brief, then, I have conceived the stupendous idea of re- organizing the climates of the earth according to the desire of the populations interested. That is to say, I will furnish climates to order, for cash or negotiable paper, taking the old climates in part payment, of course, at a fair discount, where they are in condition to be repaired at small cost and let out for hire to poor and remote communities not able to afford a good climate and not caring for an expensive one for mere display. My studies have convinced me that the regulation of climates and the breeding of new varieties at will from the old stock is a feasible thing; indeed, I am convinced that it has been done before, done in prehistoric times by now forgotten and unrecorded civilizations. Everywhere I find hoary evidences of 247 MARK TWAIN artificial manipulation of climates in bygone times. Take the glacial period. Was that produced by accident? Not at all; it was done for money. I have a thousand proofs of it, and will some day reveal them. I will confide to you an outline of my idea. It is to utilize the spots on the sun get control of them, you understand, and apply the stupendous energies which they wield to beneficent purposes in the reorganization of our climates. At present they merely make trouble and do harm in the evoking of cyclones and other kinds of electric storms; but once under humane and intelligent control this will cease, and they will become a boon to man. I have my plan all mapped out, whereby I hope and expect to acquire complete and perfect control of the sun-spots, also details of the method whereby I shall employ the same com- mercially; but I will not venture to go into particulars before the patents shall have been issued. I shall hope and expect to sell shop-rights to the minor countries at a reasonable figure, and supply a good business article of climate to the great empires at special rate, together with fancy brands for coronations, battles, and other great and particular occasions. There are billions of money in this enterprise, no expensive plant is re- quired, and I shall begin to realize in a few days in a few weeks at furthest. I shall stand ready to pay cash for Siberia the moment it is delivered, and thus save my honor and my credit. I am confident of this. I would like you to provide a proper outfit and start north as soon as I telegraph you, be it night or be it day. I wish you to take up all the country stretching away from the north pole on all sides for many degrees south, and buy Greenland and Iceland at the best figure you can get now while they are cheap. It is my intention to move one of the tropics up there and transfer the frigid zone to the equator. I will have the entire Arctic Circle in the market as a summer resort next year, and will use the surplusage of the old climate, over and above what can be utilized on the equator, to reduce the temperature of opposition resorts. But I have said enough to give you an idea of the prodigious nature of my scheme and the feasible and enormously profitable character of it. I shall join all you hap- py people in England as soon as I shall have sold out some of my principal climates and arranged with the Czar about Siberia, 248 THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT Meantime, watch for a sign from me. Eight days from now we shall be wide asunder; for I shall be on the border of the Pacific, and you far out on the Atlantic, approaching England. That day, if I am alive and my sublime discovery is proved and established, I will send you greeting, and my messenger shall deliver it where you are, in the solitudes of the sea; for I will waft a vast sun-spot across the disk like drifting smoke, and you will know it for my love-sign, and will say, " Mulberry Sellers throws us a kiss across the universe." APPENDIX WEATHER FOR USE IN THIS BOOK Selected from the best authorities A brief though violent thunder-storm which had raged over the city was passing away; but still, though the rain had ceased more than an hour before, wild piles of dark and coppery clouds, in which a fierce and rayless glow was laboring, gigantically overhung the grotesque and huddled vista of dwarf houses, while in the distance, sheeting high over the low, misty con- fusion of gables and chimneys, spread a pall of dead, leprous blue, suffused with blotches of dull, glistening yellow, and with black plague-spots of vapor floating and faint lightnings crink- ling on its surface. Thunder, still muttering in the close and sultry air, kept the scared dwellers in the street within, behind their closed shutters; and all deserted, cowed, dejected, squalid, like poor, stupid, top-heavy things that had felt the wrath of the summer tempest, stood the drenched structures on either side of the narrow and crooked way, ghastly and picturesque under the giant canopy. Rain dripped wretchedly in slow drops of melancholy sound from their projecting eaves upon the broken flagging, lay there in pools or triclcled into the swollen drains, where the fallen torrent sullenly gurgled on its way to the river. "The Brazen Android": W. D. O'Connor. The fiery mid-March sun a moment hung Above the bleak Judean wilderness; Then darkness swept upon us, and 'twas night. "Easter-Eve at Kerak-Moab": Clinton Scollard. The quick-coming winter twilight was already at hand. Snow was again falling, sifting delicately down, incidentally as it were. "Felicia": Fanny N. D. Murfree. 250 APPENDIX Merciful heavens! The whole west, from right to left, blazes up with a fierce light, and next instant the earth reels and quivers with the awful shock of ten thousand batteries of artillery. It is the signal for the Fury to spring for a thousand demons to scream and shriek for innumerable serpents of fire to writhe and light up the blackness. Now the rain falls now the wind is let loose with a terrible shriek now the lightning is so constant that the eyes burn, and the thunderclaps merge into an awful roar, as did the eight hun- dred cannon at Gettysburg. Crash! Crash! Crash! It is the cottonwood-trees falling to earth. Shriek! Shriek! Shriek! It is the Demon racing along the plain and uprooting even the blades of grass. Shock! Shock! Shock! It is the Fury flinging his fiery bolts into the bosom of the earth. " The Demon and the Fury ": M. Quad. Away up the gorge all diurnal fancies trooped into the wide liberties of endless luminous vistas of azure sunlit mountains beneath the shining azure heavens. The sky, looking down in deep blue placidities, only here and there smote the water to azure emulations of its tint. "In the 'Stranger People's' Coun- try:" Charles Egbert Craddock. There was every indication of a dust-storm, though the sun still shone brilliantly. The hot wind had become wild and rampant. It was whipping up the sandy coating of the plain in every direction. High in the air were seen whirling spires and cones of sand a curious effect against the deep-blue sky. Below, puffs of sand were breaking out of the plain in every direction, as though the plain were alive with invisible horse- men. These sandy cloudlets were instantly dissipated by the wind; it was the larger clouds that were lifted whole into the air, and the larger clouds of sand were becoming more and more the rule. Alfred's eye, quickly scanning the horizon, descried the roof of the boundary-rider's hut still gleaming in the sunlight. He remembered the hut well. It could not be farther than four miles, if as much as that, from this point of the track. He also knew these dust-storms of old; Bindarra was notorious for them. Without thinking twice, Alfred put spurs to his horse and headed for the hut. Before he had ridden half the distance 251 MARK TWAIN the detached clouds of sand banded together in one dense whirl- wind, and it was only owing to his horse's instinct that he did not ride wide of the hut altogether; for during the last half-mile he never saw the hut, until its outline loomed suddenly over his horse's ears; and by then the sun was invisible. "A Bride from the Bush" And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. Genesis. MERRY TALES Acknowledgment should be made to the Century Company and to Messrs. Harper &* Brothers for kind permission to reprint several- of these stories from the "Century" and "Harper's Magazine." . THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED YOU have heard from a great many people who did something in the war; is it not fair and right that you listen a little moment to one who started out to do something in it, but didn't? Thousands entered the war, got just a taste of it, and then stepped out again permanently. These, by their very numbers, are respectable, and are therefore entitled to a sort of voice not a loud one, but a modest one; not a boastful one, but an apologetic one. They ought not to be allowed much space among better people people who did something. I grant that; but they ought at least to be allowed to state why they didn't do anything, and also to explain the process by which they didn't do anything. Surely this kind of light must have a sort of value. Out West there was a good deal of confusion in men's minds during the first months of the great trouble a good deal of unsettledness, of leaning first this way, then that, then the other way. It was hard for us to get our bearings. I call to mind an instance of this. I was piloting on the Mississippi when the news came that South Carolina had gone out of the Union on the 2oth of December, 1860. My pilot mate was a New-Yorker. He was strong 17 2 5S MARK TWAIN for the Union; so was I. But he would not listen to me with any patience; my loyalty was smirched, to his eye, because my father had owned slaves. I said, in palliation of this dark fact, that I had heard my father say, some years before he died, that slavery was a great wrong, and that he would free the solitary negro he then owned if he could think it right to give away the property of the family when he was so straitened in means. My mate retorted that a mere impulse was nothing anybody could pretend to a good impulse; and went on decrying my Unionism and libeling my ancestry. A month later the secession atmosphere had considerably thickened on the Lower Mississippi, and I became a rebel; so did he. We were together in New Orleans the 26th of January, when Louisiana went out of the Union. He did his full share of the rebel shouting, but was bitterly opposed to letting me do mine. He said that I came of bad stock of a father who had been willing to set slaves free. In the following summer he was piloting a Federal gunboat and shouting for the Union again, and I was in the Confederate army. I held his note for some borrowed money. He was one of the most upright men I ever knew, but he repudiated that note without hesitation because I was a rebel and the son of a man who owned slaves. In that summer of 1861 the first wash of the wave of war broke upon the shores of Missouri. Our state was nvaded by he Union forces. They took possession of St. Louis, Jefferson Barracks, and some other points. The Governor, Claib Jackson, issued 256 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED his proclamation calling out fifty thousand militia to repel the invader. I was visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been spent Hannibal, Marion County. Several of us got together in a secret place by night and formed ourselves into a military company. One Tom Lyman, a young fellow of a good deal of spirit but of no military experience, was made captain; I was made second lieutenant. We had no first lieu- tenant; I do not know why; it was long ago. There were fifteen of us. By the advice of an innocent connected with the organization we called ourselves the Marion Rangers. I do not remember that any one found fault with the name. I did not ; I thought it sounded quite well. The young fellow who pro- posed this title was perhaps a fair sample of the kind of stuff we were made of. He was young, ignorant, good-natured, well-meaning, trivial, full of romance, and given to reading chivalric novels and singing forlorn love-ditties. He had some pathetic little nickel-plated aristocratic instincts, and detested his name, which was Dunlap ; detested it, partly because it was nearly as common in that region as Smith, but mainly because it had a plebeian sound to his ear. So he tried to ennoble it by writing it in this way: d'Unlap. That contented his eye, but left his ear unsatisfied, for people gave the new name the same old pronunciation emphasis on the front end of it. He then did the bravest thing that can be imagined a thing to make one shiver when one re- members how the world is given to resenting shams and affectations; he began to write his name so: 257 MARK TWAIN d'Un Lap. And he waited patiently through the long storm of mud that was flung at this work of art, and he had his reward at last; for he lived to see that name accepted, and the emphasis put where he wanted it by people who had known him all his life, and to whom the tribe of Dunlaps had been as fa- miliar as the rain and the sunshine for forty years. So sure of victory at last is the courage that can wait. He said he had found, by consulting some ancient French chronicles, that the name was rightly and originally written d'Un Lap; and said that if it were translated into English it would mean Peterson : Lap, Latin or Greek, he said, for stone or rock, same as the French pierre, that is to say, Peter: d', of or from; un, a or one; hence, d'Un Lap, of or from a stone or a Peter; that is to say, one who is the son of a stone, the son of a Peter Peterson. Our militia company were not learned, and the explanation con- fused them; so they called him Peterson Dunlap. He proved useful to us in his way; he named our camps for us, and he generally struck a name that was "no slouch," as the boys said. That is one sample of us. Another was Ed Stevens, son of the town jeweler trim-built, handsome, grace- ful, neat as a cat ; bright, educated, but given over entirely to fun. There was nothing serious in life to him. As far as he was concerned, this military expedition of ours was simply a holiday. I should say that about half of us looked upon it in the same way; not consciously, perhaps, but unconsciously. We did not think; we were not capable of it. As for myself, I was full of unreasoning joy to be done with 358 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED turning out of bed at midnight and four in the morn- ing for a while; grateful to have a change, new scenes, new occupations, a new interest. In my thoughts that was as far as I went ; I did not go into the details; as a rule, one doesn't at twenty-four. Another sample was Smith, the blacksmith's ap- prentice. This vast donkey had some pluck, of a slow and sluggish nature, but a soft heart; at one time he would knock a horse down for some impro- priety, and at another he would get homesick and cry. However, he had one ultimate credit to his account which some of us hadn't; he stuck to the war, and was killed in battle at last. Jo Bowers, another sample, was a huge, good- natured, flax-headed lubber; lazy, sentimental, full of harmless brag, a grumbler by nature; an experi- enced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite pic- turesque liar, and yet not a successful one, for he had had no intelligent training, but was allowed to come up just any way. This life was serious enough to him, and seldom satisfactory. But he was a good fellow, anyway, and the boys all liked him. He was made orderly sergeant; Stevens was made corporal. These samples will answer and they are quite fair ones. Well, this herd of cattle started for the war. What could you expect of them? They did as well as they knew how; but, really, what was justly to be expected of them? Nothing, I should say. That is what they did. We waited for a dark night, for caution and se- crecy were necessary; then, toward midnight, we stole in couples and from various directions to the 259 MARK TWAIN Griffith place, beyond the town; from that point we set out together on foot. Hannibal lies at the ex- treme southeastern corner of Marion County, on the Mississippi River; our objective point was the hamlet of New London, ten miles away, in Rails County. The first hour was all fun, all idle nonsense and laughter. But that could not be kept up. The steady trudging came to be like work; the play had somehow oozed out of it; the stillness of the woods and the somberness of the night began to throw a depressing influence over the spirits of the boys, and presently the talking died. out and each person shut himself up in his own thoughts. During the last half of the second hour nobody said a word. Now we approached a log farm-house where, ac- cording to report, there was a guard of five Union soldiers Lyman called a halt; and there, in the deep gloom of the overhanging branches, he began to whisper a plan of assault upon that house, which made the gloom more depressing than it was before. It was a crucial moment; we realized, with a cold suddenness, that here was no jest we were standing face to face with actual war. We were equal to the occasion. In our response there was no hesitation, no indecision: we said that if Lyman wanted to meddle with those soldiers, he could go ahead and do it; but if he waited for us to follow him, he would wait a long time. Lyman urged, pleaded, tried to shame us, but it had no effect. Our course was plain, our minds were made up: we would flank the farm-house go out around. And that was what we did. 260 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED We struck into the woods and entered upon a rough time, stumbling over roots, getting tangled in vines, and torn by briers. At last we reached an open place in a safe region, and sat down, blown and hot, to cool off and nurse our scratches and bruises. Lyman was annoyed, but the rest of us were cheerful; we had flanked the farm-house, we had made our first military movement, and it was a success; we had nothing to fret about, we were feeling just the other way. Horse-play and laughing began again; the ex- pedition was become a holiday frolic once more. Then we had two more hours of dull trudging and ultimate silence and depression; then, about dawn, we straggled into New London, soiled, heel-blistered, fagged with our little march, and all of us except Stevens in a sour and raspy humor and privately down on the war. We stacked our shabby old shot- guns in Colonel Ralls's barn, and then went in a body and breakfasted with that veteran of the Mexican War. Afterward he took us to a distant meadow, and there in the shade of a tree we listened to an old-fashioned speech from him, full of gun- powder and glory, full of that adjective-piling, mixed metaphor and windy declamation which were re- garded as eloquence in that ancient time and that remote region; and then he swore us on the Bible to be faithful to the State of Missouri and drive all invaders from her soil, no matter whence they might come or under what flag they might march. This mixed us considerably, and we could not make out just what service we were embarked in; but Colonel Rails, the practised politician and phrase-juggler, 261 MARK TWAIN was not similarly in doubt; he knew quite clearly that he had invested us in the cause of the Southern Confederacy. He closed the solemnities by belting around me the sword which his neighbor, Colonel Brown, had worn at Buena Vista and Molino del Rey ; and he accompanied this act with another impressive blast. Then we formed in line of battle and marched four miles to a shady and pleasant piece of woods on the border of the far-reaching expanses of a flowery prai- rie. It was an enchanting region for war our kind of war. We pierced the forest about half a mile, and took up a strong position, with some low, rocky, and wooded hills behind us, and a purling, limpid creek in front. Straightway half the command were in swimming and the other half fishing. The ass with the French name gave this position a romantic title, but it was too long, so the boys shortened and simpli- fied it to Camp Rails. We occupied an old maple-sugar camp, whose half- rotted troughs were still propped against the trees. A long corn-crib served for sleeping-quarters for the battalion. On our left, half a mile away, were Mason's farm and house ; and he was a friend to the cause. Shortly after noon the farmers began to ar- rive from several directions, with mules and horses for our use, and these they lent us for as long as the war might last, which they judged would be about three months. The animals were of all sizes, all colors, and all breeds. They were mainly young and frisky, and nobody in the command could stay on 262 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED them long at a time; for we were town boys, and ignorant of horsemanship. The creature that fell to my share was a very small mule, and yet so quick and active that it could throw me without difficulty ; and it did this whenever I got on it. Then it would bray stretching its neck out, laying its ears back, and spreading its jaws till you could see down to its works. It was a disagreeable animal in every way. If I took it by the bridle and tried to lead it off the grounds, it would sit down and brace back, and no one could budge it. However, I was not entirely destitute of military resources, and I did presently manage to spoil this game; for I had seen many a steamboat aground in my time, and knew a trick or two which even a grounded mule would be obliged to respect. There was a well by the corn-crib; so I substituted thirty fathom of rope for the bridle, and fetched him home with the windlass. I will anticipate here sufficiently to say that we did learn to ride, after some days' practice, but never well. We could not learn to like our animals; they were not choice ones, and most of them had annoy- ing peculiarities of one kind or another. Stevens 's horse would carry him, when he was not noticing, un- der the huge excrescences which form on the trunks of oak-trees, and wipe him out of the saddle; in this way Stevens got several bad hurts. Sergeant Bowers's horse was very large and tall, with slim, long legs, and looked like a railroad bridge. His size enabled him to reach all about, and as far as he wanted to, with his head; so he was always biting Bowers's legs. On the march, in the sun, Bowers 263 MARK TWAIN slept a good deal ; and as soon as the horse recognized that he was asleep he would reach around and bite him on the leg. His legs were black and blue with bites. This was the only thing that could ever make him swear, but this always did; whenever his horse bit him he always swore, and of course Stevens, who laughed at everything, laughed at this, and would even get into such convulsions over it as to lose his balance and fall off his horse; and then Bowers, already irritated by the pain of the horse-bite, would resent the laughter with hard language, and there would be a quarrel; so that horse made no end of trouble and bad blood in the command. However, I will get back to where I was our first afternoon in the sugar -camp. The sugar - troughs came very handy as horse-troughs, and we had plenty of corn to fill them with. I ordered Sergeant Bowers to feed my mule; but he said that if I reckoned he went to war to be a dry-nurse to a mule it wouldn't take me very long to find out my mistake. I be- lieved that this was insubordination, but I was full of uncertainties about everything military, and so I let the thing pass, and went and ordered Smith, the blacksmith's apprentice, to feed the mule; but he merely gave me a large, cold, sarcastic grin, such as an ostensibly seven-year-old horse gives you when you lift his lip and find he is fourteen, and turned his back on me. I then went to the captain, and asked if it were not right and proper and military for me to have an orderly. He said it was, but as there was only one orderly in the corps, it was but right that he himself should have Bowers on his staff. 264 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED Bowers said he wouldn't serve on anybody's staff; and if anybody thought he could make him, let him try it. So, of course, the thing had to be dropped; there was no other way. Next, nobody would cook; it was considered a degradation; so we had no dinner. We lazied the rest of the pleasant afternoon away, some dozing under the trees, some smoking cob-pipes and talking sweethearts and war, some playing games. By late supper-time all hands were famished; and to meet the difficulty all hands turned to, on an equal footing, and gathered wood, built fires, and cooked the meal. Afterward everything was smooth for a while; then trouble broke out between the corporal and the sergeant, each claiming to rank the other. Nobody knew which was the higher office; so Lyman had to settle the matter by making the rank of both officers equal. The commander of an ignorant crew like that has many troubles and vexations which prob- ably do not occur in the regular army at all. How- ever, with the song-singing and yarn-spinning around the camp-fire, everything presently became serene again; and by and by we raked the corn down level in one end of the crib, and all went to bed on it, tying a horse to the door, so that he would neigh if any one tried to get in. 1 1 It was always my impression that that was what the horse was there for, and I know that it was also the impression of at least one other of the command, for we talked about it at the time, and &dmired the military ingenuity of the device; but when I was out West, three years ago, I was told by Mr. A. G. Fuqua, a member of our company, that the horse was his; that the leaving him tied at the door was a matter of mere forgetfulness, and that to attribute it to intelligent invention was to give him quite too much credit. In 265 MARK TWAIN We had some horsemanship drill every forenoon; then, afternoons, we rode off here and there in squads a few miles, and visited the farmers' girls, and had a youthful good time, and got an honest good dinner or supper, and then home again to camp, happy and content. For a time life was idly delicious, it was perfect; there was nothing to mar it. Then came some fanners with an alarm one day. They said it was rumored that the enemy were advancing in our direction from over Hyde's prairie. The result was a sharp stir among us, and general consternation. It was a rude awakening from our pleasant trance. The rumor was but a rumor nothing definite about it ; so, in the confusion, we did not know which way to retreat. Lyman was for not retreating at all in these uncertain circumstances; but he found that if he tried to maintain that attitude he would fare badly, for the command were in no humor to put up with insubordination. So he yielded the point and called a council of war to consist of himself and the three other officers; but the privates made such a fuss about being left out that we had to allow them to remain, for they were already present, and doing the most of the talking too. The question was, which way to retreat ; but all were so flurried that no- body seemed to have even a guess to offer. Except Lyman. He explained in a few calm words that, inasmuch as the enemy were approaching from over support of his position he called my attention to the suggestive fact that the artifice was not employed again. I had not thought of that before. 266 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED Hyde's prairie, our course was simple: all we had to do was not to retreat toward him; any other direction would answer our needs perfectly. Everybody saw in a moment how true this was, and how wise; so Lyman got a great many compliments. It was now decided that we should fall back on Mason's farm. It was after dark by this time, and as we could not know how soon the enemy might arrive, it did not seem best to try to take the horses and things with us; so we only took the guns and ammunition, and started at once. The route was very rough and hilly and rocky, and presently the night grew very black and rain began to fall ; so we had a troublesome time of it, struggling and stumbling along in the dark; and soon some person slipped and fell, and then the next person behind stumbled over him and fell, and so did the rest, one after the other; and then Bowers came, with the keg of powder in his arms, while the command were all mixed together, arms and legs, on the muddy slope; and so he fell, of course, with the keg, and this started the whole detachment down the hill in a body, and they landed in the brook at the bottom in a pile, and each that was undermost pulling the hair and scratching and biting those that were on top of him; and those that were being scratched and bitten scratching and biting the rest in their turn, and all saying they would die before they would ever go to war again if they ever got out of this brook this time, and the invader might rot for all they cared, and the country along with him and all such talk as that, which was dismal to hear and take part in, in such smothered, low voices, and 267 MARK TWAIN such a grisly dark place and so wet, and the enemy, maybe, coming any moment. The keg of powder was lost, and the guns, too; so the growling and complaining continued straight along while the brigade pawed around the pasty hillside and slopped around in the brook hunting for these things; consequently we lost considerable time at this; and then we heard a sound, and held our breath and listened, and it seemed to be the enemy coming, though it could have been a cow, for it had a cough like a cow; but we did not wait, but left a couple of guns behind and struck out for Mason's again as briskly as we could scramble along in the dark. But we got lost presently among the rugged little ravines, and wasted a deal of time finding the way again, so it was after nine when we reached Mason's stile at last ; and then before we could open our mouths to give the coun ersign several dogs came bound ng over the fence, with great riot and noise, and each of them took a soldier by the slack of his trousers and began to back away with him. We could not shoot the dogs without endangering the persons they were attached to; so we had to look on helpless at what was perhaps the most mortifying spectacle of the Civil War. There was light enough, and to spare, for the Masons had now run out on the porch with candles in their hands. The old man and his son came and undid the dogs without difficulty, all but Bowers's; but they couldn't undo his dog, they didn't know his combination ; he was of the bull kind, and seemed to be set with a Yale time-lock; but they got him loose at last with 268 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED some scalding water, of which Bowers got his share and returned thanks. Peterson Dunlap afterward made up a fine name for this engagement, and also for the night march which preceded it, but both have long ago faded out of my memory. We now went into the house, and they began to ask us a world of questions, whereby it presently came out that we did not know anything concerning who or what we were running from ; so the old gentle- man made himself very frank, and said we were a curious breed of soldiers, and guessed we could be depended on to end up the war in time, because no government could stand the expense of the shoe- leather we should cost it trying to follow us around. "Marion Rangers! good name, b'gosh!" said he. And wanted to know why we hadn't had a picket- guard at the place where the road entered the prairie, and why we hadn't sent out a scouting party to spy out the enemy and bring us an account of his strength, and so on, before jumping up and stam- peding out of a strong position upon a mere vague rumor and so on, and so forth, till he made us all feel shabbier than the dogs had done, not half so enthusiastically welcome. So we went to bed shamed and low-spirited; except Stevens. Soon Stevens began to devise a garment for Bowers which could be made to automatically display his battle- scars to the grateful, or conceal them from the en- vious, according to his occasions; but Bowers was in no humor for this, so there was a fight, and when it was over Stevens had some battle-scars of his own to think about. 260 MARK TWAIN Then we got a little sleep. But after all we had gone through, our activities were not over for the night ; for about two o'clock in the morning we heard a shout of warning from down the lane, accompanied by a chorus from all the dogs, and in a moment everybody was up and flying around to find out what the alarm was about. The alarmist was a horseman who gave notice that a detachment of Union soldiers was on its way from Hannibal with orders to capture and hang any bands like ours which it could find, and said we had no time to lose. Farmer Mason was in a flurry this time himself. He hurried us out of the house with all haste, and sent one of his negroes with us to show us where to hide ourselves and our telltale guns among the ravines half a mile away. It was raining heavily. We struck down the lane, then across some rocky pasture -land which offered good advantages for stumbling; consequently we were down in the mud most of the time, and every time a man went down he blackguarded the war, and the people that started it, and everybody connected with it, and gave him- self the master dose of all for being so foolish as to go into it. At last we reached the wooded mouth of a ravine, and there we huddled ourselves under the streaming trees, and sent the negro back home. It was a dismal and heart-breaking time. We were like to be drowned with the rain, deafened with the howling wind and the booming thunder, and blinded by the lightning. It was, indeed, a wild night. The drenching we were getting was misery enough, but a deeper misery still was the reflection that the halter 370 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED might end us before we were a day older. A death of this shameful sort had not occurred to us as being among the possibilities of war. It took the romance all out of the campaign, and turned our dreams of glory into a repulsive nightmare. As for doubting that so barbarous an order had been given, not one of us did that. The long night wore itself out at last, and then the negro came to us with the news that the alarm had manifestly been a false one, and that breakfast would soon be ready. Straightway we were light-hearted again, and the world was bright, and life as full of hope and promise as ever for we were young then. How long ago that was! Twenty-four years. The mongrel child of philology named the night's refuge Camp Devastation, and no soul objected. The Masons gave us a Missouri country breakfast, in Missourian abundance, and we needed it: hot biscuits; hot "wheat bread," prettily criss-crossed in a lattice pattern on top; hot corn-pone; fried chick- en; bacon, coffee, eggs, milk, buttermilk, etc. ; and the world may be confidently challenged to furnish the equal of such a breakfast, as it is cooked in the South. We stayed several days at Mason's; and after all these years the memory of the dullness, and stillness, and lifelessness of that slumberous farm-house still oppresses my spirit as with a sense of the presence of death and mourning. There was nothing to do, nothing to think about ; there was no interest in life. The male part of the household were away in the fields all day, the women were busy and out of our sight; there was no sound but the plaintive wailing 18 271 MARK TWAIN of a spinning-wheel, forever moaning out from some distant room the most lonesome sound in nature, a sound steeped and sodden with homesickness and the emptiness of life. The family went to bed about dark every night, and as we were not invited to in- trude any new customs we naturally followed theirs. Those nights were a hundred years long to youths accustomed to being up till twelve. We lay awake and miserable till that hour every time, and grew old and decrepit waiting through the still eter- nities for the clock-strikes. This was no place for town boys. So at last it was with something very like joy that we received news that the enemy were on our track again. With a new birth of the old warrior spirit we sprang to our places in line of battle and fell back on Camp Rails. Captain Lyman had taken a hint from Mason's talk, and he now gave orders that our camp should be guarded against surprise by the posting of pickets. I was ordered to place a picket at the forks of the road in Hyde's prairie. Night shut down black and threatening. I told Sergeant Bowers to go out to that place and stay till midnight; and, just as I was expecting, he said he wouldn't do it. I tried to get others to go, but all refused. Some excused them- selves on account of the weather; but the rest were frank enough to say they wouldn't go in any kind of weather. This kind of thing sounds odd now, and impossible, but there was no surprise in it at the time. On the contrary, it seemed a perfectly natural thing to do. There were scores of little camps scat- tered over Missouri where the same thing was hap- 272 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED pening. These camps were composed of young men who had been born and reared to a sturdy inde- pendence, and who did not know what it meant to be ordered around by Tom, Dick, and Harry, whom they had known familiarly all their lives, in the village or on the farm. It is quite within the proba- bilities that this same thing was happening all over the South. James Redpath recognized the justice of this assumption, and furnished the following instance in support of it. During a short stay in East Tennessee he was in a citizen colonel's tent one day talking, when a big private appeared at the door, and, without salute or other circumlocution, said to the colonel: "Say, Jim, I'm a-goin' home for a few days." "What for?" "Well, I hain't b'en there for a right smart while, and I'd like to see how things is comin' on." "How long are you going to be gone?" "'Bout two weeks." "Well, don't be gone longer than that; and get back sooner if you can." That was all, and the citizen officer resumed his conversation where the private had broken it off. This was in the first months of the war, of course. The camps in our part of Missouri were under Brigadier-General Thomas H. Harris. He was a townsman of ours, a first-rate fellow, and well liked; but we had all familiarly known him as the sole and modest-salaried operator in our telegraph-office, where he had to send about one despatch a week in ordinary times, and two when there was a rush of 273 MARK TWAIN business; consequently, when he appeared in our midst one day, on the wing, and delivered a military command of some sort, in a large military fashion, nobody was surprised at the response which he got from the assembled soldiery : "Oh, now, what '11 you take to don't, Tom Harris?" It was quite the natural thing. One might justly imagine that we were hopeless material for war. And so we seemed, in our ignorant state; but there were those among us who afterward learned the grim trade; learned to obey like machines; became valu- able soldiers; fought all through the war, and came out at the end with excellent records. One of the very boys who refused to go out on picket duty that night, and called me an ass for thinking he would expose himself to danger in such a foolhardy way, had become distinguished for intrepidity before he was a year older. I did secure my picket that night not by au- thority, but by diplomacy. I got Bowers to go by agreeing to exchange ranks with him for the time being, and go along and stand the watch with him as his subordinate. We stayed out there a couple of dreary hours in the pitchy darkness and the rain, with nothing to modify the dreariness but Bowers's monotonous growlings at the war and the weather; then we began to nod, and presently found it next t to impossible to stay in the saddle; so we gave up the tedious job, and went back to the camp without waiting for the relief guard. We rode into camp without interruption or objection from anybody, and the enemy could have done the same, for there were 274 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED no sentries. Everybody was asleep; at midnight there was nobody to send out another picket, so none was sent. We never tried to establish a watch at night again, as far as I remember, but we generally kept a picket out in the daytime. In that camp the whole command slept on the corn in the big corn-crib; and there was usually a general row before morning, for the place was full of rats, and they would scramble over the boys' bodies and faces, annoying and irritating everybody; and now and then they would bite some one's toe, and the person who owned the toe would start up and magnify his English and begin to throw corn in the dark. The ears were half as heavy as bricks, and when they struck they hurt. The persons struck would respond, and inside of five minutes every man would be locked in a death-grip with his neighbor. There was a grievous deal of blood shed in the corn- crib, but this was all that was spilt while I was in the war. No, that is not quite true. But for one circumstance it would have been all. I will come to that now. Our scares were frequent. Every few days rumors would come that the enemy were approaching. In these cases we always fell back on some other camp of ours; we never stayed where we were. But the rumors always turned out to be false ; so at last even we began to grow indifferent to them. One night a negro was sent to our corn-crib with the same old warning: the enemy was hovering in our neighbor- hood. We all said let him hover. We resolved to stay still and be comfortable. It was a fine warlike 275 MARK TWAIN resolution, and no doubt we all felt the stir of it in our veins for a moment. We had been having a very jolly time, that was full of horse-play and school- boy hilarity; but that cooled down now, and pres- ently the fast- waning fire of forced jokes and forced laughs died out altogether, and the company became silent. Silent and nervous. And soon uneasy worried apprehensive. We had said we would stay, and we were committed. We could have been per- suaded to go, but there was nobody brave enough to suggest it. An almost noiseless movement pres- ently began in the dark by a general but unvoiced impulse. When the movement was completed each man knew that he was not the only person who had crept to the front wall and had his eye at a crack between the logs. No, we were all there; all there with our hearts in our throats, and staring out toward the sugar-troughs where the forest footpath came through. It was late, and there was a deep woodsy stillness everywhere. There was a veiled moonlight, which was only just strong enough to enable us to mark the general shape of objects. Presently a muffled sound caught our ears, and we recognized it as the hoof-beats of a horse or horses. And right away a figure appeared in the forest path ; it could have been made of smoke, its mass had so little sharpness of outline. It was a man on horse- back, and it seemed to me that there were others behind him. I got hold of a gun in the dark, and pushed it through a crack between the logs, hardly knowing what I was doing, I was so dazed with fright. Somebody said "Fire!" I pulled the trigger. 276 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED I seemed to see a hundred flashes and hear a hundred reports; then I saw the man fall down out of the saddle. My first feeling was of surprised gratifica- tion; my first impulse was an apprentice-sportsman's impulse to run and pick up his game. Somebody said, hardly audibly, "Good we've got him! wait for the rest." But the rest did not come. We waited listened still no more came. There was not a sound, not the whisper of a leaf; just perfect stillness; an uncanny kind of stillness, which was all the more uncanny on account of the damp, earthy, late-night smells now rising and pervading it. Then, wondering, we crept stealthily out, and approached the man. When we got to him the moon revealed him distinctly. He was lying on his back, with his arms abroad; his mouth was open and his chest heaving with long gasps, and his white shirt-front was all splashed with blood. The thought shot through me that I was a murderer; that I had killed a man a man who had never done me any harm. That was the coldest sensation that ever went through my marrow. I was down by him in a mo- ment, helplessly stroking his forehead; and I would have given anything then my own life freely to make him again what he had been five minutes before. And all the boys seemed to be feeling in the same way; they hung over him, full of pitying inter- est, and tried all they could to help him, and said all sorts of regretful things. They had forgotten all about the enemy; they thought only of this one forlorn unit of the foe. Once my imagination per- suaded me that the dying man gave me a reproachful 277 MARK TWAIN look out of his shadowy eyes, and it seemed to me that I could rather he had stabbed me than done that. He muttered and mumbled like a dreamer in his sleep about his wife and his child ; and I thought with a new despair, "This thing that I have done does not end with him ; it falls upon them too, and they never did me any harm, any more than he." In a little while the man was dead. He was killed in war; killed in fair and legitimate war; killed in battle, as you may say; and yet he was as sincerely mourned by the opposing force as if he had been their brother. The boys stood there a half-hour sorrowing over him, and recalling the details of the tragedy, and wondering who he might be, and if he were a spy, and saying that if it were to do over again they would not hurt him unless he attacked them first. It soon came out that mine was not the only shot fired; there were five others a division of the guilt which was a great relief to me, since it in some degree lightened and diminished the burden I was carrying. There were six shots fired at once; but I was not in my right mind at the time, and my heated imagination had magnified my one shot into a volley. The man was not in uniform, and was not armed. He was a stranger in the country; that was all we ever found out about him. The thought of him got to preying upon me every night; I could not get rid of it. I could not drive it away, the taking of that unoffending life seemed such a wanton thing. And it seemed an epitome of war; that all war must be just that the killing of strangers against whom you 278 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it. My campaign was spoiled. It seemed to me that I was not rightly equipped for this awful business; that war was intended for men, and I for a child's nurse. I resolved to retire from this avocation of sham soldiership while I could save some remnant of my self-respect. These morbid thoughts clung to me against reason; for at bottom I did not believe I had touched that man. The law of probabilities decreed me guiltless of his blood ; for in all my small experience with guns I had never hit anything I had tried to hit, and I knew I had done my best to hit him. Yet there was no solace in the thought. Against a diseased imagination demonstration goes for nothing. The rest of my war experience was of a piece with what I have already told of it. We kept monoto- nously falling back upon one camp or another, and eating up the farmers and their families. They ought to have shot us; on the contrary, they were as hospitably kind and courteous to us as if we had deserved it. In one of these camps we found Ab Grimes, an Upper Mississippi pilot, who afterward became famous as a dare-devil rebel spy, whose career bristled with desperate adventures. The look and style of his comrades suggested that they had not come into the war to play, and their deeds made good the conjecture later. They were fine horsemen and good revolver shots; but their favorite arm was the lasso. Each had one at his pommel, and could 279 MARK TWAIN snatch a man out of the saddle with it every time, on a full gallop, at any reasonable distance. In another camp the chief was a fierce and profane old blacksmith of sixty, and he had furnished his twenty recruits with gigantic home-made bowie- knives, to be swung with two hands, like the machetes of the Isthmus. It was a grisly spectacle to see that earnest band practising their murderous cuts and slashes under the eye of that remorseless old fanatic. The last camp which we fell back upon was in a hollow near the village of Florida, where I was born in Monroe County. Here we were warned one day that a Union colonel was sweeping down on us with a whole regiment at his heel. This looked decidedly serious. Our boys went apart and con- sulted; then we went back and told the other com- panies present that the war was a disappointment to us, and we were going to disband. They were getting ready themselves to fall back on some place or other, and we were only waiting for General Tom Harris, who was expected to arrive at any moment; so they tried to persuade us to wait a little while, but the majority of us said no, we were accustomed to falling back, and didn't need any of Tom Harris's help; we could get along perfectly well without him and save time, too. So about half of our fifteen, including myself, mounted and left on the instant; the others yielded to persuasion and stayed stayed through the war. An hour later we met General Harris on the road, with two or three people in his company his staff, probably, but we could not tell; none of them were 280 A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED in uniform; uniforms had not come into vogue among us yet. Harris ordered us back; but we told him there was a Union colonel coming with a whole regiment in his wake, and it looked as if there was going to be a disturbance; so we had concluded to go home. He raged a little, but it was of no use; our minds were made up. We had done our share; had killed one man, exterminated one army, such as it was; let him go and kill the rest, and that would end the war. I did not see that brisk young general again until last year ; then he was wearing white hair and whiskers. In time I came to know that Union coionel whose coming frightened me out of the war and crippled the Southern cause to that extent General Grant. I came within a few hours of seeing him when he was as unknown as I was myself; at a time when anybody could have said, "Grant? Ulysses S. Grant? I do not remember hearing the name be- fore." It seems difficult to realize that there was once a time when such a remark could be rationally made; but there was, and I was within a few miles of the place and the occasion, too, though proceeding in the other direction. The thoughtful will not throw this war paper of mine lightly aside as being valueless. It has this value: it is a not unfair picture of what went on in many and many a militia camp in the first months of the rebellion, when the green recruits were without discipline, without the steadying and heartening in- fluence of trained leaders; when all their circum- stances were new and strange, and charged with 281 MARK TWAIN exaggerated terrors, and before the invaluable ex- perience of actual collision in the field had turned them from rabbits into soldiers. If this side of the picture of that early day has not before been put into history, then history has been to that degree incomplete, for it had and has its rightful place there. There was more Bull Run material scattered through the early camps of this country than exhibited itself at Bull Run. And yet it learned its trade presently, and helped to fight the great battles later. I could have become a soldier myself if I had waited. I had got part of it learned; I knew more about retreating than the man that invented retreating. LUCK 1 IT was at a banquet in London in honor of one of the two or three conspicuously illustrious English military names of this generation. For reasons which will presently appear, I will withhold his real name and titles and call him Lieutenant-General Lord Ar- thur Scoresby, Y.C., K.C.B., etc., etc., etc. What a fascination there is in a renowned name! There sat the man, in actual flesh, whom I had heard of so many thousands of times since that day, thirty years before, when his name shot suddenly to the zenith from a Crimean battlefield, to remain forever celebrated. It was food and drink to me to look, and look, and look at that demi-god; scanning, searching, noting: the quietness, the reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance; the simple honesty that expressed itself all over him; the sweet unconsciousness of his greatness unconsciousness of the hundreds of ad- miring eyes fastened upon him, unconsciousness of the deep, loving, sincere worship welling out of the breasts of those people and flowing toward him. The clergyman at my left was an old acquaintance of mine clergyman now, but had spent the first half of his life in the camp and field and as an in- 1 This is not a fancy sketch. I got it from a clergyman who was an instructor at Woolwich forty years ago, and who vouched for its truth. M. T. 283 MARK TWAIN structor in the military school at Woolwich. Just at the moment I have been talking about a veiled and singular light glimmered in his eyes and he leaned down and muttered confidentially to me indicating the hero of the banquet with a gesture: "Privately he's an absolute fool." This verdict was a great surprise to me. If its subject had been Napoleon, or Socrates, or Solomon, my astonishment could not have been greater. Two things I was well aware of: that the Reverend was a man of strict veracity and that his judgment of men was good. Therefore I knew, beyond doubt or ques- tion, that the world was mistaken about this hero: he was a fool. So I meant to find out, at a con- venient moment, how the Reverend, all solitary and alone, had discovered the secret. Some days later the opportunity came, and this is what the Reverend told me: About forty years ago I was an instructor in the military academy at Woolwich. I was present in one of the sections when young Scoresby underwent his preliminary examination. I was touched to the quick with pity, for the rest of the class answered up brightly and handsomely, while he why, dear me, he didn't know anything, so to speak. He was evi- dently good, and sweet, and lovable, and guileless; and so it was exceedingly painful to see him stand there, as serene as a graven image, and deliver him- self of answers which were veritably miraculous for stupidity and ignorance. All the compassion in me was aroused in his behalf. I said to myself, when he 284 LUCK comes to be examined again he will be flung over, of course; so it will be simply a harmless act of charity to ease his fall as much as I can. I took him aside and found that he knew a little of Caesar's history; and as he didn't know anything else, I went to work and drilled him like a galley-slave on a certain line of stock questions concerning Caesar which I knew would be used. If you'll believe me, he went through with flying colors on examination day ! He went through on that purely superficial "cram," and got compliments too, while others, who knew a thousand times more than he, got plucked. By some strangely lucky accident an accident not like- ly to happen twice in a century he was asked no question outside of the narrow limits of his drill. It was stupefying. Well, all through his course I stood by him, with something of the sentiment which a mother feels for a crippled child; and he always saved himself just by miracle, apparently. Now, of course, the thing that would expose him and kill him at last was mathematics. I resolved to make his death as easy as I could; so I drilled him and crammed him, and crammed him and drilled him, just on the line of questions which the examiners would be most likely to use, and then launched him on his fate. Well, sir, try to conceive of the re- sult: to my consternation, he took the first prize! And with it he got a perfect ovation in the way of compliments. Sleep ? There was no more sleep for me for a week. My conscience tortured me day and night. What I had done I had done purely through charity, and 285 " MARK TWAIN only to ease the poor youth's fall. I never had dreamed of any such preposterous results as the thing that had happened. I felt as guilty and miserable as Frankenstein. Here was a wooden-head whom I had put in the way of glittering promotions and prodigious responsibilities, and but one thing could happen: he and his responsibilities would all go to ruin together at the first opportunity. The Crimean War had just broken out. Of course there had to be a war, I said to myself. We couldn't have peace and give this donkey a chance to die before he is found out. I waited for the earthquake. It came. And it made me reel when it did come. He was actually gazetted to a captaincy in a march- ing regiment ! Better men grow old and gray in the service before they climb to a sublimity like that. And who could ever have foreseen that they would go and put such a load of responsibility on such green and inadequate shoulders ? I could just barely have stood it if they had made him a cornet; but a captain think of it! I thought my hair would turn white. Consider what I did I who so loved repose and inaction. I said to myself, I am responsible to the country for this, and I must go along with him and protect the country against him as far as I can. So I took my poor little capital that I had saved up through years of work and grinding economy, and went with a sigh and bought a cornetcy in his regiment, and away we went to the field. And there oh, dear, it was awful. Blunders? why, he never did anything but blunder. But, you 286 LUCK see, nobody was in the fellow's secret. Everybody had him focused wrong, and necessarily misinter- preted his performance every time. Consequently they took his idiotic blunders for inspirations of genius. They did, honestly! His mildest blunders were enough to make a man in his right mind cry; and they did make me cry and rage and rave, too, privately. And the thing that kept me always in a sweat of apprehension was the fact that every fresh blunder he made increased the luster of his repu- tation! I kept saying to myself, he'll get so high that when discovery does finally come it will be like the sun falling out of the sky. He went right along up, from grade to grade, over the dead bodies of his superiors, until at last, in the hottest moment of the battle of down went our colonel, and my heart jumped into my mouth, for Scoresby was next in rank! Now for it, said I; we'll all land in Sheol in ten minutes, sure. The battle was awfully hot ; the allies were steadily giving way all over the field. Our regiment occupied a position that was vital; a blunder now must be destruction. At this crucial moment, what does this immortal fool do but detach the regiment from its place and order a charge over a neighboring hill where there wasn't a suggestion of an enemy! "There you go!" I said to myself; "this is the end at last." And away we did go, and were over the shoulder of the hill before the insane movement could be dis- covered and stopped. And what did we find? An entire and unsuspected Russian army in reserve! 19 287 MARK TWAIN And what happened? We were eaten up? That is necessarily what would have happened in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But no; those Russians ar- gued that no single regiment would come browsing around there at such a time. It must be the entire English army, and that the sly Russian game was detected and blocked; so they turned tail, and away they went, pell-mell, over the hill and down into the field, in wild confusion, and we after them; they themselves broke the solid Russian center in the field, and tore through, and in no time there was the most tremendous rout you ever saw, and the defeat of the allies was turned into a sweeping and splendid victory! Marshal Canrobert looked on, dizzy with astonishment, admiration, and delight ; and sent right off for Scoresby, and hugged him, and decorated him on the field in presence of all the armies ! And what was Scoresby 's blunder that time? Merely the mistaking his right hand for his left that was all. An order had come to him to fall back and support our right; and, instead, he fell forward and went over the hill to the left. But the name he won that day as a marvelous military genius filled the world with his glory, and that glory will never fade while history books last. He is just as good and sweet and lovable and un- pretending as a man can be, but he doesn't know enough to come in when it rains. Now that is absolutely true. He is the supremest ass in the universe ; and until half an hour ago nobody knew it but himself and me. He has been pursued, day by day and year by year, by a most phenomenal and 288 LUCK astonishing luckiness. He has been a shining soldier in all our wars for a generation; he has littered his whole military life with blunders, and yet has never committed one that didn't make him a knight or a baronet or a lord or something. Look at his breast; why, he is just clothed in domestic and foreign decorations. Well, sir, every one of them is the record of some shouting stupidity or other; and, taken together, they are proof that the very best thing in all this world that can befall a man is to be born lucky. I say again, as I said at the banquet, Scoresby's an absolute fool. T A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE HIS is the story which the Major told me, as nearly as I can recall it : In the winter of 1862-63 I was commandant of Fort Trumbull, at New London, Conn. Maybe our life there was not so brisk as life at "the front " ; still it was brisk enough, in its way one's brains didn't cake together there for lack of something to keep them stirring. For one thing, all the Northern atmosphere at that time was thick with mysterious rumors rumors to the effect that rebel spies were flitting everywhere, and getting ready to blow up our Northern forts, burn our hotels, send infected clothing into our towns, and all that sort of thing. You remember it. All this had a tendency to keep us awake, and knock the traditional dullness out of garrison life. Besides, ours was a recruiting station which is the same as saying we hadn't any time to waste in dozing, or dreaming, or fooling around. Why, with all our watchfulness, fifty per cent, of a day's recruits would leak out of our hands and give us the slip the same night. The bounties were so prodigious that a recruit could pay a sentinel three or four hundred dollars to let him escape, and still have enough of his bounty-money left to constitute 290 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE a fortune for a poor man. Yes, as I said before, our life was not drowsy. Well, one day I was in my quarters alone, doing some writing, when a pale and ragged lad of fourteen or fifteen entered, made a neat bow, and said: "I believe recruits are received here?" "Yes." "Will you please enlist me, sir?" ' ' Dear me, no ! You are too young, my boy, and too small." A disappointed look came into his face, and quickly deepened into an expression of despondency. He turned slowly away, as if to go; hesitated, then faced me again, and said, in a tone that went to my heart: "I have no home, and not a friend in the world. If you could only enlist me!" But of course the thing was out of the question, and I said so as gently as I could. Then I told him to sit down by the stove and warm himself, and added : ' ' You shall have something to eat, presently. You are hungry?" He did not answer; he did not need to; the grati- tude in his big, soft eyes was more eloquent than any words could have been. He sat down by the stove, and I went on writing. Occasionally I took a furtive glance at him. I noticed that his clothes and shoes, although soiled and damaged, were of good style and material. This fact was suggestive. To it I added the facts that his voice was low and musical; his eyes deep and melancholy; his carriage 291 MARK TWAIN and address gentlemanly; evidently the poor chap was in trouble. As a result, I was interested. However, I became absorbed in my work by and by, and forgot all about the boy. I don't know how long this lasted; but at length I happened to look up. The boy's back was toward me, but his face was turned in such a way that I could see one of his cheeks and down that cheek a rill of noiseless tears was flowing. "God bless my soul!" I said to myself; "I forgot the poor rat was starving." Then I made amends for my brutality by saying to him, "Come along, my lad; you shall dine with me; I am alone to- day." He gave me another of those grateful looks, and a happy light broke in his face. At the table he stood with his hand on his chair-back until I was seated, then seated himself. I took up my knife and fork and well, I simply held them, and kept still; for the boy had inclined his head and was saying a silent grace. A thousand hallowed memories of home and my childhood poured in upon me, and I sighed to think how far I had drifted from religion and its balm for hurt minds, its comfort and solace and support. As our meal progressed I observed that young Wicklow Robert Wicklow was his full name knew what to do with his napkin; and well, in a word, I observed that he was a boy of good breeding; never mind the details. He had a simple frankness, too, which won upon me. We talked mainly about him- self, and I had no difficulty in getting his history out 292 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE of him. When he spoke of his having been born and reared in Louisiana, I warmed to him decidedly, for I had spent some time down there. I knew all the "coast" region of the Mississippi, and loved it, and had not been long enough away from it for my in- terest in it to begin to pale. The very names that fell from his lips sounded good to me so good that I steered the talk in directions that would bring them out: Baton Rouge, Plaquemine, Donaldsonville, Sixty-mile Point, Bonnet-Carre, the Stock Landing, Carrollton, the Steamship Landing, the Steamboat Landing, New Orleans, Tchoupitoulas Street, the Es- planade, the Rue des Bons Enfants, the St. Charles Hotel, the Tivoli Circle, the Shell Road, Lake Pontchartrain ; and it was particularly delightful to me to hear once more of the R. E. Lee, the Natchez, the Eclipse, the General Quitman, the Duncan F. Kenner, and other old familiar steamboats. It was almost as good as being back there, these names so vividly reproduced in my mind the look of the things they stood for. Briefly, this was little Wick- low's history: When the war broke out, he and his invalid aunt and his father were living near Baton Rouge, on a great and rich plantation which had been in the family for fifty years. The father was a Union man. He was persecuted in all sorts of ways, but clung to his principles. At last one night masked men burned his mansion down, and the family had to fly for their lives. They were hunted from place to place, and learned all there was to know about poverty, hunger, and distress. The invalid aunt found relief at last: 293 MARK TWAIN misery and exposure killed her; she died in an open field, like a tramp, the rain beating upon her and the thunder booming overhead. Not long afterward the father was captured by an armed band; and while the son begged and pleaded, the victim was strung up before his face. [At this point a baleful light shone in the youth's eyes, and he said, with the manner of one who talks to himself: "If I cannot be enlisted, no matter I shall find a way I shall find a way."] As soon as the father was pronounced dead, the son was told that if he was not out of that region within twenty-four hours it would go hard with him. That night he crept to the riverside and hid himself near a plantation landing. By and by the Duncan F. Kenner stopped there, and he swam out and concealed himself in the yawl that was dragging at her stern. Before daylight the boat reached the Stock Landing and he slipped ashore. He walked the three miles which lay between that point and the house of an uncle of his in Good- Children Street, in New Orleans, and then his trou- bles were over for the time being. But this uncle was a Union man, too, and before very long he concluded that he had better leave the South. So he and young Wicklow slipped out of the country on board a sailing-vessel, and in due time reached New York. They put up at the Astor House. Young Wicklow had a good time of it for a while, strolling up and down Broadway, and observing the strange Northern sights; but in the end a change came and not for the better. The uncle had been cheerful at first, but now he began to look troubled 294 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE despondent; moreover, he became moody and irritable ; talked of money giving out, and no way to get more "not enough left for one, let alone two." Then, one morning, he was missing did not come to breakfast. The boy inquired at the office, and was told that the uncle had paid his bill the night before and gone away to Boston, the clerk believed, but was not certain. The lad was alone and friendless. He did not know what to do, but concluded he had better try to follow and find his uncle. He went down to the steamboat landing: learned that the trifle of money in his pocket would not carry him to Boston; how- ever, it would carry him to New London; so he took passage for that port, resolving to trust to Providence to furnish him means to travel the rest of the way. He had now been wandering about the streets of New London three days and nights, getting a bite and a nap here and there for charity's sake. But he had given up at last; courage and hope were both gone. If he could enlist, nobody could be more thankful; if he could not get in as a soldier, couldn't he be a drummer-boy ? Ah, he would work so hard to please, and would be so grateful! Well, there's the history of young Wicklow, just as he told it to me, barring details. I said: "My boy, you are among friends now don't you be troubled any more." How his eyes glistened ! I called in Sergeant John Rayburn he was from Hartford ; lives in Hartford yet ; maybe you know him and said, "Rayburn, quarter this boy with the musicians. I am going to enroll him as a drummer- 295 MARK TWAIN boy, and I want you to look after him and see that he is well treated." Well, of course, intercourse between the com- mandant of the post and the drummer-boy came to an end now; but the poor little friendless chap lay heavy on my heart just the same. I kept on the lookout, hoping to see him brighten up and begin to be cheery and gay; but no, the days went by, and there was no change. He associated with nobody; he was always absent-minded, always thinking; his face was always sad. One morning Rayburn asked leave to speak to me privately. Said he : "I hope I don't offend, sir; but the truth is, the musicians are in such a sweat it seems as if some- body's got to speak." "Why, what is the trouble?" "It's the Wicklow boy, sir. The musicians are down on him to an extent you can't imagine." "Well, go on, go on. What has he been doing?" "Prayin', sir." "Praying!" "Yes, sir; the musicians haven't any peace of their life for that boy's prayin'. First thing in the mornin' he's at it; noons he's at it; and nights well, nights he just lays into 'em like all possessed ! Sleep ? Bless you, they can't sleep: he's got the floor, as the sayin' is, and then when he once gets his supplication- mill agoin' there just simply ain't any let-up to him. He starts in with the band-master, and he prays for him; next he takes the head bugler, and he prays for him; next the bass drum, and he scoops him in; and so on, right straight through the band, givin' them 296 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE all a show, and takin' that amount of interest in it which would make you think he thought he warn't but a little while for this world, and believed he couldn't be happy in heaven without he had a brass- band along, and wanted to pick 'em out for himself, so he could depend on 'em to do up the national tunes in a style suitin' to the place. Well, sir, heavin' boots at him don't have no effect; it's dark in there; and, besides, he don't pray fair, anyway, but kneels down behind the big drum; so it don't make no difference if they rain boots at him, he don't give a dern warbles right along, same as if it was applause. They sing out, 'Oh, dry up!' 'Give us a rest!' 'Shoot him!' 'Oh, take a walk!' and all sorts of such things. But what of it? It don't faze him. He don't mind it." After a pause: "Kind of a good little fool, too; gits up in the mornin' and carts all that stock of boots back, and sorts 'em out and sets each man's pair where they belong. And they've been throwed at him so much now that he knows every boot in the band can sort 'em out with his eyes shut." After another pause, which I forbore to interrupt : "But the roughest thing about it is that when he's done prayin' when he ever does get done he pipes up and begins to sing. Well, you know what a honey kind of a voice he's got when he talks ; you know how it would persuade a cast-iron dog to come down off of a door-step and lick his hand. Now if you'll take my word for it, sir, it ain't a circumstance to his singin'! Flute music is harsh to that boy's singin'. Oh, he just gurgles it out so soft and sweet and low, 297 MARK TWAIN there in the dark, that it makes you think you are in heaven." "What is there 'rough' about that?" "Ah, that's just it, sir. You hear him sing " ' Just as I am poor, wretched, blind ' just you hear him sing that once, and see if you don't melt all up and the water come into your eyes! I don't care what he sings, it goes plum straight home to you it goes deep down to where you live and it fetches you every time ! Just you hear him sing '"Child of sin and sorrow, filled with dismay, Wait not till to-morrow, yield thee to-day; Grieve not that love Which, from above' and so on. It makes a body feel like the wickedest, ungratefulest brute that walks. And when he sings chem songs of his about home, and mother, and childhood, and old memories, and things that's vanished, and old friends dead and gone, it fetches everything before your face that you've ever loved and lost in all your life and it's just beautiful, it's just divine to listen to, sir but, Lord, Lord, the heartbreak of it! The band well, they all cry every rascal of them blubbers, and don't try to hide it, either; and first you know, that very gang that's been slammin' boots at that boy will skip out of their bunks all of a sudden, and rush over in the dark and hug him! Yes, they do and slobber all over him, and call him pet names, and beg him to forgive them. And just at that time, if a regiment was to A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE offer to hurt a hair of that cub's head, they'd go for that regiment, if it was a whole army corps!" Another pause. "Is that all?" said I. "Yes, sir." "Well, dear me, what is the complaint? What do they want done?" "Done? Why, bless you, sir, they want you to stop him from singin'." "What an idea! You said his music was divine." "That's just it. It's too divine. Mortal man can't stand it. It stirs a body up so; it turns a body inside out; it racks his feelin's all to rags; it makes him feel bad and wicked, and not fit for any place but perdition. It keeps a body in such an everlastin' state of repentin', that nothin' don't taste good and there ain't no comfort in life. And then the cryin', you see every mornin' they are ashamed to look one another in the face." "Well, this is an odd case, and a singular com- plaint. So they really want the singing stopped?" "Yes, sir, that is the idea. They don't wish to ask too much ; they would like powerful well to have the prayin' shut down on, or leastways trimmed off around the edges; but the main thing's the singin'. If they can only get the singin' choked off, they think they can stand the prayin', rough as it is to be bullyragged so much that way." I told the sergeant I would take the matter under consideration. That night I crept into the mu- sicians' quarters and listened. The sergeant had not overstated the case. I heard the praying voice 299 MARK TWAIN pleading in the dark; I heard the execrations of the harassed men ; I heard the rain of boots whiz through the air, and bang and thump around the big drum. The thing touched me, but it amused me, too. By and by, after an impressive silence, came the sing- ing. Lord, the pathos of it, the enchantment of it! Nothing in the world was ever so sweet, so gracious, so tender, so holy, so moving. I made my stay very brief; I was beginning to experience emotions of a sort not proper to the commandant of a fortress. Next day I issued orders which stopped the praying and singing. Then followed three or four days which were so full of bounty-jumping excitements and irri- tations that I never once thought of my drummer- boy. But now comes Sergeant Rayburn, one morn- ing, and says: "That new boy acts mighty strange, sir." "How?" "Well, sir, he's all the time writinV "Writing? What does he write letters?" "I don't know, sir; but whenever he's off duty, he is always pokin' and nosin' around the fort, all by himself blest if I think there's a hole or corner in it he hasn't been into and every little while he outs with pencil and paper and scribbles somethin' down." This gave me a most unpleasant sensation. I wanted to scoff at it, but it was not a time to scoff at anything that had the least suspicious tinge about it. Things were happening all around us in the North then that warned us to be always on the alert, and always suspecting. I recalled to mind the suggestive fact that this boy was from the South 300 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE the extreme South, Louisiana and the thought was not of a reassuring nature, under the circumstances. Nevertheless, it cost me a pang to give the orders which I now gave to Rayburn. I felt like a father who plots to expose his own child to shame and injury. I told Rayburn to keep quiet, bide his time, and get me some of those writings whenever he could manage it without the boy's finding it out. And I charged him not to do anything which might let the boy discover that he was being watched. I also ordered that he allow the lad his usual liberties, but that he be followed at a distance when he went out into the town. During the next two days Rayburn reported to me several times. No success. The boy was still writing, but he always pocketed his paper with a careless air whenever Rayburn appeared in the vicinity. He had gone twice to an old deserted stable in the town, remained a minute or two, and come out again. One could not pooh-pooh these things they had an evil look. I was obliged to confess to myself that I was getting uneasy. I went into my private quarters and sent for my second in command an officer of intelligence and judgment, son of General James Watson Webb. He was sur- prised and troubled. We had a long talk over the matter, and came to the conclusion that it would be worth while to institute a secret search. I deter- mined to take charge of that myself. So I had my- self called at two in the morning; and pretty soon after I was in the musicians' quarters, crawling along the floor on my stomach among the snorers. 301 MARK TWAIN I reached my slumbering waif's bunk at last, without disturbing anybody, captured his clothes and kit, and crawled stealthily back again. When I got to my own quarters, I found Webb there, waiting and eager to know the result. We made search imme- diately. The clothes were a disappointment. In the pockets we found blank paper and a pencil; nothing else, except a jackknife and such queer odds and ends and useless trifles as boys hoard and value. We turned to the kit hopefully. Nothing there but a rebuke for us! a little Bible with this written on the fly-leaf: "Stranger, be kind to my boy, for his mother's sake." I looked at Webb he dropped his eyes; he looked at me I dropped mine. Neither spoke. I put the book reverently back in its place. Presently Webb got up and went away, without remark. After a little I nerved myself up to my unpalatable job, and took the plunder back to where it belonged, crawl- ing on my stomach as before. It seemed the peculiarly appropriate attitude for the business I was in. I was most honestly glad when it was over and done with. About noon next day Rayburn came, as usual, to report. I cut him short. I said: "Let this nonsense be dropped. We are making a bugaboo out of a poor little cub who has got no more harm in him than a hymn-book." The sergeant looked surprised, and said : "Well, you know it was your orders, sir, and I've got some of the writin'." 302 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE "And what does it amount to? How did you get it?" "I peeped through the keyhole, and see him writin'. So, when I judged he was about done, I made a sort of a little cough, and I see him crumple it up and throw it in the fire, and look all around to see if anybody was comin'. Then he settled back as comfortable and careless as anything. Then I comes in, and passes the time of day pleasantly, and sends him on an errand. He never looked uneasy, but went right along. It was a coal fire and new built ; the writin' had gone over behind a chunk, out of sight; but I got it out; there it is; it ain't hardly scorched, you see." I glanced at the paper and took in a sentence or two. Then I dismissed the sergeant and told him to send Webb to me. Here is the paper in full: PORT TRUMBULL, the 8th. COLONEL, I was "mistaken as to the caliber of the three guns I ended my list with. They are i8-pounders; all the rest of the armament is as I stated. The garrison remains as before reported, except that the two light infantry companies that were to be detached for service at the front are to stay here for the present can't find out for how long, just now, but will soon. We are satisfied that, all things considered, matters had better be postponed un There it broke off there is where Rayburn coughed and interrupted the writer. All my affec- tion for the boy, all my respect for him and charity for his forlorn condition, withered in a moment under the blight of this revelation of cold-blooded baseness. But never mind about that. Here was business 20 303 MARK TWAIN business that required profound and immediate at- tention, too. Webb and I turned the subject over and over, and examined it all around. Webb said: "What a pity he was interrupted! Something is going to be postponed until when? And what is the something? Possibly he would have mentioned it, the pious little reptile!" "Yes," I said, "we have missed a trick. And who is 'we' in the letter? Is it conspirators inside the fort or outside?" That "we" was uncomfortably suggestive. How- ever, it was not worth while to be guessing around that, so we proceeded to matters more practical. In the first place, we decided to double the sentries and keep the strictest possible watch. Next, we thought of calling Wicklow in and making him di- vulge everything; but that did not seem wisest until other methods should fail. We must have some more of the writings; so we began to plan to that end. And now we had an idea: Wicklow never went to the post-office perhaps the deserted stable was his post- office. We sent for my confidential clerk a young German named Sterne, who was a sort of natural detective and told him all about the case, and ordered him to go to work on it. Within the hour we got word that Wicklow was writing again. Shortly afterward word came that lie had asked leave to go out nto the town. He was detained awhile and meantime Sterne hurried off. and con- cealed himself in the stable. By and by he saw Wicklow saunter in, look about him, then hide some- thing under some rubbish in a corner, and take 304 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE leisurely leave again. Sterne pounced upon the hidden article a letter and brought it to us. It had no superscription and no signature. It repeated what we had already read, and then went on to say : We think it best to postpone till the two companies are gone. I mean the four inside think so; have not communicated with the others afraid of attracting attention. I say four because we have lost two; they had hardly enlisted and got inside when they were shipped off to the front. It will be absolutely necessary to have two in their places. The two that went were the brothers from Thirty-mile Point. I have some- thing of the greatest importance to reveal, but must not trust it to this method of communication; will try the other. "The little scoundrel!" said Webb; "who could have supposed he was a spy? However, never mind about that; let us add up our particulars, such as they are, and see how the case stands to date. First, we've got a rebel spy in our midst, whom we know; secondly, we've got three more in our midst whom we don't know; thirdly, these spies have been intro- duced among us through the simple and easy process of enlisting as soldiers in the Union army and evidently two of them have got sold at it, and been shipped off to the front ; fourthly, there are assistant spies 'outside' number indefinite; fifthly, Wicklow has very important matter which he is afraid to communicate by the 'present method' will 'try the other.' That is the case, as it now stands. Shall we collar Wicklow and make him confess ? Or shall we catch the person who removes the letters from the stable and make him tell? Or shall we keep still and find out more?" We decided upon the last course. We judged that we did not need to proceed to summary measures now, since it was evident that the conspirators were likely to wait till those two light infantry compa- nies were out of the way. We fortified Sterne with pretty ample powers, and told him to use his best endeavors to find out Wicklow's "other method" of communication. We meant to play a bold game; and to this end we proposed to keep the spies in an unsuspecting state as long as possible. So we ordered Sterne to return to the stable immediately, and, if he found the coast clear, to conceal Wicklow's letter where it was before, and leave it there for the conspirators to get. The night closed down without further event. It was cold and dark and sleety, with a raw wind blowing; still I turned out of my warm bed several times during the night, and went the rounds in per- son, to see that all was right and that every sentry was on the alert. I always found them wide awake and watchful; evidently whispers of mysterious dangers had been floating about, and the doubling of the guards had been a kind of indorsement of those rumors. Once, toward morning, I encountered Webb, breasting his way against the bitter wind, and learned then that he, also, had been the rounds several times to see that all was going right. Next day's events hurried things up somewhat. Wicklow wrote another letter; Sterne preceded him to the stable and saw him deposit it; captured it as soon as Wicklow was out of the way, then slipped out and followed the little spy at a distance, with a 306 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE detective in plain clothes at his own heels, for we thought it judicious to have the law's assistance handy in case of need. Wicklow went to the railway station, and waited around till the train from New York came in, then stood scanning the faces of the crowd as they poured out of the cars. Presently an aged gentleman, with green goggles and a cane, came limping along, stopped in Wicklow's neighbor- hood, and began to look about him expectantly. In an instant Wicklow darted forward, thrust an en- velope into his hand, then glided away and disap- peared in the throng. The next instant Sterne had snatched the letter; and as he hurried past the detective, he said: "Follow the old gentleman don't lose sight of him." Then Sterne skurried out with the crowd, and came straight to the fort. We sat with closed doors, and instructed the guard outside to allow no interruption. First we opened the letter captured at the stable. It read as follows: HOLY ALLIANCE, Found, in the usual gun, commands from the Master, left there last night, which set aside the instructions heretofore received from the subordinate quarter. Have left in the gun the usual indication that the commands reached the proper hand Webb, interrupting: "Isn't the boy under con* stant surveillance now?" I said yes; he had been under strict surveillance ever since the capturing of his former letter. "Then how could he put anything into a gun, or take anything out of it, and not get caught?" MARK TWAIN "Well," I said, "I don't like the look of that very well." "I don't either," said Webb. "It simply means that there are conspirators among the very sentinels. Without their connivance in some way or other, the thing couldn't have been done." I sent for Rayburn, and ordered him to examine the batteries and see what he could find. The reading of the letter was then resumed: The new commands are peremptory, and require that the MMMM shall be FFFFF at 3 o'clock to-morrow morning. Two hundred will arrive, in small parcies, by train and other- wise, from various directions, and will be at appointed place at right time. I will distribute the sign to-day. Success is appar- ently sure, though something must have got out, for the sentries have been doubled, and the chiefs went the rounds last night several times. W. W. comes from southerly to-day and will receive secret orders by the other method. All six of you must be in 166 at sharp 2 A.M. You will find B. B. there, who will give you detailed instructions. Password same as last time, only reversed put first syllable last and last syllable first. REMEMBER XXXX. Do not forget. Be of good heart; before the next sun rises you will be heroes; your fame will be perma- nent; you will have added a deathless page to history. AMEN. "Thunder and Mars," said Webb, "but we are getting into mighty hot quarters, as I look at it!" I said there was no question but that things were beginning to wear a most serious aspect. Said I: "A desperate enterprise is on foot, that is plain enough. To-night is the time set for it that, also, is plain. The exact nature of the enterprise I mean the manner of it is hidden away under those blind bunches of M's and F's, but the end and aim, I judge, is the surprise and capture of the post. We must 308 move quick and sharp now. I think nothing can be gained by continuing our clandestine policy as re- gards Wicklow. We must know, and as soon as possible, too, where '166' is located, so that we can make a descent upon the gang there at 2 A.M.; and doubtless the quickest way to get that information will be to force it out of that boy. But first of all, and before we make any important move, I must lay the facts before the War Department, and ask for plenary powers." The despatch was prepared in cipher to go over the wires; I read it, approved it, and sent it along. We presently finished discussing the letter which was under consideration, and then opened the one which had been snatched from the lame gentleman. It contained nothing but a couple of perfectly blank sheets of note-paper! It was a chilly check to our hot eagerness and expectancy. We felt as blank as the paper, for a moment, and twice as foolish. But it was for a moment only; for, of course, we imme- diately afterward thought of "sympathetic ink." We held the paper close to the fire and watched for the characters to come out, under the influence of the heat; but nothing appeared but some faint tracings, which we could make nothing of. We then called in the surgeon, and sent him off with orders to apply every test he was acquainted with till he got the right one, and report the contents of the letter to me the instant he brought them to the surface. This check was a confounded annoyance, and we naturally chafed under the delay ; for we had fully expected to 300 MARK TWAIN get out of that letter some of the most important secrets of the plot. Now appeared Sergeant Rayburn, and drew from his pocket a piece of twine string about a foot long, with three knots tied in it, and held it up. "I got it out of a gun on the water-front," said he. "I took the tompions out of all the guns and examined close; this string was the only thing that was in any gun." So this bit of string was Wicklow's "sign" to signify that the "Master's" commands had not mis- carried. I ordered that every sentinel who had served near that gun during the past twenty-four hours be put in confinement at once and separately, and not allowed to communicate with any one without my privity and consent. A telegram now came from the Secretary of War. It read as follows: Suspend habeas corpus. Put town under martial law. Make necessary arrests. Act with vigor and promptness. Keep the Department informed. We were now in shape to go to work. I sent out and had the lame gentleman quietly arrested and as quietly brought into the fort; I placed him under guard, and forbade speech to him or from him. He was inclined to bluster at first, but he soon dropped that. Next came word that Wicklow had been seen to give something to a couple of our new recruits; and that, as soon as his back was turned, these had been seized and confined. Upon each was found 310 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE a small bit of paper, bearing these words and signs in pencil: EAGLE'S THIRD FLIGHT REMEMBER xxxx 1 66 In accordance with instructions, I telegraphed to the Department, in cipher, the progress made, and also described the above ticket. We seemed to be in a strong enough position now to venture to throw off the mask as regarded Wicklow; so I sent for him. I also sent for and received back the letter written in sympathetic ink, the surgeon accompanying it with the information that thus far it had resisted his tests, but that there were others he could apply when I should be ready for him to do so. Presently Wicklow entered. He had a somewhat worn and anxious look, but he was composed and easy, and if he suspected anything it did not appear in his face or manner. I allowed him to stand there a moment or two; then I said, pleasantly: "My boy, why do you go to that old stable so much?" He answered, with simple demeanor and without embarrassment : "Well, I hardly know, sir; there isn't any particu- lar reason, except that I like to be alone, and I amuse myself there." "You amuse yourself there, do you?" 3" MARK TWAIN "Yes, sir," he replied, as innocently and simply as before. "Is that all you do there?" "Yes, sir," he said, looking up with childlike wonderment in his big, soft eyes. "You are sure?" "Yes, sir, sure." After a pause I said: "Wicklow, why do you write so much?" "I? I do not write much, sir." "You don't?" "No, sir. Oh, if you mean scribbling, I do scribble some, for amusement." "What do you do with your scribblings?" "Nothing, sir throw them away." "Never send them to anybody?" "No, sir." I suddenly thrust before him the letter to the "Colonel." He started slightly, but immediately composed himself. A slight tinge spread itself over his cheek. "How came you to send this piece of scribbling, then?" "I nev never meant any harm, sir!" "Never meant any harm! You betray the arma- ment and condition of the post, and mean no harm by it?" He hung his head and was silent. "Come, speak up, and stop lying. Whom was this letter intended for?" He showed signs of distress now; but quickly col- lected himself, and replied, in a tone of deep earnestness : 312 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE "I will tell you the truth, sir the whole truth. The letter was never intended for anybody at all. I wrote it only to amuse myself. I see the error and foolishness of it now; but it is the only offense, sir, upon my honor." "Ah, I am glad of that. It is dangerous to be writing such letters. I hope you are sure this is the only one you wrote?" "Yes, sir, perfectly sure." His hardihood was stupefying. He told that lie with as sincere a countenance as any creature ever wore. I waited a moment to soothe down my rising temper, and then said: "Wicklow, jog your memory now, and see if you can help me with two or three little matters which I wish to inquire about." "I will do my very best, sir." "Then, to begin with who is 'the Master'?" It betrayed him into darting a startled glance at our faces, but that was all. He was serene again in a moment, and tranquilly answered: "I do not know, sir." "You do not know?" "I do not know." "You are sure you do not know?" He tried hard to keep his eyes on mine, but the strain was too great his chin sunk slowly toward his breast and he was silent ; he stood there nervously fumbling with a button, an object to command one's pity, in spite of his base acts. Presently I broke the stillness with the question : "Who are the 'Holy Alliance'?" 313 MARK TWAIN His body shook visibly, and he made a slight random gesture with his hands, which to me was like the appeal of a despairing creature for compassion. But he made no sound. He continued to stand with his face bent toward the ground. As we sat gazing at him, waiting for him to speak, we saw the big tears begin to roll down his cheeks. But he remained silent. After a little, I said: "You must answer me, my boy, and you must tell me the truth. Who are the Holy Alliance?" He wept on in silence. Presently I said, some- what sharply: "Answer the question!" He struggled to get command of his voice; and then, looking up appealingly, forced the words out between his sobs : "Oh, have pity on me, sir! I cannot answer it, for I do not know." "What!" "Indeed, sir, I am telling the truth. I never have heard of the Holy Alliance till this moment. On my honor, sir, this is so." "Good heavens! Look at this second letter of yours; there, do you see those words, 'Holy Alliance'? What do you say now?" He gazed up into my face with the hurt look of one upon whom a great wrong had been wrought, then said, feelingly: "This is some cruel joke, sir; and how could they play it upon me, who have tried all I could to do right, and have never done harm to anybody? Some one has counterfeited my hand; I never A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE wrote a line of this; I have never seen this letter before!" "Oh, you unspeakable liar! Here, what do you say to this?" and I snatched the sympathetic-ink letter from my pocket and thrust it before his eyes. His face turned white! as white as a dead per- son's. He wavered slightly in his tracks, and put his hand against the wall to steady himself. After a moment he asked, in so faint a voice that it was hardly audible: "Have you read it?" Our faces must have answered the truth before my lips could get out a false "yes," for I distinctly saw the courage come back into that boy's eyes. I waited for him to say something, but he kept silent. So at last I said: "Well, what have you to say as to the revelations in this letter?" He answered, with perfect composure : "Nothing, except that they are entirely harmless and innocent; they can hurt nobody." I was in something of a corner now, as I couldn't disprove his assertion. I did not know exactly how to proceed. However, an idea came to my relief, and I said: "You are sure you know nothing about the Master and the Holy Alliance, and did not write the letter which you say is a forgery?" "Yes, sir sure." I slowly drew out the knotted twine string and held it up without speaking. He gazed at it in- differently, then looked at me inquiringly. My pa- MARK TWAIN tience was sorely taxed. However, I kept my tem- per down, and said, in my usual voice: "Wicklow, do you see this?" "Yes, sir." "What is it?" "It seems to be a piece of string." "Seems? It is a piece of string. Do you recog- nize it?" "No, sir," he replied, as calmly as the words could be uttered. His coolness was perfectly wonderful! I paused now for several seconds, in order that the silence might add impressiveness to what I was about to say; then I rose and laid my hand on his shoulder, and said, gravely: "It will do you no good, poor boy, none in the world. This sign to the 'Master,' this knotted string, found in one of the guns on the water- front" "Found in the gun! Oh, no, no, no! do not say in the gun, but in a crack in the tompion! it must have been in the crack!" and down he went on his knees and clasped his hands and lifted up a face that was pitiful to see, so ashy it was, and wild with terror. "No, it was in the gun." "Oh, something has gone wrong! My God, I am lost!" and he sprang up and darted this way and that, dodging the hands that were put out to catch him, and doing his best to escape from the place. But of course escape was impossible. Then he flung himself on his knees again, crying with all his might, 316 A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE and clasped me around the legs; and so he clung to me and begged and pleaded, saying, "Oh, have pity on me! Oh, be merciful to me! Do not betray me; they would not spare my life a moment! Protect me, save me. I will confess everything!" It took us some time to quiet him down and modify his fright, and get him into something like a rational frame of mind. Then I began to question him, he answering humbly, with downcast eyes, and from time to time swabbing away his constantly flowing tears: "So you are at heart a rebel?" "Yes, sir." "And a spy?" "Yes, sir." "And have been acting under distinct orders from outside?" "Yes, sir." "Willingly?" "Yes, sir." "Gladly, perhaps?" "Yes, sir; it would do no good to deny it. The South is my country; my heart is Southern, and it is all in her cause."