SKETCHES NEW AND OLD

by Mark Twain

CONTENTS:

 Preface My Watch Political Economy The Jumping Frog Journalism In Tennessee The Story Of The Bad Little Boy The Story Of The Good Little Boy A Couple Of Poems By Twain And Moore Niagara Answers To Correspondents To Raise Poultry Experience Of The Mcwilliamses With Membranous Croup My First Literary Venture How The Author Was Sold In Newark The Office Bore Johnny Greer The Facts In The Case Of The Great Beef Contract The Case Of George Fisher Disgraceful Persecution Of A Boy The Judges "Spirited Woman" Information Wanted Some Learned Fables, For Good Old Boys And Girls My Late Senatorial Secretaryship A Fashion Item Riley-Newspaper Correspondent A Fine Old Man Science Vs. Luck The Late Benjamin Franklin Mr. Bloke's Item A Medieval Romance Petition Concerning Copyright After-Dinner Speech Lionizing Murderers A New Crime A Curious Dream A True Story The Siamese Twins Speech At The Scottish Banquet In London A Ghost Story The Capitoline Venus Speech On Accident Insurance John Chinaman In New York How I Edited An Agricultural Paper The Petrified Man My Bloody Massacre The Undertaker's Chat Concerning Chambermaids Aurelia's Unfortunate Young Man "After" Jenkins About Barbers "Party Cries" In Ireland The Facts Concerning The Recent Resignation History Repeats Itself Honored As A Curiosity First Interview With Artemus Ward Cannibalism In The Cars The Killing Of Julius Caesar "Localized" The Widow's Protest The Scriptural Panoramist Curing A Cold A Curious Pleasure Excursion Running For Governor A Mysterious Visit

PREFACE

I have scattered through this volume a mass of matter which has neverbeen in print before (such as "Learned Fables for Good Old Boys andGirls, " the "Jumping Frog restored to the English tongue after martyrdomin the French, " the "Membranous Croup" sketch, and many others which Ineed not specify): not doing this in order to make an advertisement ofit, but because these things seemed instructive. 

HARTFORD, 1875. MARK TWAIN. 

SKETCHES NEW AND OLD

MY WATCH--[Written about 1870. ]

AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE

My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had cometo believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and toconsider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, onenight, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognizedmessenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, setthe watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart. Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact time, and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded toset it for me. Then he said, "She is four minutes slow-regulator wantspushing up. " I tried to stop him--tried to make him understand that thewatch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see wasthat the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed upa little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored himto let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. Mywatch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within theweek it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse went up to a hundredand fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all thetimepieces of the town far in the rear, and was a fraction over thirteendays ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow, while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent, bills payable, and such things, in such a ruinous way that I could notabide it. I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if Ihad ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open, and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating--come in aweek. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed downto that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left bytrains, I failed all appointments, I got to missing my dinner; my watchstrung out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest;I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into lastweek, and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary andalone I was lingering along in week before last, and the world was out ofsight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feelingfor the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I wentto a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited, and then said the barrel was "swelled. " He said he could reduce it inthree days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. Forhalf a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barkingand wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting, that I could nothear myself think for the disturbance; and as long as it held out therewas not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But therest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until allthe clocks it had left behind caught up again. So at last, at the end oftwenty-four hours, it would trot up to the judges' stand all right andjust in time. It would show a fair and square average, and no man couldsay it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average isonly a mild virtue in a watch, and I took this instrument to anotherwatchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I was glad it wasnothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what theking-bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger. He repaired the king-bolt, but what the watch gained in one way it lostin another. It would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then runawhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded mybreast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. He picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under hisglass; and then he said there appeared to be something the matter withthe hair-trigger. He fixed it, and gave it a fresh start. It did wellnow, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shuttogether like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they wouldtravel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tailof the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thingrepaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent, and that themainspring was not straight. He also remarked that part of the worksneeded half-soling. He made these things all right, and then mytimepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, afterworking along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would letgo all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands wouldstraightway begin to spin round and round so fast that theirindividuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicatespider's web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the nexttwenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang. I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while hetook her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, forthis thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollarsoriginally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand forrepairs. While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in thiswatchmaker an old acquaintance--a steamboat engineer of other days, andnot a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, justas the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict withthe same confidence of manner. 

He said:

"She makes too much steam-you want to hang the monkey-wrench on thesafety-valve!"

I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own expense. 

My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was, a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a goodwatch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder whatbecame of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers, and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him. 

POLITICAL ECONOMY

 Political Economy is the basis of all good government. The wisest men of all ages have brought to bear upon this subject the--

[Here I was interrupted and informed that a stranger wished to see medown at the door. I went and confronted him, and asked to know hisbusiness, struggling all the time to keep a tight rein on my seethingpolitical-economy ideas, and not let them break away from me or gettangled in their harness. And privately I wished the stranger was in thebottom of the canal with a cargo of wheat on top of him. I was all in afever, but he was cool. He said he was sorry to disturb me, but as hewas passing he noticed that I needed some lightning-rods. I said, "Yes, yes--go on--what about it?" He said there was nothing about it, inparticular--nothing except that he would like to put them up for me. I am new to housekeeping; have been used to hotels and boarding-housesall my life. Like anybody else of similar experience, I try to appear(to strangers) to be an old housekeeper; consequently I said in anoffhand way that I had been intending for some time to have six or eightlightning-rods put up, but--The stranger started, and looked inquiringlyat me, but I was serene. I thought that if I chanced to make anymistakes, he would not catch me by my countenance. He said he wouldrather have my custom than any man's in town. I said, "All right, " andstarted off to wrestle with my great subject again, when he called meback and said it would be necessary to know exactly how many "points" Iwanted put up, what parts of the house I wanted them on, and what qualityof rod I preferred. It was close quarters for a man not used to theexigencies of housekeeping; but I went through creditably, and heprobably never suspected that I was a novice. I told him to put up eight"points, " and put them all on the roof, and use the best quality of rod. He said he could furnish the "plain" article at 20 cents a foot;"coppered, " 25 cents; "zinc-plated spiral-twist, " at 30 cents, that wouldstop a streak of lightning any time, no matter where it was bound, and"render its errand harmless and its further progress apocryphal. " I saidapocryphal was no slouch of a word, emanating from the source it did, but, philology aside, I liked the spiral-twist and would take that brand. Then he said he could make two hundred and fifty feet answer; but to doit right, and make the best job in town of it, and attract the admirationof the just and the unjust alike, and compel all parties to say theynever saw a more symmetrical and hypothetical display of lightning-rodssince they were born, he supposed he really couldn't get along withoutfour hundred, though he was not vindictive, and trusted he was willing totry. I said, go ahead and use four hundred, and make any kind of a jobhe pleased out of it, but let me get back to my work. So I got rid ofhim at last; and now, after half an hour spent in getting my train ofpolitical-economy thoughts coupled together again, I am ready to go ononce more. ]

 richest treasures of their genius, their experience of life, and their learning. The great lights of commercial jurisprudence, international confraternity, and biological deviation, of all ages, all civilizations, and all nationalities, from Zoroaster down to Horace Greeley, have--

[Here I was interrupted again, and required to go down and confer furtherwith that lightning-rod man. I hurried off, boiling and surging withprodigious thoughts wombed in words of such majesty that each one of themwas in itself a straggling procession of syllables that might be fifteenminutes passing a given point, and once more I confronted him--he so calmand sweet, I so hot and frenzied. He was standing in the contemplativeattitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, with one foot on my infant tuberose, and the other among my pansies, his hands on his hips, his hat-brimtilted forward, one eye shut and the other gazing critically andadmiringly in the direction of my principal chimney. He said now therewas a state of things to make a man glad to be alive; and added, "I leaveit to you if you ever saw anything more deliriously picturesque thaneight lightning-rods on one chimney?" I said I had no presentrecollection of anything that transcended it. He said that in hisopinion nothing on earth but Niagara Falls was superior to it in the wayof natural scenery. All that was needed now, he verily believed, to makemy house a perfect balm to the eye, was to kind of touch up the otherchimneys a little, and thus "add to the generous 'coup d'oeil' a soothinguniformity of achievement which would allay the excitement naturallyconsequent upon the 'coup d'etat. '" I asked him if he learned to talkout of a book, and if I could borrow it anywhere? He smiled pleasantly, and said that his manner of speaking was not taught in books, and thatnothing but familiarity with lightning could enable a man to handle hisconversational style with impunity. He then figured up an estimate, andsaid that about eight more rods scattered about my roof would about fixme right, and he guessed five hundred feet of stuff would do it; andadded that the first eight had got a little the start of him, so tospeak, and used up a mere trifle of material more than he had calculatedon--a hundred feet or along there. I said I was in a dreadful hurry, and I wished we could get this business permanently mapped out, so that Icould go on with my work. He said, "I could have put up those eightrods, and marched off about my business--some men would have done it. But no; I said to myself, this man is a stranger to me, and I will diebefore I'll wrong him; there ain't lightning-rods enough on that house, and for one I'll never stir out of my tracks till I've done as I would bedone by, and told him so. Stranger, my duty is accomplished; if therecalcitrant and dephlogistic messenger of heaven strikes your--""There, now, there, " I said, "put on the other eight--add five hundredfeet of spiral-twist--do anything and everything you want to do; but calmyour sufferings, and try to keep your feelings where you can reach themwith the dictionary. Meanwhile, if we understand each other now, I willgo to work again. "

I think I have been sitting here a full hour this time, trying to getback to where I was when my train of thought was broken up by the lastinterruption; but I believe I have accomplished it at last, and mayventure to proceed again. ]

 wrestled with this great subject, and the greatest among them have found it a worthy adversary, and one that always comes up fresh and smiling after every throw. The great Confucius said that he would rather be a profound political economist than chief of police. Cicero frequently said that political economy was the grandest consummation that the human mind was capable of consuming; and even our own Greeley had said vaguely but forcibly that "Political--

[Here the lightning-rod man sent up another call for me. I went down ina state of mind bordering on impatience. He said he would rather havedied than interrupt me, but when he was employed to do a job, and thatjob was expected to be done in a clean, workmanlike manner, and when itwas finished and fatigue urged him to seek the rest and recreation hestood so much in need of, and he was about to do it, but looked up andsaw at a glance that all the calculations had been a little out, and if athunder-storm were to come up, and that house, which he felt a personalinterest in, stood there with nothing on earth to protect it but sixteenlightning-rods--"Let us have peace!" I shrieked. "Put up a hundred andfifty! Put some on the kitchen! Put a dozen on the barn! Put a coupleon the cow! Put one on the cook!--scatter them all over the persecutedplace till it looks like a zinc-plated, spiral-twisted, silver-mountedcanebrake! Move! Use up all the material you can get your hands on, andwhen you run out of lightning-rods put up ramrods, cam-rods, stair-rods, piston-rods--anything that will pander to your dismal appetite forartificial scenery, and bring respite to my raging brain and healing tomy lacerated soul!" Wholly unmoved--further than to smile sweetly--thisiron being simply turned back his wrist-bands daintily, and said he wouldnow proceed to hump himself. Well, all that was nearly three hours ago. It is questionable whether I am calm enough yet to write on the nobletheme of political economy, but I cannot resist the desire to try, for itis the one subject that is nearest to my heart and dearest to my brain ofall this world's philosophy. ]

 economy is heaven's best boon to man. " When the loose but gifted Byron lay in his Venetian exile he observed that, if it could be granted him to go back and live his misspent life over again, he would give his lucid and unintoxicated intervals to the composition, not of frivolous rhymes, but of essays upon political economy. Washington loved this exquisite science; such names as Baker, Beckwith, Judson, Smith, are imperishably linked with it; and even imperial Homer, in the ninth book of the Iliad, has said:

 Fiat justitia, ruat coelum, Post mortem unum, ante bellum, Hic facet hoc, ex-parte res, Politicum e-conomico est. 

 The grandeur of these conceptions of the old poet, together with the felicity of the wording which clothes them, and the sublimity of the imagery whereby they are illustrated, have singled out that stanza, and made it more celebrated than any that ever--

["Now, not a word out of you--not a single word. Just state your billand relapse into impenetrable silence for ever and ever on thesepremises. Nine hundred, dollars? Is that all? This check for theamount will be honored at any respectable bank in America. What is thatmultitude of people gathered in the street for? How?--'looking at thelightning-rods!' Bless my life, did they never see any lightning-rodsbefore? Never saw 'such a stack of them on one establishment, ' did Iunderstand you to say? I will step down and critically observe thispopular ebullition of ignorance. "]

THREE DAYS LATER. --We are all about worn out. For four-and-twenty hoursour bristling premises were the talk and wonder of the town. Thetheaters languished, for their happiest scenic inventions were tame andcommonplace compared with my lightning-rods. Our street was blockednight and day with spectators, and among them were many who came fromthe country to see. It was a blessed relief on the second day when athunderstorm came up and the lightning began to "go for" my house, as thehistorian Josephus quaintly phrases it. It cleared the galleries, so tospeak. In five minutes there was not a spectator within half a mile ofmy place; but all the high houses about that distance away were full, windows, roof, and all. And well they might be, for all the fallingstars and Fourth-of-July fireworks of a generation, put together andrained down simultaneously out of heaven in one brilliant shower upon onehelpless roof, would not have any advantage of the pyrotechnic displaythat was making my house so magnificently conspicuous in the generalgloom of the storm. 

By actual count, the lightning struck at my establishment sevenhundred and sixty-four times in forty minutes, but tripped on one ofthose faithful rods every time, and slid down the spiral-twist and shotinto the earth before it probably had time to be surprised at the way thething was done. And through all that bombardment only one patch of slateswas ripped up, and that was because, for a single instant, the rods inthe vicinity were transporting all the lightning they could possiblyaccommodate. Well, nothing was ever seen like it since the world began. For one whole day and night not a member of my family stuck his head outof the window but he got the hair snatched off it as smooth as abilliard-ball; and; if the reader will believe me, not one of us everdreamt of stirring abroad. But at last the awful siege came to anend-because there was absolutely no more electricity left in the cloudsabove us within grappling distance of my insatiable rods. Then I salliedforth, and gathered daring workmen together, and not a bite or a nap didwe take till the premises were utterly stripped of all their terrificarmament except just three rods on the house, one on the kitchen, and oneon the barn--and, behold, these remain there even unto this day. Andthen, and not till then, the people ventured to use our street again. I will remark here, in passing, that during that fearful time I did notcontinue my essay upon political economy. I am not even yet settledenough in nerve and brain to resume it. 

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. --Parties having need of three thousand twohundred and eleven feet of best quality zinc-plated spiral-twistlightning-rod stuff, and sixteen hundred and thirty-one silver-tippedpoints, all in tolerable repair (and, although much worn by use, stillequal to any ordinary emergency), can hear of a bargains by addressingthe publisher. 

THE JUMPING FROG [written about 1865]

IN ENGLISH. THEN IN FRENCH. THEN CLAWED BACK INTO A CIVILIZED LANGUAGEONCE MORE BY PATIENT, UNREMUNERATED TOIL. 

Even a criminal is entitled to fair play; and certainly when a man whohas done no harm has been unjustly treated, he is privileged to do hisbest to right himself. My attention has just been called to an articlesome three years old in a French Magazine entitled, 'Revue des DeuxMondes' (Review of Some Two Worlds), wherein the writer treats of "LesHumoristes Americaines" (These Humorist Americans). I am one of thesehumorists American dissected by him, and hence the complaint I am making. 

This gentleman's article is an able one (as articles go, in the French, where they always tangle up everything to that degree that when you startinto a sentence you never know whether you are going to come out alive ornot). It is a very good article and the writer says all manner of kindand complimentary things about me--for which I am sure thank him with allmy heart; but then why should he go and spoil all his praise by oneunlucky experiment? What I refer to is this: he says my jumping Frog isa funny story, but still he can't see why it should ever really convulseany one with laughter--and straightway proceeds to translate it intoFrench in order to prove to his nation that there is nothing so veryextravagantly funny about it. Just there is where my complaintoriginates. He has not translated it at all; he has simply mixed it allup; it is no more like the jumping Frog when he gets through with it thanI am like a meridian of longitude. But my mere assertion is not proof;wherefore I print the French version, that all may see that I do notspeak falsely; furthermore, in order that even the unlettered may know myinjury and give me their compassion, I have been at infinite pains andtrouble to retranslate this French version back into English; and to tellthe truth I have well-nigh worn myself out at it, having scarcely restedfrom my work during five days and nights. I cannot speak the Frenchlanguage, but I can translate very well, though not fast, I beingself-educated. I ask the reader to run his eye over the original Englishversion of the jumping Frog, and then read the French or myretranslation, and kindly take notice how the Frenchman has riddled thegrammar. I think it is the worst I ever saw; and yet the French arecalled a polished nation. If I had a boy that put sentences together asthey do, I would polish him to some purpose. Without furtherintroduction, the jumping Frog, as I originally wrote it, was as follows[after it will be found the French version--(French version is deletedfrom this edition)--, and after the latter my retranslation from theFrench]

THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY [Pronounced Cal-e-va-ras]

In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from theEast, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquiredafter my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and Ihereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth that my friend never knew such a personage; and that heon conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind himof his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to deathwith some exasperating reminiscence him as long and as tedious as itshould be useless to me. If that was the design, it succeeded. 

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of thedilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp Angel's, and I noticed thathe was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentlenessand simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up, and gave megood day. I told him that a friend of mine had commissioned me to makesome inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named LeonidasW. Smiley--Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the Gospel, whohe had heard was at one time resident of Angel's Camp. I added that ifMr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him. 

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with hischair, and then sat down and reeled off the monotonous narrative whichfollows this paragraph. He never smiled he never frowned, he neverchanged his voice from the gentle flowing key to which he tuned hisinitial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion ofenthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a veinof impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funnyabout his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admiredits two heroes as men of transcendent genius in 'finesse. ' I let him goon in his own way, and never interrupted him once. 

"Rev. Leonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le--well, there was a feller here, onceby the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49--or maybe it was thespring of '50--I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes methink it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn'tfinished when he first come to the camp; but anyway, he was thecuriousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you eversee, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn'the'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him anyway just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready andlaying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned butthat feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I wasjust telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush oryou'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'dbet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was achicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on afence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was acamp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which hejudged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was too, and a goodman. If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would betyou how long it would take him to get to--to wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico butwhat he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on theroad. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you abouthim. Why, it never made no difference to him--he'd bet on any thing--thedangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a goodwhile, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morninghe come in, and Smiley up and asked him how she was, and he said she wasconsiderable better--thank the Lord for his inf'nite mercy--and coming onso smart that with the blessing of Prov'dence she'd get well yet; andSmiley, before he thought, says, 'Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half shedon't anyway. '

"Thish-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because of course she was faster thanthat--and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow andalways had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or somethingof that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag end of the race sheget excited and desperate like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, andsometimes out to one side among the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dustand raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing hernose--and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck ahead, as nearas you could cipher it down. 

"And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think hewarn't worth a cent but to set around and look ornery and lay for achance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him he was adifferent dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle ofa steamboat, and his teeth would uncover and shine like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw himover his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson--which was thename of the pup--Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he wassatisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else--and the bets being doubledand doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up;and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'intof his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you understand, but only justgrip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog oncethat didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off in acircular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the moneywas all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he see in aminute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in thedoor, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorterdiscouraged-like and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he gotshucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart wasbroke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hindlegs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a goodpup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself ifhe'd lived, for the stuff was in him and he had genius--I know it, because he hadn't no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand toreason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under themcircumstances if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry whenI think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out. 

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tomcatsand all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn'tfetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frogone day, and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him; and sohe never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learnthat frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him alittle punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling inthe air like a doughnut--see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like acat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and kep' him inpractice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur as he couldsee him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do'most anything--and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Websterdown here on this floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog--and singout, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd springstraight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on thefloor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side ofhis head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'dbeen doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modestand straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when itcome to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over moreground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when itcome to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellersthat had traveled and been everywheres all said he laid over any frogthat ever they see. 

"Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice box, and he used tofetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller--a stranger in the camp, he was--come acrost him with his box, and says:

"'What might it be that you've got in the box?'

"And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, 'It might be a parrot, or itmight be a canary, maybe, but it ain't--it's only just a frog. '

"And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it roundthis way and that, and says, 'H'm--so 'tis. Well, what's HE good for. 

"'Well, ' Smiley says, easy and careless, 'he's good enough for one thing, I should judge--he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County. 

"The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, 'Well, ' he says, 'I don't see no pints about that frog that's any better'n any otherfrog. '

"'Maybe you don't, ' Smiley says. 'Maybe you understand frogs and maybeyou don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe youain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'llresk forty dollars the he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County. '

"And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad-like, 'Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you. 

"And then Smiley says, 'That's all right--that's all right if you'll holdmy box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog. ' Any so the feller took thebox, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down towait. 

"So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to himself and thenhe got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon andfilled him full of quail-shot-filled him pretty near up to his chin--andset him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around inthe mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched himin, and give him to this feller and says:

"'Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore pawsjust even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the word. ' Then he says, 'One-two-three--git' and him and the feller touches up the frogs frombehind, and the new frog hopped off lively but Dan'l give a heave, andhysted up his shoulders---so-like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use--hecouldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn't nomore stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter wasof course. 

"The Teller took the money and started away; and when he was going out atthe door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--so--at Dan'l, andsays again, very deliberate, 'Well, ' he says, 'I don't see no pints aboutthat frog that's any better'n any other frog. '

"Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a longtime, and at last he says, 'I do wonder what in the nation that frogthrow'd off for--I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow. ' And he ketched Dan'l by thenap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why blame my cats if he don'tweigh five pound!' and turned him upside down and he belched out a doublehandful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man--he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he neverketched him. And--"

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got upto see what was wanted. ] And turning to me as he moved away, he said:"Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy--I ain't going to begone a second. "

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history ofthe enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me muchinformation concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I startedaway. 

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed meand recommenced:

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have notail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and--"

However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear aboutthe afflicted cow, but took my leave. 

Now let the learned look upon this picture and say if iconoclasm canfurther go:

[From the Revue des Deux Mondes, of July 15th, 1872. ]

 ....................... 

THE JUMPING FROG

"--Il y avait, une fois ici un individu connu sous le nom de Jim Smiley:c'etait dans l'hiver de 49, peut-etre bien au printemps de 50, je ne mereappelle pas exactement. Ce qui me fait croire que c'etait l'un oul'autre, c'est que je me souviens que le grand bief n'etait pas achevelorsqu'il arriva au camp pour la premiere fois, mais de toutes facons iletait l'homme le plus friand de paris qui se put voir, pariant sur toutce qui se presentaat, quand il pouvait trouver un adversaire, et, quandn'en trouvait pas il passait du cote oppose. Tout ce qui convenaiatl'autre lui convenait; pourvu qu'il eut un pari, Smiley etait satisfait. Et il avait une chance! une chance inouie: presque toujours il gagnait. It faut dire qu'il etait toujours pret a'exposer, qu'on ne pouvaitmentionner la moindre chose sans que ce gaillard offrit de parierla-dessus n'importe quoi et de prendre le cote que l'on voudrait, commeje vous le disais tout a l'heure. S'il y avait des courses, vous letrouviez riche ou ruine a la fin; s'il y avait un combat de chiens, ilapportait son enjeu; il l'apportait pour un combat de chats, pour uncombat de coqs;--parbleu! si vous aviez vu deux oiseaux sur une haie ilvous aurait offert de parier lequel s'envolerait le premier, et s'il yaviat 'meeting' au camp, il venait parier regulierement pour le cureWalker, qu'il jugeait etre le meilleur predicateur des environs, et quil'etait en effet, et un brave homme. Il aurai rencontre une punaise debois en chemin, qu'il aurait parie sur le temps qu'il lui faudrait pouraller ou elle voudrait aller, et si vous l'aviez pris au mot, it auraitsuivi la punaise jusqu'au Mexique, sans se soucier d'aller si loin, ni dutemps qu'il y perdrait. Une fois la femme du cure Walker fut tres maladependant longtemps, il semblait qu'on ne la sauverait pas; mai un matin lecure arrive, et Smiley lui demande comment ella va et il dit qu'elle estbien mieux, grace a l'infinie misericorde tellement mieux qu'avec labenediction de la Providence elle s'en tirerait, et voila que, sans ypenser, Smiley repond:--Eh bien! ye gage deux et demi qu'elle mourra toutde meme. 

"Ce Smiley avait une jument que les gars appelaient le bidet du quartd'heure, mais seulement pour plaisanter, vous comprenez, parse que, bienentendu, elle etait plus vite que ca! Et il avait coutume de gagner del'argent avec cette bete, quoi-qu'elle fut poussive, cornarde, toujoursprise d'asthme, de colique ou de consomption, ou de quelque chosed'approchant. On lui donnait 2 ou 300 'yards' au depart, puffs on ladepassait sans peine; mais jamais a la fin elle ne manquait des'echauffer, de s'exasperer et elle arrivait, s'ecartant, se defendant, ses jambes greles en l'ai devant les obstacles, quelquefois les evitantet faisant avec cela plus de poussiare qu'aucun cheval, plus de bruitsurtout avec ses eternumens et reniflemens. ---crac! elle arrivaat donctoujour premiere d'une tete, aussi juste qu'on peut le mesurer. Et ilavait un petit bouledogue qui, a le voir, ne valait pas un sou; on auraitcru que parier contre lui c'etait voler, tant il etait ordinaire; maisaussitot les enjeux faits, il devenait un autre chien. Sa machoireinferieure commencait a ressortir comme un gaillard d'avant, ses dents sedecouvcraient brillantes commes des fournaises, et un chien pouvait letaquiner, l'exciter, le mordre, le jeter deux ou trois fois par-dessusson epaule, Andre Jackson, c'etait le nom du chien, Andre Jackson prenaitcela tranquillement, comme s'il ne se fut jamais attendu a autre chose, et quand les paris etaient doubles et redoubles contre lui, il voussaisissait l'autre chien juste a l'articulation de la jambe de derriere, et il ne la lachait plus, non pas qu'il la machat, vous concevez, mais ils'y serait tenu pendu jusqu'a ce qu'on jetat l'eponge en l'air, fallut-ilattendre un an. Smiley gagnait toujours avec cette bete-la;malheureusement ils ont fini par dresser un chien qui n'avait pas depattes de derriere, parce qu'on les avait sciees, et quand les chosesfurent au point qu'il voulait, et qu'il en vint a se jeter sur sonmorceau favori, le pauvre chien comprit en un instant qu'on s'etait moquede lui, et que l'autre le tenait. Vous n'avez jamais vu personne avoirl'air plus penaud et plus decourage; il ne fit aucun effort pour gagnerle combat et fut rudement secoue, de sorte que, regardant Smiley commepour lui dire:--Mon coeur est brise, c'est to faute; pourquoi m'avoirlivre a un chien qui n'a pas de pattes de derriere, puisque c'est par laque je les bats?--il s'en alla en clopinant, et se coucha pour mourir. Ah! c'etait un bon chien, cet Andre Jackson, et il se serait fait un nom, s'il avait vecu, car il y avait de l'etoffe en lui, il avait du genie, je la sais, bien que de grandes occasions lui aient manque; mais il estimpossible de supposer qu'un chien capable de se battre comme lui, certaines circonstances etant donnees, ait manque de talent. Je me senstriste toutes les fois que je pense a son dernier combat et au denoumentqu'il a eu. Eh bien! ce Smiley nourrissait des terriers a rats, et descoqs combat, et des chats, et toute sorte de choses, au point qu'il etaittoujours en mesure de vous tenir tete, et qu'avec sa rage de paris onn'avait plus de repos. Il attrapa un jour une grenouille et l'emportachez lui, disant qu'il pretendait faire son Education; vous me croirez sivous voulez, mais pendant trois mois il n'a rien fait que lui apprendre asauter dans une cour retire de sa maison. Et je vous reponds qu'il avaitreussi. Il lui donnait un petit coup par derriere, et l'instant d'apresvous voyiez la grenouille tourner en l'air comme un beignet au-dessus dela poele, faire une culbute, quelquefois deux, lorsqu'elle etait bienpartie, et retomber sur ses pattes comme un chat. Il l'avait dresseedans l'art de gober des mouches, er l'y exercait continuellement, si bienqu'une mouche, du plus loin qu'elle apparaissait, etait une moucheperdue. Smiley avait coutume de dire que tout ce qui manquait a unegrenouille, c'etait l'education, qu'avec l'education elle pouvait fairepresque tout, et je le crois. Tenez, je l'ai vu poser Daniel Webster lasur se plancher, --Daniel Webster etait le nom de la grenouille, --et luichanter: Des mouches! Daniel, des mouches!--En un clin d'oeil, Danielavait bondi et saisi une mouche ici sur le comptoir, puis saute denouveau par terre, ou il restait vraiment a se gratter la tete avec sapatte de derriere, comme s'il n'avait pas eu la moindre idee de sasuperiorite. Jamais vous n'avez grenouille vu de aussi modeste, aussinaturelle, douee comme elle l'etait! Et quand il s'agissait de sauterpurement et simplement sur terrain plat, elle faisait plus de chemin enun saut qu'aucune bete de son espece que vous puissiez connaitre. Sautera plat, c'etait son fort! Quand il s'agissait de cela, Smiley en tassaitles enjeux sur elle tant qu'il lui, restait un rouge liard. Il faut lereconnaitre, Smiley etait monstrueusement fier de sa grenouille, et il enavait le droit, car des gens qui avaient voyage, qui avaient tout vu, disaient qu'on lui ferait injure de la comparer a une autre; de facon queSmiley gardait Daniel dans une petite boite a claire-voie qu'il emportaitparfois a la Ville pour quelque pari. 

"Un jour, un individu etranger au camp l'arrete aver sa boite et luidit:--Qu'est-ce que vous avez donc serre la dedans?

"Smiley dit d'un air indifferent:--Cela pourrait etre un perroquet ou unserin, mais ce n'est rien de pareil, ce n'est qu'une grenouille. 

"L'individu la prend, la regarde avec soin, la tourne d'un cote et del'autre puis il dit. --Tiens! en effet! A quoi estelle bonne?

"--Mon Dieu! repond Smiley, toujours d'un air degage, elle est bonne pourune chose a mon avis, elle peut battre en sautant toute grenouille ducomte de Calaveras. 

"L'individu reprend la boite, l'examine de nouveau longuement, et la renda Smiley en disant d'un air delibere:--Eh bien! je ne vois pas que cettegrenouille ait rien de mieux qu'aucune grenouille. 

"--Possible qua vous ne le voyiez pat, dit Smiley, possible que vous vousentendiez en grenouilles, possible que vous ne vous y entendez point, possible qua vous avez de l'experience, et possible que vous ne soyezqu'un amateur. De toute maniere, je parie quarante dollars qu'ellebattra en sautant n'importe quelle grenouille du comte de Calaveras. 

"L'individu reflechit one seconde et dit comma attriste:--Je ne suisqu'un etranger ici, je n'ai pas de grenouille; mais, si j'enavais une, je tiendrais le pari. 

"--Fort bien! repond Smiley. Rien de plus facile. Si vous voulez tenirma boite one minute, j'irai vous chercher une grenouille. --Voile doncl'individu qui garde la boite, qui met ses quarante dollars sur ceux deSmiley et qui attend. Il attend assez longtemps, reflechissant toutseul, et figurez-vous qu'il prend Daniel, lui ouvre la bouche de force atavec une cuiller a the l'emplit de menu plomb de chasse, mail l'emplitjusqu'au menton, puis il le pose par terre. Smiley pendant ce tempsetait a barboter dans une mare. Finalement il attrape une grenouille, l'apporte cet individu et dit:--Maintenant, si vous etes pret, mettez-latout contra Daniel, avec leurs pattes de devant sur la meme ligne, et jedonnerai le signal; puis il ajoute:--Un, deux, trois, sautez!

"Lui et l'individu touchent leurs grenouilles par derriere, et lagrenouille neuve se met h sautiller, mais Daniel se souleve lourdement, hausse les epaules ainsi, comma un Francais; a quoi bon? il ne pouvaitbouger, il etait plante solide comma une enclume, il n'avancait pas plusque si on l'eut mis a l'ancre. Smiley fut surpris et degoute, mais il nese doutait pas du tour, bien entendu. L'individu empoche l'argent, s'enva, et en s'en allant est-ce qu'il ne donna pas un coup de poucepardessus l'epaule, comma ca, au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son airdelibere:--Eh bien! je ne vois pas qua cette grenouille ait rien de muiexqu'une autre. 

"Smiley se gratta longtemps la tete, les yeux fixes Sur Daniel; jusqu'ace qu'enfin il dit:--je me demande comment diable il se fait qua cettebite ait refuse, . . . Est-ce qu'elle aurait quelque chose? . . . Oncroirait qu'elle est enflee. 

"Il empoigne Daniel par la peau du coo, le souleve et dit:--Le loup mecroque, s'il ne pese pas cinq livres. 

"Il le retourne, et le malheureux crache deux poignees de plomb. QuandSmiley reconnut ce qui en etait, il fut comme fou. Vous le voyez d'iciposer sa grenouille par terra et courir apres cet individu, mais il ne lerattrapa jamais, et .... "

[Translation of the above back from the French:]

THE FROG JUMPING OF THE COUNTY OF CALAVERAS

It there was one time here an individual known under the name of JimSmiley; it was in the winter of '89, possibly well at the spring of '50, I no me recollect not exactly. This which me makes to believe that itwas the one or the other, it is that I shall remember that the grandflume is not achieved when he arrives at the camp for the first time, butof all sides he was the man the most fond of to bet which one have seen, betting upon all that which is presented, when he could find anadversary; and when he not of it could not, he passed to the sideopposed. All that which convenienced to the other to him conveniencedalso; seeing that he had a bet Smiley was satisfied. And he had achance! a chance even worthless; nearly always he gained. It must to saythat he was always near to himself expose, but one no could mention theleast thing without that this gaillard offered to bet the bottom, nomatter what, and to take the side that one him would, as I you it saidall at the hour (tout a l'heure). If it there was of races, you him findrich or ruined at the end; if it, here is a combat of dogs, he bring hisbet; he himself laid always for a combat of cats, for a combat of cocks--by-blue! If you have see two birds upon a fence, he you should haveoffered of to bet which of those birds shall fly the first; and if thereis meeting at the camp (meeting au camp) he comes to bet regularly forthe cure Walker, which he judged to be the best predicator of theneighborhood (predicateur des environs) and which he was in effect, and abrave man. He would encounter a bug of wood in the road, whom he willbet upon the time which he shall take to go where she would go--and ifyou him have take at the word, he will follow the bug as far as Mexique, without himself caring to go so far; neither of the time which he therelost. One time the woman of the cure Walker is very sick during longtime, it seemed that one not her saved not; but one morning the curearrives, and Smiley him demanded how she goes, and he said that she iswell better, grace to the infinite misery (lui demande comment elle va, et il dit qu'elle est bien mieux, grace a l'infinie misericorde) so muchbetter that with the benediction of the Providence she herself of itwould pull out (elle s'en tirerait); and behold that without therethinking Smiley responds: "Well, I gage two-and-half that she will dieall of same. "

This Smiley had an animal which the boys called the nag of the quarter ofhour, but solely for pleasantry, you comprehend, because, wellunderstand, she was more fast as that! [Now why that exclamation?--M. T. ]And it was custom of to gain of the silver with this beast, notwithstanding she was poussive, cornarde, always taken of asthma, ofcolics or of consumption, or something of approaching. One him wouldgive two or three hundred yards at the departure, then one him passedwithout pain; but never at the last she not fail of herself echauffer, of herself exasperate, and she arrives herself ecartant, se defendant, her legs greles in the air before the obstacles, sometimes them elevatingand making with this more of dust than any horse, more of noise abovewith his eternumens and reniflemens--crac! she arrives then always firstby one head, as just as one can it measure. And he had a small bulldog(bouledogue!) who, to him see, no value, not a cent; one would believethat to bet against him it was to steal, so much he was ordinary; but assoon as the game made, she becomes another dog. Her jaw inferiorcommence to project like a deck of before, his teeth themselves discoverbrilliant like some furnaces, and a dog could him tackle (le taquiner), him excite, him murder (le mordre), him throw two or three times over hisshoulder, Andre Jackson--this was the name of the dog--Andre Jacksontakes that tranquilly, as if he not himself was never expecting otherthing, and when the bets were doubled and redoubled against him, he youseize the other dog just at the articulation of the leg of behind, and henot it leave more, not that he it masticate, you conceive, but he himselfthere shall be holding during until that one throws the sponge in theair, must he wait a year. Smiley gained always with this beast-la;unhappily they have finished by elevating a dog who no had not of feet ofbehind, because one them had sawed; and when things were at the pointthat he would, and that he came to himself throw upon his morselfavorite, the poor dog comprehended in an instant that he himself wasdeceived in him, and that the other dog him had. You no have never seenperson having the air more penaud and more discouraged; he not made noeffort to gain the combat, and was rudely shucked. 

Eh bien! this Smiley nourished some terriers a rats, and some cocks ofcombat, and some pats, and all sorts of things; and with his rage ofbetting one no had more of repose. He trapped one day a frog and himimported with him (et l'emporta chez lui) saying that he pretended tomake his education. You me believe if you will, but during three monthshe not has nothing done but to him apprehend to jump (apprendre a sauter)in a court retired of her mansion (de sa maison). And I you respond thathe have succeeded. He him gives a small blow by behind, and the instantafter you shall see the frog turn in the air like a grease-biscuit, makeone summersault, sometimes two, when she was well started, and refallupon his feet like a cat. He him had accomplished in the art of togobble the flies (gober des mouches), and him there exercised continually--so well that a fly at the most far that she appeared was a fly lost. Smiley had custom to say that all which lacked to a frog it was theeducation, but with the education she could do nearly all--and I himbelieve. Tenez, I him have seen pose Daniel Webster there upon thisplank--Daniel Webster was the name of the frog--and to him sing, "Someflies, Daniel, some fifes!"--in a flash of the eye Daniel 30had bounded and seized a fly here upon the counter, then jumped anew atthe earth, where he rested truly to himself scratch the head with hisbehind foot, as if he no had not the least idea of his superiority. Never you not have seen frog as modest, as natural, sweet as she was. And when he himself agitated to jump purely and simply upon plain earth, she does more ground in one jump than any beast of his species than youcan know. To jump plain-this was his strong. When he himself agitatedfor that, Smiley multiplied the bets upon her as long as there to himremained a red. It must to know, Smiley was monstrously proud of hisfrog, and he of it was right, for some men who were traveled, who had allseen, said that they to him would be injurious to him compare, to anotherfrog. Smiley guarded Daniel in a little box latticed which he carriedbytimes to the village for some bet. 

One day an individual stranger at the camp him arrested with his box andhim said:

"What is this that you have them shut up there within?"

Smiley said, with an air indifferent:

"That could be a paroquet, or a syringe (ou un serin), but this no isnothing of such, it not is but a frog. "

The individual it took, it regarded with care, it turned from one sideand from the other, then he said:

"Tiens! in effect!--At what is she good?"

"My God!" respond Smiley, always with an air disengaged, "she is good forone thing, to my notice (A mon avis), she can better in jumping (elle pentbattre en sautant) all frogs of the county of Calaveras. "

The individual retook the box, it examined of new longly, and it renderedto Smiley in saying with an air deliberate:

"Eh bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than eachfrog. " (Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu'aucunegrenouille. ) [If that isn't grammar gone to seed, then I count myself nojudge. --M. T. ]

"Possible that you not it saw not, " said Smiley, "possible that you--youcomprehend frogs; possible that you not you there comprehend nothing;possible that you had of the experience, and possible that you not be butan amateur. Of all manner (De toute maniere) I bet forty dollars thatshe better in jumping no matter which frog of the county of Calaveras. "

The individual reflected a second, and said like sad:

"I not am but a stranger here, I no have not a frog; but if I of it hadone, I would embrace the bet. "

"Strong well!" respond Smiley; "nothing of more facility. If you willhold my box a minute, I go you to search a frog (j'irai vous chercher). "

Behold, then, the individual, who guards the box, who puts his fortydollars upon those of Smiley, and who attends (et qui attend). Heattended enough long times, reflecting all solely. And figure you thathe takes Daniel, him opens the mouth by force and with a teaspoon himfills with shot of the hunt, even him fills just to the chin, then he himputs by the earth. Smiley during these times was at slopping in a swamp. Finally he trapped (attrape) a frog, him carried to that individual, andsaid:

"Now if you be ready, put him all against Daniel with their before feetupon the same line, and I give the signal"--then he added: "One, two, three--advance!"

Him and the individual touched their frogs by behind, and the frog newput to jump smartly, but Daniel himself lifted ponderously, exalted theshoulders thus, like a Frenchman--to what good? he not could budge, heis planted solid like a church he not advance no more than if one him hadput at the anchor. 

Smiley was surprised and disgusted, but he no himself doubted not of theturn being intended (mais il ne se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu). The individual empocketed the silver, himself with it went, and of ithimself in going is it that he no gives not a jerk of thumb over theshoulder--like that--at the poor Daniel, in saying with his airdeliberate--(L'individu empoche l'argent, s'en va et en s'en allantest-ce qu'il ne donne pas un coup d pouce par-dessus l'epaule, comme ga, au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son air delibere):

"Eh bien! I no see not that that frog has nothin of better than another. "

Smiley himself scratched longtimes the head, the eyes fixed upon Daniel, until that which at last he said:

"I me demand how the devil it makes itself that this beast has refused. Is it that she had something? One would believe that she is stuffed. "

He grasped Daniel by the skin of the neck, him lifted and said:

"The wolf me bite if he no weigh not five pounds:"

He him reversed and the unhappy belched two handfuls of shot (et lemalheureux, etc. ). When Smiley recognized how it was, he was like mad. He deposited his frog by the earth and ran after that individual, but henot him caught never. 

Such is the jumping Frog, to the distorted French eye. I claim that Inever put together such an odious mixture of bad grammar and deliriumtremens in my life. And what has a poor foreigner like me done, to beabused and misrepresented like this? When I say, "Well, I don't see nopints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog, " is it kind, is it just, for this Frenchman to try to make it appear that I said, "Ehbien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each frog"?I have no heart to write more. I never felt so about anything before. 

HARTFORD, March, 1875. 

JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE--[Written about 1871. ]

 The editor of the Memphis Avalanche swoops thus mildly down upon a correspondent who posted him as a Radical:--"While he was writing the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood. "--Exchange. 

I was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve myhealth, and so I went down to Tennessee, and got a berth on the MorningGlory and Johnson County War-Whoop as associate editor. When I went onduty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in a three-legged chairwith his feet on a pine table. There was another pine table in the roomand another afflicted chair, and both were half buried under newspapersand scraps and sheets of manuscript. There was a wooden box of sand, sprinkled with cigar stubs and "old soldiers, " and a stove with a doorhanging by its upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed blackcloth frock-coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small andneatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal-ring, a standingcollar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief with the endshanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He was smoking a cigar, andtrying to think of a word, and in pawing his hair he had rumpled hislocks a good deal. He was scowling fearfully, and I judged that he wasconcocting a particularly knotty editorial. He told me to take theexchanges and skim through them and write up the "Spirit of the TennesseePress, " condensing into the article all of their contents that seemed ofinterest. 

I wrote as follows:

 SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS

 The editors of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake evidently labor under a misapprehension with regard to the Dallyhack railroad. It is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important points along the line, and consequently can have no desire to slight it. The gentlemen of the Earthquake will, of course, take pleasure in making the correction. 

 John W. Blossom, Esq. , the able editor of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, arrived in the city yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House. 

 We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs Morning Howl has fallen into the error of supposing that the election of Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete election returns. 

 It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is endeavoring to contract with some New York gentlemen to pave its well-nigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The Daily Hurrah urges the measure with ability, and seems confident of ultimate success. 

I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance, alteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded. Heran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous. It waseasy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up and said:

"Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of thosecattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to stand suchgruel as that? Give me the pen!"

I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or plowthrough another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly. While he wasin the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through the open window, and marred the symmetry of my ear. 

"Ah, " said he, "that is that scoundrel Smith, of the Moral Volcano--hewas due yesterday. " And he snatched a navy revolver from his belt andfired--Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot spoiled Smith's aim, who was just taking a second chance and he crippled a stranger. It wasme. Merely a finger shot off. 

Then the chief editor went on with his erasure; and interlineations. Just as he finished them a hand grenade came down the stove-pipe, and theexplosion shivered the stove into a thousand fragments. However, it didno further damage, except that a vagrant piece knocked a couple of myteeth out. 

"That stove is utterly ruined, " said the chief editor. 

I said I believed it was. 

"Well, no matter--don't want it this kind of weather. I know the manthat did it. I'll get him. Now, here is the way this stuff ought to bewritten. "

I took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and interlineationstill its mother wouldn't have known it if it had had one. It now read asfollows:

 SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS

 The inveterate liars of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake are evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard to that most glorious conception of the nineteenth century, the Ballyhack railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off at one side originated in their own fulsome brains--or rather in the settlings which they regard as brains. They had better, swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve. 

 That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, is down here again sponging at the Van Buren. 

 We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs Morning Howl is giving out, with his usual propensity for lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of journalism is to disseminate truth; to eradicate error; to educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals and manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier; and yet this blackhearted scoundrel degrades his great office persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny, vituperation, and vulgarity. 

 Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement--it wants a jail and a poorhouse more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith shop, and that mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the Daily Hurrah! The crawling insect, Buckner, who edits the Hurrah, is braying about his business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is talking sense. 

"Now that is the way to write--peppery and to the point. Mush-and-milkjournalism gives me the fan-tods. "

About this time a brick came through the window with a splintering crash, and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved out of range--I began to feel in the way. 

The chief said, "That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting himfor two days. He will be up now right away. "

He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment afterward witha dragoon revolver in his hand. 

He said, "Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who edits thismangy sheet?"

"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs isgone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar, ColonelBlatherskite Tecumseh?"

"Right, Sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are atleisure we will begin. "

"I have an article on the 'Encouraging Progress of Moral and IntellectualDevelopment in America' to finish, but there is no hurry. Begin. "

Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The chieflost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its career in thefleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel's left shoulder was clipped alittle. They fired again. Both missed their men this time, but I got myshare, a shot in the arm. At the third fire both gentlemen were woundedslightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I then said, I believed I wouldgo out and take a walk, as this was a private matter, and I had adelicacy about participating in it further. But both gentlemen begged meto keep my seat, and assured me that I was not in the way. 

They then talked about the elections and the crops while they reloaded, and I fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they opened fire againwith animation, and every shot took effect--but it is proper to remarkthat five out of the six fell to my share. The sixth one mortallywounded the Colonel, who remarked, with fine humor, that he would have tosay good morning now, as he had business uptown. He then inquired theway to the undertaker's and left. 

The chief turned to me and said, "I am expecting company to dinner, andshall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will read proofand attend to the customers. "

I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I wastoo bewildered by the fusillade that was still ringing in my ears tothink of anything to say. 

He continued, "Jones will be here at three--cowhide him. Gillespie willcall earlier, perhaps--throw him out of the window. Ferguson will bealong about four--kill him. That is all for today, I believe. If youhave any odd time, you may write a blistering article on the police--givethe chief inspector rats. The cowhides are under the table; weapons inthe drawer--ammunition there in the corner--lint and bandages up there inthe pigeonholes. In case of accident, go to Lancet, the surgeon, downstairs. He advertises--we take it out in trade. "

He was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours I had beenthrough perils so awful that all peace of mind and all cheerfulness weregone from me. Gillespie had called and thrown me out of the window. Jones arrived promptly, and when I got ready to do the cowhiding he tookthe job off my hands. In an encounter with a stranger, not in the billof fare, I had lost my scalp. Another stranger, by the name of Thompson, left me a mere wreck and ruin of chaotic rags. And at last, at bay inthe corner, and beset by an infuriated mob of editors, blacklegs, politicians, and desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished theirweapons about my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes ofsteel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the chiefarrived, and with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic friends. Thenensued a scene of riot and carnage such as no human pen, or steel oneeither, could describe. People were shot, probed, dismembered, blown up, thrown out of the window. There was a brief tornado of murky blasphemy, with a confused and frantic war-dance glimmering through it, and then allwas over. In five minutes there was silence, and the gory chief and Isat alone and surveyed the sanguinary ruin that strewed the floor aroundus. 

He said, "You'll like this place when you get used to it. "

I said, "I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I might writeto suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some practice and learnedthe language I am confident I could. But, to speak the plain truth, thatsort of energy of expression has its inconveniences, and a man is liableto interruption. 

"You see that yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate thepublic, no doubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention asit calls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so muchas I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I don't liketo be left here to wait on the customers. The experiences are novel, I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a fashion, but they are notjudiciously distributed. A gentleman shoots at you through the windowand cripples me; a bombshell comes down the stovepipe for yourgratification and sends the stove door down my throat; a friend drops into swap compliments with you, and freckles me with bullet-holes till myskin won't hold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with hiscowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all myclothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy freedomof an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all the blackguardsin the country arrive in their war-paint, and proceed to scare the restof me to death with their tomahawks. Take it altogether, I never hadsuch a spirited time in all my life as I have had to-day. No; I likeyou, and I like your calm unruffled way of explaining things to thecustomers, but you see I am not used to it. The Southern heart is tooimpulsive; Southern hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. Theparagraphs which I have written to-day, and into whose cold sentencesyour masterly hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennesseeanjournalism, will wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob ofeditors will come--and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody forbreakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present atthese festivities. I came South for my health, I will go back on thesame errand, and suddenly. Tennesseean journalism is too stirring forme. "

After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at thehospital. 

THE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY--[Written about 1865]

Once there was a bad little boy whose name was Jim--though, if you willnotice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly always called Jamesin your Sunday-school books. It was strange, but still it was true, thatthis one was called Jim. 

He didn't have any sick mother, either--a sick mother who was pious andhad the consumption, and would be glad to lie down in the grave and be atrest but for the strong love she bore her boy, and the anxiety she feltthat the world might be harsh and cold toward him when she was gone. Most bad boys in the Sunday books are named James, and have sick mothers, who teach them to say, "Now, I lay me down, " etc. , and sing them to sleepwith sweet, plaintive voices, and then kiss them good night, and kneeldown by the bedside and weep. But it was different with this fellow. He was named Jim, and there wasn't anything the matter with his mother--no consumption, nor anything of that kind. She was rather stout thanotherwise, and she was not pious; moreover, she was not anxious on Jim'saccount. She said if he were to break his neck it wouldn't be much loss. She always spanked Jim to sleep, and she never kissed him good night; onthe contrary, she boxed his ears when she was ready to leave him. 

Once this little bad boy stole the key of the pantry, and slipped inthere and helped himself to some jam, and filled up the vessel with tar, so that his mother would never know the difference; but all at once aterrible feeling didn't come over him, and something didn't seem towhisper to him, "Is it right to disobey my mother? Isn't it sinful to dothis? Where do bad little boys go who gobble up their good kind mother'sjam?" and then he didn't kneel down all alone and promise never to bewicked any more, and rise up with a light, happy heart, and go and tellhis mother all about it, and beg her forgiveness, and be blessed by herwith tears of pride and thankfulness in her eyes. No; that is the waywith all other bad boys in the books; but it happened otherwise with thisJim, strangely enough. He ate that jam, and said it was bully, in hissinful, vulgar way; and he put in the tar, and said that was bully also, and laughed, and observed "that the old woman would get up and snort"when she found it out; and when she did find it out, he denied knowinganything about it, and she whipped him severely, and he did the cryinghimself. Everything about this boy was curious--everything turned outdifferently with him from the way it does to the bad Jameses in thebooks. 

Once he climbed up in Farmer Acorn's apple tree to steal apples, and thelimb didn't break, and he didn't fall and break his arm, and get torn bythe farmer's great dog, and then languish on a sickbed for weeks, andrepent and become good. Oh, no; he stole as many apples as he wanted andcame down all right; and he was all ready for the dog, too, and knockedhim endways with a brick when he came to tear him. It was very strange--nothing like it ever happened in those mild little books with marbledbacks, and with pictures in them of men with swallow-tailed coats andbell-crowned hats, and pantaloons that are short in the legs, and womenwith the waists of their dresses under their arms, and no hoops on. Nothing like it in any of the Sunday-school books. 

Once he stole the teacher's penknife, and, when he was afraid it would befound out and he would get whipped, he slipped it into George Wilson'scap poor Widow Wilson's son, the moral boy, the good little boy of thevillage, who always obeyed his mother, and never told an untruth, and wasfond of his lessons, and infatuated with Sunday-school. And when theknife dropped from the cap, and poor George hung his head and blushed, as if in conscious guilt, and the grieved teacher charged the theft uponhim, and was just in the very act of bringing the switch down upon histrembling shoulders, a white-haired, improbable justice of the peace didnot suddenly appear in their midst, and strike an attitude and say, "Spare this noble boy--there stands the cowering culprit! I was passingthe school door at recess, and, unseen myself, I saw the theftcommitted!" And then Jim didn't get whaled, and the venerable justicedidn't read the tearful school a homily, and take George by the hand andsay such boy deserved to be exalted, and then tell him come and make hishome with him, and sweep out the office, and make fires, and run errands, and chop wood, and study law, and help his wife do household labors, andhave all the balance of the time to play and get forty cents a month, andbe happy. No it would have happened that way in the books, but didn'thappen that way to Jim. No meddling old clam of a justice dropped in tomake trouble, and so the model boy George got thrashed, and Jim was gladof it because, you know, Jim hated moral boys. Jim said he was "down onthem milksops. " Such was the coarse language of this bad, neglected boy. 

But the strangest thing that ever happened to Jim was the time he wentboating on Sunday, and didn't get drowned, and that other time that hegot caught out in the storm when he was fishing on Sunday and didn't getstruck by lightning. Why, you might look, and look, all through theSunday-school books from now till next Christmas, and you would nevercome across anything like this. Oh, no; you would find that all the badboys who go boating on Sunday invariably get drowned; and all the badboys who get caught out in storms when they are fishing on Sundayinfallibly get struck by lightning. Boats with bad boys in them alwaysupset on Sunday, and it always storms when bad boys go fishing on theSabbath. How this Jim ever escaped is a mystery to me. 

This Jim bore a charmed life--that must have been the way of it. Nothingcould hurt him. He even gave the elephant in the menagerie a plug oftobacco, and the elephant didn't knock the top of his head off with histrunk. He browsed around the cupboard after essence-of peppermint, anddidn't make a mistake and drink aqua fortis. He stole his father's gunand went hunting on the Sabbath, and didn't shoot three or four of hisfingers off. He struck his little sister on the temple with his fistwhen he was angry, and she didn't linger in pain through long summerdays, and die with sweet words of forgiveness upon her lips thatredoubled the anguish of his breaking heart. No; she got over it. Heran off and went to sea at last, and didn't come back and find himselfsad and alone in the world, his loved ones sleeping in the quietchurchyard, and the vine-embowered home of his boyhood tumbled down andgone to decay. Ah, no; he came home as drunk as a piper, and got intothe station-house the first thing. 

And he grew up and married, and raised a large family, and brained themall with an ax one night, and got wealthy by all manner of cheating andrascality; and now he is the infernalest wickedest scoundrel in hisnative village, and is universally respected, and belongs to thelegislature. 

So you see there never was a bad James in the Sunday-school books thathad such a streak of luck as this sinful Jim with the charmed life. 

THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY--[Written about 1865]

Once there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens. He alwaysobeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and unreasonable their demandswere; and he always learned his book, and never was late atSabbath-school. He would not play hookey, even when his sober judgmenttold him it was the most profitable thing he could do. None of the otherboys could ever make that boy out, he acted so strangely. He wouldn'tlie, no matter how convenient it was. He just said it was wrong to lie, and that was sufficient for him. And he was so honest that he was simplyridiculous. The curious ways that that Jacob had, surpassed everything. He wouldn't play marbles on Sunday, he wouldn't rob birds' nests, hewouldn't give hot pennies to organ-grinders' monkeys; he didn't seem totake any interest in any kind of rational amusement. So the other boysused to try to reason it out and come to an understanding of him, butthey couldn't arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. As I said before, they could only figure out a sort of vague idea that he was "afflicted, "and so they took him under their protection, and never allowed any harmto come to him. 

This good little boy read all the Sunday-school books; they were hisgreatest delight. This was the whole secret of it. He believed in thegood little boys they put in the Sunday-school book; he had everyconfidence in them. He longed to come across one of them alive once;but he never did. They all died before his time, maybe. Whenever heread about a particularly good one he turned over quickly to the end tosee what became of him, because he wanted to travel thousands of milesand gaze on him; but it wasn't any use; that good little boy always diedin the last chapter, and there was a picture of the funeral, with all hisrelations and the Sunday-school children standing around the grave inpantaloons that were too short, and bonnets that were too large, andeverybody crying into handkerchiefs that had as much as a yard and a halfof stuff in them. He was always headed off in this way. He never couldsee one of those good little boys on account of his always dying in thelast chapter. 

Jacob had a noble ambition to be put in a Sunday school book. He wantedto be put in, with pictures representing him gloriously declining to lieto his mother, and her weeping for joy about it; and picturesrepresenting him standing on the doorstep giving a penny to a poorbeggar-woman with six children, and telling her to spend it freely, butnot to be extravagant, because extravagance is a sin; and pictures of himmagnanimously refusing to tell on the bad boy who always lay in wait forhim around the corner as he came from school, and welted him so over thehead with a lath, and then chased him home, saying, "Hi! hi!" as heproceeded. That was the ambition of young Jacob Blivens. He wished tobe put in a Sunday-school book. It made him feel a lithe uncomfortablesometimes when he reflected that the good little boys always died. Heloved to live, you know, and this was the most unpleasant feature aboutbeing a Sunday-school-boo boy. He knew it was not healthy to be good. He knew it was more fatal than consumption to be so supernaturally goodas the boys in the books were he knew that none of them had ever beenable to stand it long, and it pained him to think that if they put him ina book he wouldn't ever see it, or even if they did get the book outbefore he died it wouldn't be popular without any picture of his funeralin the back part of it. It couldn't be much of a Sunday-school book thatcouldn't tell about the advice he gave to the community when he wasdying. So at last, of course, he had to make up his mind to do the besthe could under the circumstances--to live right, and hang on as long ashe could and have his dying speech all ready when his time came. 

But somehow nothing ever went right with the good little boy; nothingever turned out with him the way it turned out with the good little boysin the books. They always had a good time, and the bad boys had thebroken legs; but in his case there was a screw loose somewhere, and itall happened just the other way. When he found Jim Blake stealingapples, and went under the tree to read to him about the bad little boywho fell out of a neighbor's apple tree and broke his arm, Jim fell outof the tree, too, but he fell on him and broke his arm, and Jim wasn'thurt at all. Jacob couldn't understand that. There wasn't anything inthe books like it. 

And once, when some bad boys pushed a blind man over in the mud, andJacob ran to help him up and receive his blessing, the blind man did notgive him any blessing at all, but whacked him over the head with hisstick and said he would like to catch him shoving him again, and thenpretending to help him up. This was not in accordance with any of thebooks. Jacob looked them all over to see. 

One thing that Jacob wanted to do was to find a lame dog that hadn't anyplace to stay, and was hungry and persecuted, and bring him home and pethim and have that dog's imperishable gratitude. And at last he found oneand was happy; and he brought him home and fed him, but when he was goingto pet him the dog flew at him and tore all the clothes off him exceptthose that were in front, and made a spectacle of him that wasastonishing. He examined authorities, but he could not understand thematter. It was of the same breed of dogs that was in the books, but itacted very differently. Whatever this boy did he got into trouble. Thevery things the boys in the books got rewarded for turned out to be aboutthe most unprofitable things he could invest in. 

Once, when he was on his way to Sunday-school, he saw some bad boysstarting off pleasuring in a sailboat. He was filled with consternation, because he knew from his reading that boys who went sailing on Sundayinvariably got drowned. So he ran out on a raft to warn them, but a logturned with him and slid him into the river. A man got him out prettysoon, and the doctor pumped the water out of him, and gave him a freshstart with his bellows, but he caught cold and lay sick abed nine weeks. But the most unaccountable thing about it was that the bad boys in theboat had a good time all day, and then reached home alive and well in themost surprising manner. Jacob Blivens said there was nothing like thesethings in the books. He was perfectly dumfounded. 

When he got well he was a little discouraged, but he resolved to keep ontrying anyhow. He knew that so far his experiences wouldn't do to go ina book, but he hadn't yet reached the allotted term of life for goodlittle boys, and he hoped to be able to make a record yet if he couldhold on till his time was fully up. If everything else failed he had hisdying speech to fall back on. 

He examined his authorities, and found that it was now time for him to goto sea as a cabin-boy. He called on a ship-captain and made hisapplication, and when the captain asked for his recommendations heproudly drew out a tract and pointed to the word, "To Jacob Blivens, fromhis affectionate teacher. " But the captain was a coarse, vulgar man, andhe said, "Oh, that be blowed! that wasn't any proof that he knew how towash dishes or handle a slush-bucket, and he guessed he didn't want him. "This was altogether the most extraordinary thing that ever happened toJacob in all his life. A compliment from a teacher, on a tract, hadnever failed to move the tenderest emotions of ship-captains, and openthe way to all offices of honor and profit in their gift it never had inany book that ever he had read. He could hardly believe his senses. 

This boy always had a hard time of it. Nothing ever came out accordingto the authorities with him. At last, one day, when he was aroundhunting up bad little boys to admonish, he found a lot of them in the oldiron-foundry fixing up a little joke on fourteen or fifteen dogs, whichthey had tied together in long procession, and were going to ornamentwith empty nitroglycerin cans made fast to their tails. Jacob's heartwas touched. He sat down on one of those cans (for he never mindedgrease when duty was before him), and he took hold of the foremost dog bythe collar, and turned his reproving eye upon wicked Tom Jones. But justat that moment Alderman McWelter, full of wrath, stepped in. All the badboys ran away, but Jacob Blivens rose in conscious innocence and beganone of those stately little Sunday-school-book speeches which alwayscommence with "Oh, sir!" in dead opposition to the fact that no boy, goodor bad, ever starts a remark with "Oh, sir. " But the alderman neverwaited to hear the rest. He took Jacob Blivens by the ear and turned himaround, and hit him a whack in the rear with the flat of his hand; and inan instant that good little boy shot out through the roof and soared awaytoward the sun with the fragments of those fifteen dogs stringing afterhim like the tail of a kite. And there wasn't a sign of that alderman orthat old iron-foundry left on the face of the earth; and, as for youngJacob Blivens, he never got a chance to make his last dying speech afterall his trouble fixing it up, unless he made it to the birds; because, although the bulk of him came down all right in a tree-top in anadjoining county, the rest of him was apportioned around among fourtownships, and so they had to hold five inquests on him to find outwhether he was dead or not, and how it occurred. You never saw a boyscattered so. --[This glycerin catastrophe is borrowed from a floatingnewspaper item, whose author's name I would give if I knew it. --M. T. ]

Thus perished the good little boy who did the best he could, but didn'tcome out according to the books. Every boy who ever did as he didprospered except him. His case is truly remarkable. It will probablynever be accounted for. 

A COUPLE OF POEMS BY TWAIN AND MOORE--[Written about 1865]

 THOSE EVENING BELLS

 BY THOMAS MOORE

 Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells Of youth, and home, and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime. 

 Those joyous hours are passed away; And many a heart that then was gay, Within the tomb now darkly dwells, And hears no more those evening bells. 

 And so 'twill be when I am gone That tuneful peal will still ring on; While other bards shall walk these dells, And sing your praise, sweet evening bells. 

 THOSE ANNUAL BILLS

 BY MARK TWAIN

 These annual bills! these annual bills! How many a song their discord trills Of "truck" consumed, enjoyed, forgot, Since I was skinned by last year's lot!

 Those joyous beans are passed away; Those onions blithe, O where are they? Once loved, lost, mourned--now vexing ILLS Your shades troop back in annual bills!

 And so 'twill be when I'm aground These yearly duns will still go round, While other bards, with frantic quills, Shall damn and damn these annual bills!

NIAGARA [ Written about 1871. ]

Niagara Falls is a most enjoyable place of resort. The hotels areexcellent, and the prices not at all exorbitant. The opportunities forfishing are not surpassed in the country; in fact, they are not evenequaled elsewhere. Because, in other localities, certain places in thestreams are much better than others; but at Niagara one place is just asgood as another, for the reason that the fish do not bite anywhere, andso there is no use in your walking five miles to fish, when you candepend on being just as unsuccessful nearer home. The advantages of thisstate of things have never heretofore been properly placed before thepublic. 

The weather is cool in summer, and the walks and drives are all pleasantand none of them fatiguing. When you start out to "do" the Falls youfirst drive down about a mile, and pay a small sum for the privilege oflooking down from a precipice into the narrowest part of the NiagaraRiver. A railway "cut" through a hill would be as comely if it had theangry river tumbling and foaming through its bottom. You can descend astaircase here a hundred and fifty feet down, and stand at the edge ofthe water. After you have done it, you will wonder why you did it; butyou will then be too late. 

The guide will explain to you, in his blood-curdling way, how he saw thelittle steamer, Maid of the Mist, descend the fearful rapids--how firstone paddle-box was out of sight behind the raging billows and then theother, and at what point it was that her smokestack toppled overboard, and where her planking began to break and part asunder--and how she didfinally live through the trip, after accomplishing the incredible feat oftraveling seventeen miles in six minutes, or six miles in seventeenminutes, I have really forgotten which. But it was very extraordinary, anyhow. It is worth the price of admission to hear the guide tell thestory nine times in succession to different parties, and never miss aword or alter a sentence or a gesture. 

Then you drive over to Suspension Bridge, and divide your misery betweenthe chances of smashing down two hundred feet into the river below, andthe chances of having the railway-train overhead smashing down onto you. Either possibility is discomforting taken by itself, but, mixed together, they amount in the aggregate to positive unhappiness. 

On the Canada side you drive along the chasm between long ranks ofphotographers standing guard behind their cameras, ready to make anostentatious frontispiece of you and your decaying ambulance, and yoursolemn crate with a hide on it, which you are expected to regard in thelight of a horse, and a diminished and unimportant background of sublimeNiagara; and a great many people have the incredible effrontery or thenative depravity to aid and abet this sort of crime. 

Any day, in the hands of these photographers, you may see statelypictures of papa and mamma, Johnny and Bub and Sis or a couple of countrycousins, all smiling vacantly, and all disposed in studied anduncomfortable attitudes in their carriage, and all looming up in theirawe-inspiring imbecility before the snubbed and diminished presentment ofthat majestic presence whose ministering spirits are the rainbows, whosevoice is the thunder, whose awful front is veiled in clouds, who wasmonarch here dead and forgotten ages before this sackful of smallreptiles was deemed temporarily necessary to fill a crack in the world'sunnoted myriads, and will still be monarch here ages and decades of agesafter they shall have gathered themselves to their blood-relations, theother worms, and been mingled with the unremembering dust. 

There is no actual harm in making Niagara a background whereon to displayone's marvelous insignificance in a good strong light, but it requires asort of superhuman self-complacency to enable one to do it. 

When you have examined the stupendous Horseshoe Fall till you aresatisfied you cannot improve on it, you return to America by the newSuspension Bridge, and follow up the bank to where they exhibit the Caveof the Winds. 

Here I followed instructions, and divested myself of all my clothing, andput on a waterproof jacket and overalls. This costume is picturesque, but not beautiful. A guide, similarly dressed, led the way down a flightof winding stairs, which wound and wound, and still kept on winding longafter the thing ceased to be a novelty, and then terminated long beforeit had begun to be a pleasure. We were then well down under theprecipice, but still considerably above the level of the river. 

We now began to creep along flimsy bridges of a single plank, our personsshielded from destruction by a crazy wooden railing, to which I clungwith both hands--not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to. Presently the descent became steeper and the bridge flimsier, and spraysfrom the American Fall began to rain down on us in fast increasing sheetsthat soon became blinding, and after that our progress was mostly in thenature of groping. Nova a furious wind began to rush out from behind thewaterfall, which seemed determined to sweep us from the bridge, andscatter us on the rocks and among the torrents below. I remarked that Iwanted to go home; but it was too late. We were almost under themonstrous wall of water thundering down from above, and speech was invain in the midst of such a pitiless crash of sound. 

In another moment the guide disappeared behind the deluge, and bewilderedby the thunder, driven helplessly by the wind, and smitten by the arrowytempest of rain, I followed. All was darkness. Such a mad storming, roaring, and bellowing of warring wind and water never crazed my earsbefore. I bent my head, and seemed to receive the Atlantic on my back. The world seemed going to destruction. I could not see anything, theflood poured down savagely. I raised my head, with open mouth, and themost of the American cataract went down my throat. If I had sprung aleak now I had been lost. And at this moment I discovered that thebridge had ceased, and we must trust for a foothold to the slippery andprecipitous rocks. I never was so scared before and survived it. But wegot through at last, and emerged into the open day, where we could standin front of the laced and frothy and seething world of descending water, and look at it. When I saw how much of it there was, and how fearfullyin earnest it was, I was sorry I had gone behind it. 

The noble Red Man has always been a friend and darling of mine. I loveto read about him in tales and legends and romances. I love to read ofhis inspired sagacity, and his love of the wild free life of mountain andforest, and his general nobility of character, and his statelymetaphorical manner of speech, and his chivalrous love for the duskymaiden, and the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. Especially the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. When Ifound the shops at Niagara Falls full of dainty Indian beadwork, andstunning moccasins, and equally stunning toy figures representing humanbeings who carried their weapons in holes bored through their arms andbodies, and had feet shaped like a pie, I was filled with emotion. I knew that now, at last, I was going to come face to face with the nobleRed Man. 

A lady clerk in a shop told me, indeed, that all her grand array ofcuriosities were made by the Indians, and that they were plenty about theFalls, and that they were friendly, and it would not be dangerous tospeak to them. And sure enough, as I approached the bridge leading overto Luna Island, I came upon a noble Son of the Forest sitting under atree, diligently at work on a bead reticule. He wore a slouch hat andbrogans, and had a short black pipe in his mouth. Thus does the banefulcontact with our effeminate civilization dilute the picturesque pompwhich is so natural to the Indian when far removed from us in his nativehaunts. I addressed the relic as follows:

"Is the Wawhoo-Wang-Wang of the Whack-a-Whack happy? Does the greatSpeckled Thunder sigh for the war-path, or is his heart contented withdreaming of the dusky maiden, the Pride of the Forest? Does the mightySachem yearn to drink the blood of his enemies, or is he satisfied tomake bead reticules for the pappooses of the paleface? Speak, sublimerelic of bygone grandeur--venerable ruin, speak!"

The relic said:

"An' is it mesilf, Dennis Hooligan, that ye'd be takon' for a dirtyInjin, ye drawlin', lantern-jawed, spider-legged divil! By the piperthat played before Moses, I'll ate ye!"

I went away from there. 

By and by, in the neighborhood of the Terrapin Tower, I came upon agentle daughter of the aborigines in fringed and beaded buckskinmoccasins and leggins, seated on a bench with her pretty wares about her. She had just carved out a wooden chief that had a strong familyresemblance to a clothes-pin, and was now boring a hole through hisabdomen to put his bow through. I hesitated a moment, and then addressedher:

"Is the heart of the forest maiden heavy? Is the Laughing Tadpolelonely? Does she mourn over the extinguished council-fires of her race, and the vanished glory of her ancestors? Or does her sad spirit wanderafar toward the hunting-grounds whither her brave Gobbler-of-the-Lightnings is gone? Why is my daughter silent? Has she ought againstthe paleface stranger?"

The maiden said:

"Faix, an' is it Biddy Malone ye dare to be callin' names? Lave this, orI'll shy your lean carcass over the cataract, ye sniveling blaggard!"

I adjourned from there also. 

"Confound these Indians!" I said. "They told me they were tame; but, ifappearances go for anything, I should say they were all on the warpath. "

I made one more attempt to fraternize with them, and only one. I cameupon a camp of them gathered in the shade of a great tree, making wampumand moccasins, and addressed them in the language of friendship:

"Noble Red Men, Braves, Grand Sachems, War Chiefs, Squaws, and HighMuck-a-Mucks, the paleface from the land of the setting sun greets you!You, Beneficent Polecat--you, Devourer of Mountains--you, RoaringThundergust--you, Bully Boy with a Glass eye--the paleface from beyondthe great waters greets you all! War and pestilence have thinned yourranks and destroyed your once proud nation. Poker and seven-up, and avain modern expense for soap, unknown to your glorious ancestors, havedepleted your purses. Appropriating, in your simplicity, the property ofothers has gotten you into trouble. Misrepresenting facts, in yoursimple innocence, has damaged your reputation with the soulless usurper. Trading for forty-rod whisky, to enable you to get drunk and happy andtomahawk your families, has played the everlasting mischief with thepicturesque pomp of your dress, and here you are, in the broad light ofthe nineteenth century, gotten up like the ragtag and bobtail of thepurlieus of New York. For shame! Remember your ancestors! Recall theirmighty deeds! Remember Uncas!--and Red jacket! and Hole in the Day!--andWhoopdedoodledo! Emulate their achievements! Unfurl yourselves under mybanner, noble savages, illustrious guttersnipes--"

"Down wid him!" "Scoop the blaggard!" "Burn him!" "Bang him!""Dhround him!"

It was the quickest operation that ever was. I simply saw a sudden flashin the air of clubs, brickbats, fists, bead-baskets, and moccasins--asingle flash, and they all appeared to hit me at once, and no two of themin the same place. In the next instant the entire tribe was upon me. They tore half the clothes off me; they broke my arms and legs; they gaveme a thump that dented the top of my head till it would hold coffee likea saucer; and, to crown their disgraceful proceedings and add insult toinjury, they threw me over the Niagara Falls, and I got wet. 

About ninety or a hundred feet from the top, the remains of my vestcaught on a projecting rock, and I was almost drowned before I could getloose. I finally fell, and brought up in a world of white foam at thefoot of the Fall, whose celled and bubbly masses towered up severalinches above my head. Of course I got into the eddy. I sailed round andround in it forty-four times--chasing a chip and gaining on it--eachround trip a half-mile--reaching for the same bush on the bank forty-fourtimes, and just exactly missing it by a hair's-breadth every time. 

At last a man walked down and sat down close to that bush, and put a pipein his mouth, and lit a match, and followed me with one eye and kept theother on the match, while he sheltered it in his hands from the wind. Presently a puff of wind blew it out. The next time I swept around hesaid:

"Got a match?"

"Yes; in my other vest. Help me out, please. "

"Not for Joe. "

When I came round again, I said:

"Excuse the seemingly impertinent curiosity of a drowning man, but willyou explain this singular conduct of yours?"

"With pleasure. I am the coroner. Don't hurry on my account. I canwait for you. But I wish I had a match. "

I said: "Take my place, and I'll go and get you one. "

He declined. This lack of confidence on his part created a coldnessbetween us, and from that time forward I avoided him. It was my idea, in case anything happened to me, to so time the occurrence as to throw mycustom into the hands of the opposition coroner on the American side. 

At last a policeman came along, and arrested me for disturbing the peaceby yelling at people on shore for help. The judge fined me, but had theadvantage of him. My money was with my pantaloons, and my pantaloonswere with the Indians. 

Thus I escaped. I am now lying in a very critical condition. At least Iam lying anyway---critical or not critical. I am hurt all over, but Icannot tell the full extent yet, because the doctor is not done takinginventory. He will make out my manifest this evening. However, thus farhe thinks only sixteen of my wounds are fatal. I don't mind the others. 

Upon regaining my right mind, I said:

"It is an awful savage tribe of Indians that do the beadwork andmoccasins for Niagara Falls, doctor. Where are they from?"

"Limerick, my son. "

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS--[Written about 1865. ]

"MORAL STATISTICIAN. "--I don't want any of your statistics; I took yourwhole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate your kind of people. Youare always ciphering out how much a man's health is injured, and how muchhis intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents hewastes in the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the fatalpractice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinkingcoffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass ofwine at dinner, etc. , etc. , etc. And you are always figuring out howmany women have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion ofwearing expansive hoops, etc. , etc. , etc. You never see more than oneside of the question. You are blind to the fact that most old men inAmerica smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, theyought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine andsurvive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yetgrow older and fatter all the time. And you never by to find out howmuch solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from smokingin the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money he wouldsave by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lostin a lifetime your kind of people from not smoking. Of course you cansave money by denying yourself all the little vicious enjoyments forfifty years; but then what can you do with it? What use can you put itto? Money can't save your infinitesimal soul. All the use that moneycan be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this life;therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and enjoyment, where is the useof accumulating cash? It won't do for you say that you can use it tobetter purpose in furnishing a good table, and in charities, and insupporting tract societies, because you know yourself that you people whohave no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and that youstint yourselves so in the matter of food that you are always feeble andhungry. And you never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear some poorwretch, seeing you in a good humor, will try to borrow a dollar of you;and in church you are always down on your knees, with your eyes buried inthe cushion, when the contribution-box comes around; and you never givethe revenue officer: full statement of your income. Now you know thesethings yourself, don't you? Very well, then what is the use of yourstringing out your miserable lives to a lean and withered old age? Whatis the use of your saving money that is so utterly worthless to you? Ina word, why don't you go off somewhere and die, and not be always tryingto seduce people into becoming as "ornery" and unlovable as you areyourselves, by your villainous "moral statistics"? Now I don't approveof dissipation, and I don't indulge in it, either; but I haven't aparticle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices, and soI don't want to hear from you any more. I think you are the very sameman who read me a long lecture last week about the degrading vice ofsmoking cigars, and then came back, in my absence, with yourreprehensible fireproof gloves on, and carried off my beautiful parlorstove. 

"YOUNG AUTHOR. "--Yes, Agassiz does recommend authors to eat fish, becausethe phosphorus in it makes brain. So far you are correct. But I cannothelp you to a decision about the amount you need to eat--at least, notwith certainty. If the specimen composition you send is about your fairusual average, I should judge that perhaps a couple of whales would beall you would want for the present. Not the largest kind, but simplygood, middling-sized whales. 

"SIMON WHEELER, " Sonora. --The following simple and touching remarks andaccompanying poem have just come to hand from the rich gold-mining regionof Sonora:

 To Mr. Mark Twain: The within parson, which I have set to poetry under the name and style of "He Done His Level Best, " was one among the whitest men I ever see, and it ain't every man that knowed him that can find it in his heart to say he's glad the poor cuss is busted and gone home to the States. He was here in an early day, and he was the handyest man about takin' holt of anything that come along you most ever see, I judge. He was a cheerful, stirnn' cretur, always doin' somethin', and no man can say he ever see him do anything by halvers. Preachin was his nateral gait, but he warn't a man to lay back a twidle his thumbs because there didn't happen to be nothin' do in his own especial line--no, sir, he was a man who would meander forth and stir up something for hisself. His last acts was to go his pile on "Kings-and" (calkatin' to fill, but which he didn't fill), when there was a "flush" out agin him, and naterally, you see, he went under. And so he was cleaned out as you may say, and he struck the home-trail, cheerful but flat broke. I knowed this talonted man in Arkansaw, and if you would print this humbly tribute to his gorgis abilities, you would greatly obleege his onhappy friend. 

 HE DONE HIS LEVEL BEST Was he a mining on the flat-- He done it with a zest; Was he a leading of the choir-- He done his level best. 

 If he'd a reg'lar task to do, He never took no rest; Or if 'twas off-and-on-the same-- He done his level best. 

 If he was preachin' on his beat, He'd tramp from east to west, And north to south-in cold and heat He done his level best. 

 He'd yank a sinner outen (Hades), ** And land him with the blest; Then snatch a prayer'n waltz in again, And do his level best. 

 **Here I have taken a slight liberty with the original MS. "Hades" does not make such good meter as the other word of one syllable, but it sounds better. 

 He'd cuss and sing and howl and pray, And dance and drink and jest, And lie and steal--all one to him-- He done his level best. 

 Whate'er this man was sot to do, He done it with a zest; No matter what his contract was, HE'D DO HIS LEVEL BEST. 

Verily, this man was gifted with "gorgis abilities, " and it is ahappiness to me to embalm the memory of their luster in these columns. If it were not that the poet crop is unusually large and rank inCalifornia this year, I would encourage you to continue writing, SimonWheeler; but, as it is, perhaps it might be too risky in you to enteragainst so much opposition. 

"PROFESSIONAL BEGGAR. "--NO; you are not obliged to take greenbacks atpar. 

"MELTON MOWBRAY, " Dutch Flat. --This correspondent sends a lot ofdoggerel, and says it has been regarded as very good in Dutch Flat. Igive a specimen verse:

 The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold; And the sheen of his spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. **

 **This piece of pleasantry, published in a San Francisco paper, was mistaken by the country journals for seriousness, and many and loud were the denunciations of the ignorance of author and editor, in not knowing that the lines in question were "written by Byron. "

There, that will do. That may be very good Dutch Flat poetry, but itwon't do in the metropolis. It is too smooth and blubbery; it reads likebutter milk gurgling from a jug. What the people ought to have issomething spirited--something like "Johnny Comes Marching Home. " Howeverkeep on practising, and you may succeed yet. There is genius in you, buttoo much blubber. 

 "ST. CLAIR HIGGINS. " Los Angeles. --"My life is a failure; I have adored, wildly, madly, and she whom I love has turned coldly from me and shed her affections upon another. What would you advise me to do?"

You should set your affections on another also--or on several, if thereare enough to go round. Also, do everything you can to make your formerflame unhappy. There is an absurd idea disseminated in novels, that thehappier a girl is with another man, the happier it makes the old lovershe has blighted. Don't allow yourself to believe any such nonsense asthat. The more cause that girl finds to regret that she did not marryyou, the more comfortable you will feel over it. It isn't poetical, butit is mighty sound doctrine. 

 "ARITHMETICUS. " Virginia, Nevada. --"If it would take a cannon-ball 3 and 1/3 seconds to travel four miles, and 3 and 3/8 seconds to travel the next four, and 3 and 5/8 to travel the next four, and if its rate of progress continued to diminish in the same ratio, how long would it take it to go fifteen hundred million miles?"

I don't know. 

"AMBITIOUS LEARNER, " Oakland. --Yes; you are right America was notdiscovered by Alexander Selkirk. 

 "DISCARDED LOVER. "--"I loved, and still love, the beautiful Edwitha Howard, and intended to marry her. Yet, during my temporary absence at Benicia, last week, alas! she married Jones. Is my happiness to be thus blasted for life? Have I no redress?"

Of course you have. All the law, written and unwritten, is on your side. The intention and not the act constitutes crime--in other words, constitutes the deed. If you call your bosom friend a fool, and intendit for an insult, it is an insult; but if you do it playfully, andmeaning no insult, it is not an insult. If you discharge a pistolaccidentally, and kill a man, you can go free, for you have done nomurder; but if you try to kill a man, and manifestly intend to kill him, but fail utterly to do it, the law still holds that the intentionconstituted the crime, and you are guilty of murder. Ergo, if you hadmarried Edwitha accidentally, and without really intending to do it, youwould not actually be married to her at all, because the act of marriagecould not be complete without the intention. And ergo, in the strictspirit of the law, since you deliberately intended to marry Edwitha, anddidn't do it, you are married to her all the same--because, as I saidbefore, the intention constitutes the crime. It is as clear as day thatEdwitha is your wife, and your redress lies in taking a club andmutilating Jones with it as much as you can. Any man has a right toprotect his own wife from the advances of other men. But you haveanother alternative--you were married to Edwitha first, because of yourdeliberate intention, and now you can prosecute her for bigamy, insubsequently marrying Jones. But there is another phase in thiscomplicated case: You intended to marry Edwitha, and consequently, according to law, she is your wife--there is no getting around that; butshe didn't marry you, and if she never intended to marry you, you are nother husband, of course. Ergo, in marrying Jones, she was guilty ofbigamy, because she was the wife of another man at the time; which is allvery well as far as it goes--but then, don't you see, she had no otherhusband when she married Jones, and consequently she was not guilty ofbigamy. Now, according to this view of the case, Jones married aspinster, who was a widow at the same time and another man's wife at thesame time, and yet who had no husband and never had one, and never hadany intention of getting married, and therefore, of course, never hadbeen married; and by the same reasoning you are a bachelor, because youhave never been any one's husband; and a married man, because you have awife living; and to all intents and purposes a widower, because you havebeen deprived of that wife; and a consummate ass for going off to Beniciain the first place, while things were so mixed. And by this time I havegot myself so tangled up in the intricacies of this extraordinary casethat I shall have to give up any further attempt to advise you--I mightget confused and fail to make myself understood. I think I could take upthe argument where I left off, and by following it closely awhile, perhaps I could prove to your satisfaction, either that you never existedat all, or that you are dead now, and consequently don't need thefaithless Edwitha--I think I could do that, if it would afford you anycomfort. 

"ARTHUR AUGUSTUS. "--No; you are wrong; that is the proper way to throw abrickbat or a tomahawk; but it doesn't answer so well for a bouquet; youwill hurt somebody if you keep it up. Turn your nosegay upside down, take it by the stems, and toss it with an upward sweep. Did you everpitch quoits? that is the idea. The practice of recklessly heavingimmense solid bouquets, of the general size and weight of prize cabbages, from the dizzy altitude of the galleries, is dangerous and veryreprehensible. Now, night before last, at the Academy of Music, justafter Signorina had finished that exquisite melody, "The Last Rose ofSummer, " one of these floral pile-drivers came cleaving down through theatmosphere of applause, and if she hadn't deployed suddenly to the right, it would have driven her into the floor like a shinglenail. Of coursethat bouquet was well meant; but how would you like to have been thetarget? A sincere compliment is always grateful to a lady, so long asyou don't try to knock her down with it. 

"YOUNG MOTHER. "--And so you think a baby is a thing of beauty and a joyforever? Well, the idea is pleasing, but not original; every cow thinksthe same of its own calf. Perhaps the cow may not think it so elegantly, but still she thinks it nevertheless. I honor the cow for it. We allhonor this touching maternal instinct wherever we find it, be it in thehome of luxury or in the humble cow-shed. But really, madam, when Icome to examine the matter in all its bearings, I find that thecorrectness of your assertion does not assert itself in all cases. A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regardedas a thing of beauty; and inasmuch as babyhood spans but three shortyears, no baby is competent to be a joy "forever. " It pains me thus todemolish two-thirds of your pretty sentiment in a single sentence; butthe position I hold in this chair requires that I shall not permit you todeceive and mislead the public with your plausible figures of speech. I know a female baby, aged eighteen months, in this city, which cannothold out as a "joy" twenty-four hours on a stretch, let alone "forever. "And it possesses some of the most remarkable eccentricities of characterand appetite that have ever fallen under my notice. I will set down herea statement of this infant's operations (conceived, planned, and earnedout by itself, and without suggestion or assistance from its mother orany one else), during a single day; and what I shall say can besubstantiated by the sworn testimony of witnesses. 

It commenced by eating one dozen large blue-mass pills, box and all; thenit fell down a flight of stairs, and arose with a blue and purple knot onits forehead, after which it proceeded in quest of further refreshmentand amusement. It found a glass trinket ornamented with brass-work--smashed up and ate the glass, and then swallowed the brass. Then it drank about twenty drops of laudanum, and more than a dozentablespoonfuls of strong spirits of camphor. The reason why it took nomore laudanum was because there was no more to take. After this it laydown on its back, and shoved five or six, inches of a silver-headedwhalebone cane down its throat; got it fast there, and it was all itsmother could do to pull the cane out again, without pulling out some ofthe child with it. Then, being hungry for glass again, it broke upseveral wine glasses, and fell to eating and swallowing the fragments, not minding a cut or two. Then it ate a quantity of butter, pepper, salt, and California matches, actually taking a spoonful of butter, aspoonful of salt, a spoonful of pepper, and three or four lucifer matchesat each mouthful. (I will remark here that this thing of beauty likespainted German lucifers, and eats all she can get of them; but sheprefers California matches, which I regard as a compliment to our homemanufactures of more than ordinary value, coming, as it does, from onewho is too young to flatter. ) Then she washed her head with soap andwater, and afterward ate what soap was left, and drank as much of thesuds as she had room for; after which she sallied forth and took the cowfamiliarly by the tail, and got kicked heels over head. At odd timesduring the day, when this joy forever happened to have nothing particularon hand, she put in the time by climbing up on places, and falling downoff them, uniformly damaging her self in the operation. As young as sheis, she speaks many words tolerably distinctly; and being plain spoken inother respects, blunt and to the point, she opens conversation with allstrangers, male or female, with the same formula, "How do, Jim?"

Not being familiar with the ways of children, it is possible that I havebeen magnifying into matter of surprise things which may not strike anyone who is familiar with infancy as being at all astonishing. However, Icannot believe that such is the case, and so I repeat that my report ofthis baby's performances is strictly true; and if any one doubts it, I can produce the child. I will further engage that she will devouranything that is given her (reserving to myself only the right to excludeanvils), and fall down from any place to which she may be elevated(merely stipulating that her preference for alighting on her head shallbe respected, and, therefore, that the elevation chosen shall be highenough to enable her to accomplish this to her satisfaction). But I findI have wandered from my subject; so, without further argument, I willreiterate my conviction that not all babies are things of beauty and joysforever. 

 "ARITHMETICUS. " Virginia, Nevada. --"I am an enthusiastic student of mathematics, and it is so vexatious to me to find my progress constantly impeded by these mysterious arithmetical technicalities. Now do tell me what the difference is between geometry and conchology?"

Here you come again with your arithmetical conundrums, when I amsuffering death with a cold in the head. If you could have seen theexpression of scorn that darkened my countenance a moment ago, and wasinstantly split from the center in every direction like a fracturedlooking-glass by my last sneeze, you never would have written thatdisgraceful question. Conchology is a science which has nothing to dowith mathematics; it relates only to shells. At the same time, however, a man who opens oysters for a hotel, or shells a fortified town, or suckseggs, is not, strictly speaking, a conchologist-a fine stroke of sarcasmthat, but it will be lost on such an unintellectual clam as you. Nowcompare conchology and geometry together, and you will see what thedifference is, and your question will be answered. But don't torture mewith any more arithmetical horrors until you know I am rid of my cold. Ifeel the bitterest animosity toward you at this moment-bothering me inthis way, when I can do nothing but sneeze and rage and snortpocket-handkerchiefs to atoms. If I had you in range of my nose nowI would blow your brains out. 

TO RAISE POULTRY

--[Being a letter written to a Poultry Society that had conferred acomplimentary membership upon the author. Written about 1870. ]

Seriously, from early youth I have taken an especial interest in thesubject of poultry-raising, and so this membership touches a readysympathy in my breast. Even as a schoolboy, poultry-raising was a studywith me, and I may say without egotism that as early as the age ofseventeen I was acquainted with all the best and speediest methods ofraising chickens, from raising them off a roost by burning lucifermatches under their noses, down to lifting them off a fence on a frostynight by insinuating the end of a warm board under their heels. By thetime I was twenty years old, I really suppose I had raised more poultrythan any one individual in all the section round about there. The verychickens came to know my talent by and by. The youth of both sexesceased to paw the earth for worms, and old roosters that came to crow, "remained to pray, " when I passed by. 

I have had so much experience in the raising of fowls that I cannot butthink that a few hints from me might be useful to the society. The twomethods I have already touched upon are very simple, and are only used inthe raising of the commonest class of fowls; one is for summer, the otherfor winter. In the one case you start out with a friend along abouteleven o'clock' on a summer's night (not later, because in some states--especially in California and Oregon--chickens always rouse up just atmidnight and crow from ten to thirty minutes, according to the ease ordifficulty they experience in getting the public waked up), and yourfriend carries with him a sack. Arrived at the henroost (yourneighbor's, not your own), you light a match and hold it under first oneand then another pullet's nose until they are willing to go into that bagwithout making any trouble about it. You then return home, either takingthe bag with you or leaving it behind, according as circumstances shalldictate. N. B. --I have seen the time when it was eligible andappropriate to leave the sack behind and walk off with considerablevelocity, without ever leaving any word where to send it. 

In the case of the other method mentioned for raising poultry, yourfriend takes along a covered vessel with a charcoal fire in it, and youcarry a long slender plank. This is a frosty night, understand. Arrivedat the tree, or fence, or other henroost (your own if you are an idiot), you warm the end of your plank in your friend's fire vessel, and thenraise it aloft and ease it up gently against a slumbering chicken's foot. If the subject of your attentions is a true bird, he will infalliblyreturn thanks with a sleepy cluck or two, and step out and take upquarters on the plank, thus becoming so conspicuously accessory beforethe fact to his own murder as to make it a grave question in our minds asit once was in the mind of Blackstone, whether he is not really anddeliberately, committing suicide in the second degree. [But you enterinto a contemplation of these legal refinements subsequently not then. ]

When you wish to raise a fine, large, donkey voiced Shanghai rooster, youdo it with a lasso, just as you would a bull. It is because he mustchoked, and choked effectually, too. It is the only good, certain way, for whenever he mentions a matter which he is cordially interested in, the chances are ninety-nine in a hundred that he secures somebody else'simmediate attention to it too, whether it day or night. 

The Black Spanish is an exceedingly fine bird and a costly one. Thirty-five dollars is the usual figure and fifty a not uncommon pricefor a specimen. Even its eggs are worth from a dollar to a dollar and ahalf apiece, and yet are so unwholesome that the city physician seldom ornever orders them for the workhouse. Still I have once or twice procuredas high as a dozen at a time for nothing, in the dark of the moon. Thebest way to raise the Black Spanish fowl is to go late in the evening andraise coop and all. The reason I recommend this method is that, thebirds being so valuable, the owners do not permit them to roost aroundpromiscuously, they put them in a coop as strong as a fireproof safe andkeep it in the kitchen at night. The method I speak of is not always abright and satisfying success, and yet there are so many little articlesof vertu about a kitchen, that if you fail on the coop you can generallybring away something else. I brought away a nice steel trap one night, worth ninety cents. 

But what is the use in my pouring out my whole intellect on this subject?I have shown the Western New York Poultry Society that they have taken totheir bosom a party who is not a spring chicken by any means, but a manwho knows all about poultry, and is just as high up in the most efficientmethods of raising it as the president of the institution himself. I thank these gentlemen for the honorary membership they have conferredupon me, and shall stand at all times ready and willing to testify mygood feeling and my official zeal by deeds as well as by this hastilypenned advice and information. Whenever they are ready to go to raisingpoultry, let them call for me any evening after eleven o'clock. 

EXPERIENCE OF THE McWILLIAMSES WITH MEMBRANOUS CROUP

[As related to the author of this book by Mr. McWilliams, a pleasant NewYork gentleman whom the said author met by chance on a journey. ]

Well, to go back to where I was before I digressed to explain to you howthat frightful and incurable disease, membranous croup, [Diphtheria D. W. ]was ravaging the town and driving all mothers mad with terror, I calledMrs. McWilliams's attention to little Penelope, and said:

"Darling, I wouldn't let that child be chewing that pine stick if I wereyou. "

"Precious, where is the harm in it?" said she, but at the same timepreparing to take away the stick for women cannot receive even the mostpalpably judicious suggestion without arguing it, that is married women. 

I replied:

"Love, it is notorious that pine is the least nutritious wood that achild can eat. "

My wife's hand paused, in the act of taking the stick, and returneditself to her lap. She bridled perceptibly, and said:

"Hubby, you know better than that. You know you do. Doctors all saythat the turpentine in pine wood is good for weak back and the kidneys. "

"Ah--I was under a misapprehension. I did not know that the child'skidneys and spine were affected, and that the family physician hadrecommended--"

"Who said the child's spine and kidneys were affected?"

"My love, you intimated it. "

"The idea! I never intimated anything of the kind. "

"Why, my dear, it hasn't been two minutes since you said--"

"Bother what I said! I don't care what I did say. There isn't any harmin the child's chewing a bit of pine stick if she wants to, and you knowit perfectly well. And she shall chew it, too. So there, now!"

"Say no more, my dear. I now see the force of your reasoning, and I willgo and order two or three cords of the best pine wood to-day. No childof mine shall want while I--"

"Oh, please go along to your office and let me have some peace. A bodycan never make the simplest remark but you must take it up and go toarguing and arguing and arguing till you don't know what you are talkingabout, and you never do. "

"Very well, it shall be as you say. But there is a want of logic in yourlast remark which--"

However, she was gone with a flourish before I could finish, and hadtaken the child with her. That night at dinner she confronted me with aface a white as a sheet:

"Oh, Mortimer, there's another! Little Georgi Gordon is taken. "

"Membranous croup?"

"Membranous croup. "

"Is there any hope for him?"

"None in the wide world. Oh, what is to be come of us!"

By and by a nurse brought in our Penelope to say good night and offer thecustomary prayer at the mother's knee. In the midst of "Now I lay medown to sleep, " she gave a slight cough! My wife fell back like onestricken with death. But the next moment she was up and brimming withthe activities which terror inspires. 

She commanded that the child's crib be removed from the nursery to ourbedroom; and she went along to see the order executed. She took me withher, of course. We got matters arranged with speed. A cot-bed was putup in my wife's dressing room for the nurse. But now Mrs. McWilliamssaid we were too far away from the other baby, and what if he were tohave the symptoms in the night--and she blanched again, poor thing. 

We then restored the crib and the nurse to the nursery and put up a bedfor ourselves in a room adjoining. 

Presently, however, Mrs. McWilliams said suppose the baby should catch itfrom Penelope? This thought struck a new panic to her heart, and thetribe of us could not get the crib out of the nursery again fast enoughto satisfy my wife, though she assisted in her own person and well-nighpulled the crib to pieces in her frantic hurry. 

We moved down-stairs; but there was no place there to stow the nurse, andMrs. McWilliams said the nurse's experience would be an inestimable help. So we returned, bag and baggage, to our own bedroom once more, and felt agreat gladness, like storm-buffeted birds that have found their nestagain. 

Mrs. McWilliams sped to the nursery to see how things were going onthere. She was back in a moment with a new dread. She said:

"What can make Baby sleep so?"

I said:

"Why, my darling, Baby always sleeps like a graven image. "

"I know. I know; but there's something peculiar about his sleep now. He seems to--to--he seems to breathe so regularly. Oh, this isdreadful. "

"But, my dear, he always breathes regularly. "

"Oh, I know it, but there's something frightful about it now. His nurseis too young and inexperienced. Maria shall stay there with her, and beon hand if anything happens. "

"That is a good idea, but who will help you?"

"You can help me all I want. I wouldn't allow anybody to do anything butmyself, anyhow, at such a time as this. "

I said I would feel mean to lie abed and sleep, and leave her to watchand toil over our little patient all the weary night. But she reconciledme to it. So old Maria departed and took up her ancient quarters in thenursery. 

Penelope coughed twice in her sleep. 

"Oh, why don't that doctor come! Mortimer, this room is too warm. Thisroom is certainly too warm. Turn off the register-quick!"

I shut it off, glancing at the thermometer at the same time, andwondering to myself if 70 was too warm for a sick child. 

The coachman arrived from down-town now with the news that our physicianwas ill and confined to his bed. Mrs. McWilliams turned a dead eye uponme, and said in a dead voice:

"There is a Providence in it. It is foreordained. He never was sickbefore. Never. We have not been living as we ought to live, Mortimer. Time and time again I have told you so. Now you see the result. Ourchild will never get well. Be thankful if you can forgive yourself; Inever can forgive myself. "

I said, without intent to hurt, but with heedless choice of words, that Icould not see that we had been living such an abandoned life. 

"Mortimer! Do you want to bring the judgment upon Baby, too!"

Then she began to cry, but suddenly exclaimed:

"The doctor must have sent medicines!"

I said:

"Certainly. They are here. I was only waiting for you to give me achance. "

"Well do give them to me! Don't you know that every moment is preciousnow? But what was the use in sending medicines, when he knows that thedisease is incurable?"

I said that while there was life there was hope. 

"Hope! Mortimer, you know no more what you are talking about than thechild unborn. If you would--As I live, the directions say give oneteaspoonful once an hour! Once an hour!--as if we had a whole yearbefore us to save the child in! Mortimer, please hurry. Give the poorperishing thing a tablespoonful, and try to be quick!"

"Why, my dear, a tablespoonful might--"

"Don't drive me frantic! . . . There, there, there, my precious, myown; it's nasty bitter stuff, but it's good for Nelly--good for mother'sprecious darling; and it will make her well. There, there, there, putthe little head on mamma's breast and go to sleep, and pretty soon--oh, I know she can't live till morning! Mortimer, a tablespoonful everyhalf-hour will--Oh, the child needs belladonna, too; I know she does--andaconite. Get them, Mortimer. Now do let me have my way. You knownothing about these things. "

We now went to bed, placing the crib close to my wife's pillow. All thisturmoil had worn upon me, and within two minutes I was something morethan half asleep. Mrs. McWilliams roused me:

"Darling, is that register turned on?"

"No. "

"I thought as much. Please turn it on at once. This room is cold. "

I turned it on, and presently fell asleep again. I was aroused oncemore:

"Dearie, would you mind moving the crib to your side of the bed? It isnearer the register. "

I moved it, but had a collision with the rug and woke up the child. Idozed off once more, while my wife quieted the sufferer. But in a littlewhile these words came murmuring remotely through the fog of mydrowsiness:

"Mortimer, if we only had some goose grease--will you ring?"

I climbed dreamily out, and stepped on a cat, which responded with aprotest and would have got a convincing kick for it if a chair had notgot it instead. 

"Now, Mortimer, why do you want to turn up the gas and wake up the childagain?"

"Because I want to see how much I am hurt, Caroline. "

"Well, look at the chair, too--I have no doubt it is ruined. Poor cat, suppose you had--"

"Now I am not going to suppose anything about the cat. It never wouldhave occurred if Maria had been allowed to remain here and attend tothese duties, which are in her line and are not in mine. "

"Now, Mortimer, I should think you would be ashamed to make a remark likethat. It is a pity if you cannot do the few little things I ask of youat such an awful time as this when our child--"

"There, there, I will do anything you want. But I can't raise anybodywith this bell. They're all gone to bed. Where is the goose grease?"

"On the mantelpiece in the nursery. If you'll step there and speak toMaria--"

I fetched the goose grease and went to sleep again. Once more I wascalled:

"Mortimer, I so hate to disturb you, but the room is still too cold forme to try to apply this stuff. Would you mind lighting the fire? It isall ready to touch a match to. "

I dragged myself out and lit the fire, and then sat down disconsolate. 

"Mortimer, don't sit there and catch your death of cold. Come to bed. "

As I was stepping in she said:

"But wait a moment. Please give the child some more of the medicine. "

Which I did. It was a medicine which made a child more or less lively;so my wife made use of its waking interval to strip it and grease it allover with the goose oil. I was soon asleep once more, but once more Ihad to get up. 

"Mortimer, I feel a draft. I feel it distinctly. There is nothing sobad for this disease as a draft. Please move the crib in front of thefire. "

I did it; and collided with the rug again, which I threw in the fire. Mrs. McWilliams sprang out of bed and rescued it and we had some words. I had another trifling interval of sleep, and then got up, by request, and constructed a flax-seed poultice. This was placed upon the child'sbreast and left there to do its healing work. 

A wood-fire is not a permanent thing. I got up every twenty minutes andrenewed ours, and this gave Mrs. McWilliams the opportunity to shortenthe times of giving the medicines by ten minutes, which was a greatsatisfaction to her. Now and then, between times, I reorganized theflax-seed poultices, and applied sinapisms and other sorts of blisterswhere unoccupied places could be found upon the child. Well, towardmorning the wood gave out and my wife wanted me to go down cellar and getsome more. I said:

"My dear, it is a laborious job, and the child must be nearly warmenough, with her extra clothing. Now mightn't we put on another layer ofpoultices and--"

I did not finish, because I was interrupted. I lugged wood up from belowfor some little time, and then turned in and fell to snoring as only aman can whose strength is all gone and whose soul is worn out. Just atbroad daylight I felt a grip on my shoulder that brought me to my sensessuddenly. My wife was glaring down upon me and gasping. As soon as shecould command her tongue she said:

"It is all over! All over! The child's perspiring! What shall we do?"

"Mercy, how you terrify me! I don't know what we ought to do. Maybe ifwe scraped her and put her in the draft again--"

"Oh, idiot! There is not a moment to lose! Go for the doctor. Go yourself. Tell him he must come, dead or alive. "

I dragged that poor sick man from his bed and brought him. He looked atthe child and said she was not dying. This was joy unspeakable to me, but it made my wife as mad as if he had offered her a personal affront. Then he said the child's cough was only caused by some triflingirritation or other in the throat. At this I thought my wife had a mindto show him the door. Now the doctor said he would make the child coughharder and dislodge the trouble. So he gave her something that sent herinto a spasm of coughing, and presently up came a little wood splinter orso. 

"This child has no membranous croup, " said he. "She has been chewing abit of pine shingle or something of the kind, and got some little sliversin her throat. They won't do her any hurt. "

"No, " said I, "I can well believe that. Indeed, the turpentine that isin them is very good for certain sorts of diseases that are peculiar tochildren. My wife will tell you so. "

But she did not. She turned away in disdain and left the room; and sincethat time there is one episode in our life which we never refer to. Hence the tide of our days flows by in deep and untroubled serenity. 

[Very few married men have such an experience as McWilliams's, and so theauthor of this book thought that maybe the novelty of it would give it apassing interest to the reader. ]

MY FIRST LITERARY VENTURE

I was a very smart child at the age of thirteen--an unusually smartchild, I thought at the time. It was then that I did my first newspaperscribbling, and most unexpectedly to me it stirred up a fine sensation inthe community. It did, indeed, and I was very proud of it, too. I was aprinter's "devil, " and a progressive and aspiring one. My uncle had meon his paper (the Weekly Hannibal journal, two dollars a year in advance--five hundred subscribers, and they paid in cordwood, cabbages, andunmarketable turnips), and on a lucky summer's day he left town to begone a week, and asked me if I thought I could edit one issue of thepaper judiciously. Ah! didn't I want to try! Higgins was the editor onthe rival paper. He had lately been jilted, and one night a friend foundan open note on the poor fellow's bed, in which he stated that he couldnot longer endure life and had drowned himself in Bear Creek. The friendran down there and discovered Higgins wading back to shore. He hadconcluded he wouldn't. The village was full of it for several days, but Higgins did not suspect it. I thought this was a fine opportunity. I wrote an elaborately wretched account of the whole matter, and thenillustrated it with villainous cuts engraved on the bottoms of woodentype with a jackknife--one of them a picture of Higgins wading out intothe creek in his shirt, with a lantern, sounding the depth of the waterwith a walking-stick. I thought it was desperately funny, and wasdensely unconscious that there was any moral obliquity about such apublication. Being satisfied with this effort I looked around for otherworlds to conquer, and it struck me that it would make good, interestingmatter to charge the editor of a neighboring country paper with a pieceof gratuitous rascality and "see him squirm. "

I did it, putting the article into the form of a parody on the "Burial ofSir John Moore"--and a pretty crude parody it was, too. 

Then I lampooned two prominent citizens outrageously--not because theyhad done anything to deserve, but merely because I thought it was my dutyto make the paper lively. 

Next I gently touched up the newest stranger--the lion of the day, thegorgeous journeyman tailor from Quincy. He was a simpering coxcomb ofthe first water, and the "loudest" dressed man in the state. He was aninveterate woman-killer. Every week he wrote lushy "poetry" for thejournal, about his newest conquest. His rhymes for my week were headed, "To MARY IN H--l, " meaning to Mary in Hannibal, of course. But whilesetting up the piece I was suddenly riven from head to heel by what Iregarded as a perfect thunderbolt of humor, and I compressed it into asnappy footnote at the bottom--thus: "We will let this thing pass, justthis once; but we wish Mr. J. Gordon Runnels to understand distinctlythat we have a character to sustain, and from this time forth when hewants to commune with his friends in h--l, he must select some othermedium than the columns of this journal!"

The paper came out, and I never knew any little thing attract so muchattention as those playful trifles of mine. 

For once the Hannibal Journal was in demand--a novelty it had notexperienced before. The whole town was stirred. Higgins dropped in witha double-barreled shotgun early in the forenoon. When he found that itwas an infant (as he called me) that had done him the damage, he simplypulled my ears and went away; but he threw up his situation that nightand left town for good. The tailor came with his goose and a pair ofshears; but he despised me, too, and departed for the South that night. The two lampooned citizens came with threats of libel, and went awayincensed at my insignificance. The country editor pranced in with awar-whoop next day, suffering for blood to drink; but he ended byforgiving me cordially and inviting me down to the drug store to washaway all animosity in a friendly bumper of "Fahnestock's Vermifuge. "It was his little joke. My uncle was very angry when he got back--unreasonably so, I thought, considering what an impetus I had given thepaper, and considering also that gratitude for his preservation ought tohave been uppermost in his mind, inasmuch as by his delay he had sowonderfully escaped dissection, tomahawking, libel, and getting his headshot off. 

But he softened when he looked at the accounts and saw that I hadactually booked the unparalleled number of thirty-three new subscribers, and had the vegetables to show for it, cordwood, cabbage, beans, andunsalable turnips enough to run the family for two dears!

HOW THE AUTHOR WAS SOLD IN NEWARK--[Written about 1869. ]

It is seldom pleasant to tell on oneself, but some times it is a sort ofrelief to a man to make a confession. I wish to unburden my mind now, and yet I almost believe that I am moved to do it more because I long tobring censure upon another man than because I desire to pour balm upon mywounded heart. (I don't know what balm is, but I believe it is thecorrect expression to use in this connection--never having seen anybalm. ) You may remember that I lectured in Newark lately for the younggentlemen of the-----Society? I did at any rate. During the afternoonof that day I was talking with one of the young gentlemen just referredto, and he said he had an uncle who, from some cause or other, seemed tohave grown permanently bereft of all emotion. And with tears in hiseyes, this young man said, "Oh, if I could only see him laugh once more!Oh, if I could only see him weep!" I was touched. I could neverwithstand distress. 

I said: "Bring him to my lecture. I'll start him for you. "

"Oh, if you could but do it! If you could but do it, all our familywould bless you for evermore--for he is so very dear to us. Oh, mybenefactor, can you make him laugh? can you bring soothing tears to thoseparched orbs?"

I was profoundly moved. I said: "My son, bring the old party round. I have got some jokes in that lecture that will make him laugh if thereis any laugh in him; and if they miss fire, I have got some others thatwill make him cry or kill him, one or the other. " Then the young manblessed me, and wept on my neck, and went after his uncle. He placed himin full view, in the second row of benches, that night, and I began onhim. I tried him with mild jokes, then with severe ones; I dosed himwith bad jokes and riddled him with good ones; I fired old stale jokesinto him, and peppered him fore and aft with red-hot new ones; I warmedup to my work, and assaulted him on the right and left, in front andbehind; I fumed and sweated and charged and ranted till I was hoarse andsick and frantic and furious; but I never moved him once--I never starteda smile or a tear! Never a ghost of a smile, and never a suspicion ofmoisture! I was astounded. I closed the lecture at last with onedespairing shriek--with one wild burst of humor, and hurled a joke ofsupernatural atrocity full at him!

Then I sat down bewildered and exhausted. 

The president of the society came up and bathed my head with cold water, and said: "What made you carry on so toward the last?"

I said: "I was trying to make that confounded old fool laugh, in thesecond row. "

And he said: "Well, you were wasting your time, because he is deaf anddumb, and as blind as a badger!"

Now, was that any way for that old man's nephew to impose on a strangerand orphan like me? I ask you as a man and brother, if that was any wayfor him to do?

THE OFFICE BORE--[Written about 1869]

He arrives just as regularly as the clock strikes nine in the morning. And so he even beats the editor sometimes, and the porter must leave hiswork and climb two or three pairs of stairs to unlock the "Sanctum" doorand let him in. He lights one of the office pipes--not reflecting, perhaps, that the editor may be one of those "stuck-up" people who wouldas soon have a stranger defile his tooth-brush as his pipe-stem. Then hebegins to loll--for a person who can consent to loaf his useless lifeaway in ignominious indolence has not the energy to sit up straight. He stretches full length on the sofa awhile; then draws up to halflength; then gets into a chair, hangs his head back and his arms abroad, and stretches his legs till the rims of his boot-heels rest upon thefloor; by and by sits up and leans forward, with one leg or both over thearm of the chair. But it is still observable that with all his changesof position, he never assumes the upright or a fraudful affectation ofdignity. From time to time he yawns, and stretches, and scratcheshimself with a tranquil, mangy enjoyment, and now and then he grunts akind of stuffy, overfed grunt, which is full of animal contentment. Atrare and long intervals, however, he sighs a sigh that is the eloquentexpression of a secret confession, to wit "I am useless and a nuisance, a cumberer of the earth. " The bore and his comrades--for there areusually from two to four on hand, day and night--mix into theconversation when men come in to see the editors for a moment onbusiness; they hold noisy talks among themselves about politics inparticular, and all other subjects in general--even warming up, after afashion, sometimes, and seeming to take almost a real interest in whatthey are discussing. They ruthlessly call an editor from his work withsuch a remark as: "Did you see this, Smith, in the Gazette?" and proceedto read the paragraph while the sufferer reins in his impatient pen andlistens; they often loll and sprawl round the office hour after hour, swapping anecdotes and relating personal experiences to each other--hairbreadth escapes, social encounters with distinguished men, electionreminiscences, sketches of odd characters, etc. And through all thosehours they never seem to comprehend that they are robbing the editors oftheir time, and the public of journalistic excellence in next day'spaper. At other times they drowse, or dreamily pore over exchanges, ordroop limp and pensive over the chair-arms for an hour. Even this solemnsilence is small respite to the editor, for the next uncomfortable thingto having people look over his shoulders, perhaps, is to have them sit byin silence and listen to the scratching of his pen. If a body desires totalk private business with one of the editors, he must call him outside, for no hint milder than blasting-powder or nitroglycerin would be likelyto move the bores out of listening-distance. To have to sit and endurethe presence of a bore day after day; to feel your cheerful spirits beginto sink as his footstep sounds on the stair, and utterly vanish away ashis tiresome form enters the door; to suffer through his anecdotes anddie slowly to his reminiscences; to feel always the fetters of hisclogging presence; to long hopelessly for one single day's privacy; tonote with a shudder, by and by, that to contemplate his funeral in fancyhas ceased to soothe, to imagine him undergoing in strict and fearfuldetail the tortures of the ancient Inquisition has lost its power tosatisfy the heart, and that even to wish him millions and millions andmillions of miles in Tophet is able to bring only a fitful gleam of joy;to have to endure all this, day after day, and week after week, and monthafter month, is an affliction that transcends any other that men suffer. Physical pain is pastime to it, and hanging a pleasure excursion. 

JOHNNY GREER

"The church was densely crowded that lovely summer Sabbath, " said theSunday-school superintendent, "and all, as their eyes rested upon thesmall coffin, seemed impressed by the poor black boy's fate. Above thestillness the pastor's voice rose, and chained the interest of every earas he told, with many an envied compliment, how that the brave, noble, daring little Johnny Greer, when he saw the drowned body sweeping downtoward the deep part of the river whence the agonized parents never couldhave recovered it in this world, gallantly sprang into the stream, and, at the risk of his life, towed the corpse to shore, and held it fast tillhelp came and secured it. Johnny Greer was sitting just in front of me. A ragged street-boy, with eager eye, turned upon him instantly, and saidin a hoarse whisper, "'No; but did you, though?'

"'Yes. '

"'Towed the carkiss ashore and saved it yo'self?'

"'Yes. '

"'Cracky! What did they give you?'

"'Nothing. '

"'W-h-a-t [with intense disgust]! D'you know what I'd 'a' done? I'd 'a'anchored him out in the stream, and said, Five dollars, gents, or youcarn't have yo' nigger. '"

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT--[Written about 1867. ]

In as few words as possible I wish to lay before the nation what's here, howsoever small, I have had in this matter--this matter which has soexercised the public mind, engendered so much ill-feeling, and so filledthe newspapers of both continents with distorted statements andextravagant comments. 

The origin of this distressful thing was this--and I assert here thatevery fact in the following resume can be amply proved by the officialrecords of the General Government. 

John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Government, on or about the 10thday of October, 1861, to furnish to General Sherman the sum total ofthirty barrels of beef. 

Very well. 

He started after Sherman with the beef, but when he got to WashingtonSherman had gone to Manassas; so he took the beef and followed him there, but arrived too late; he followed him to Nashville, and from Nashville toChattanooga, and from Chattanooga to Atlanta--but he never could overtakehim. At Atlanta he took a fresh start and followed him clear through hismarch to the sea. He arrived too late again by a few days; but hearingthat Sherman was going out in the Quaker City excursion to the Holy Land, he took shipping for Beirut, calculating to head off the other vessel. When he arrived in Jerusalem with his beef, he learned that Sherman hadnot sailed in the Quaker City, but had gone to the Plains to fight theIndians. He returned to America and started for the Rocky Mountains. After sixty-eight days of arduous travel on the Plains, and when he hadgot within four miles of Sherman's headquarters, he was tomahawked andscalped, and the Indians got the beef. They got all of it but onebarrel. Sherman's army captured that, and so, even in death, the boldnavigator partly fulfilled his contract. In his will, which he had keptlike a journal, he bequeathed the contract to his son Bartholomew W. Bartholomew W. Made out the following bill, and then died:

 THE UNITED STATES

 In account with JOHN WILSON MACKENZIE, of New Jersey, deceased, . . . . . . . . . . Dr. 

 To thirty barrels of beef for General Sherman, at $100, $3, 000 To traveling expenses and transportation . . . . . 14, 000

 Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $17, 000 Rec'd Pay't. 

He died then; but he left the contract to Wm. J. Martin, who tried tocollect it, but died before he got through. He left it to Barker J. Allen, and he tried to collect it also. He did not survive. Barker J. Allen left it to Anson G. Rogers, who attempted to collect it, and gotalong as far as the Ninth Auditor's Office, when Death, the greatLeveler, came all unsummoned, and foreclosed on him also. He left thebill to a relative of his in Connecticut, Vengeance Hopkins by name, wholasted four weeks and two days, and made the best time on record, comingwithin one of reaching the Twelfth Auditor. In his will he gave thecontract bill to his uncle, by the name of O-be-joyful Johnson. It wastoo undermining for joyful. His last words were: "Weep not for me--I amwilling to go. " And so he was, poor soul. Seven people inherited thecontract after that; but they all died. So it came into my hands atlast. It fell to me through a relative by the name of, Hubbard--Bethlehem Hubbard, of Indiana. He had had a grudge against me for along time; but in his last moments he sent for me, and forgave meeverything, and, weeping, gave me the beef contract. 

This ends the history of it up to the time that I succeeded to theproperty. I will now endeavor to set myself straight before the nationin everything that concerns my share in the matter. I took this beefcontract, and the bill for mileage and transportation, to the Presidentof the United States. 

He said, "Well, sir, what can I do for you?"

I said, "Sire, on or about the 10th day of October, 1861, John WilsonMackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased, contractedwith the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the sum totalof thirty barrels of beef--"

He stopped me there, and dismissed me from his presence--kindly, butfirmly. The next day called on the Secretary of State. 

He said, "Well, sir?"

I said, "Your Royal Highness: on or about the 10th day of October, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman thesum total of thirty barrels of beef--"

"That will do, sir--that will do; this office has nothing to do withcontracts for beef. "

I was bowed out. I thought the matter all over and finally, thefollowing day, I visited the Secretary of the Navy, who said, "Speakquickly, sir; do not keep me waiting. "

I said, "Your Royal Highness, on or about the 10th day of October, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Government to General Sherman the sum totalof thirty barrels of beef--"

Well, it was as far as I could get. He had nothing to do with beefcontracts for General Sherman either. I began to think it was a curiouskind of government. It looked somewhat as if they wanted to get out ofpaying for that beef. The following day I went to the Secretary of theInterior. 

I said, "Your Imperial Highness, on or about the 10th day of October--"

"That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you before. Go, take yourinfamous beef contract out of this establishment. The InteriorDepartment has nothing whatever to do with subsistence for the army. "

I went away. But I was exasperated now. I said I would haunt them;I would infest every department of this iniquitous government till thatcontract business was settled. I would collect that bill, or fall, asfell my predecessors, trying. I assailed the Postmaster-General;I besieged the Agricultural Department; I waylaid the Speaker of theHouse of Representatives. They had nothing to do with army contracts forbeef. I moved upon the Commissioner of the Patent Office. 

I said, "Your August Excellency, on or about--"

"Perdition! have you got here with your incendiary beef contract, atlast? We have nothing to do with beef contracts for the army, my dearsir. "

"Oh, that is all very well--but somebody has got to pay for that beef. It has got to be paid now, too, or I'll confiscate this old Patent Officeand everything in it. "

"But, my dear sir--"

"It don't make any difference, sir. The Patent Office is liable for thatbeef, I reckon; and, liable or not liable, the Patent Office has got topay for it. "

Never mind the details. It ended in a fight. The Patent Office won. But I found out something to my advantage. I was told that the TreasuryDepartment was the proper place for me to go to. I went there. I waitedtwo hours and a half, and then I was admitted to the First Lord of theTreasury. 

I said, "Most noble, grave, and reverend Signor, on or about the 10th dayof October, 1861, John Wilson Macken--"

"That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you. Go to the First Auditorof the Treasury. "

I did so. He sent me to the Second Auditor. The Second Auditor sent meto the Third, and the Third sent me to the First Comptroller of theCorn-Beef Division. This began to look like business. He examined hisbooks and all his loose papers, but found no minute of the beef contract. I went to the Second Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division. He examinedhis books and his loose papers, but with no success. I was encouraged. During that week I got as far as the Sixth Comptroller in that division;the next week I got through the Claims Department; the third week I beganand completed the Mislaid Contracts Department, and got a foothold in theDead Reckoning Department. I finished that in three days. There wasonly one place left for it now. I laid siege to the Commissioner of Oddsand Ends. To his clerk, rather--he was not there himself. There weresixteen beautiful young ladies in the room, writing in books, and therewere seven well-favored young clerks showing them how. The young womensmiled up over their shoulders, and the clerks smiled back at them, andall went merry as a marriage bell. Two or three clerks that were readingthe newspapers looked at me rather hard, but went on reading, and nobodysaid anything. However, I had been used to this kind of alacrity fromFourth Assistant Junior Clerks all through my eventful career, from thevery day I entered the first office of the Corn-Beef Bureau clear till Ipassed out of the last one in the Dead Reckoning Division. I had got soaccomplished by this time that I could stand on one foot from the momentI entered an office till a clerk spoke to me, without changing more thantwo, or maybe three, times. 

So I stood there till I had changed four different times. Then I said toone of the clerks who was reading:

"Illustrious Vagrant, where is the Grand Turk?"

"What do you mean, sir? whom do you mean? If you mean the Chief of theBureau, he is out. "

"Will he visit the harem to-day?"

The young man glared upon me awhile, and then went on reading his paper. But I knew the ways of those clerks. I knew I was safe if he got throughbefore another New York mail arrived. He only had two more papers left. After a while he finished them, and then he yawned and asked me what Iwanted. 

"Renowned and honored Imbecile: on or about--"

"You are the beef-contract man. Give me your papers. "

He took them, and for a long time he ransacked his odds and ends. Finally he found the Northwest Passage, as I regarded it--he found thelong lost record of that beef contract--he found the rock upon which somany of my ancestors had split before they ever got to it. I was deeplymoved. And yet I rejoiced--for I had survived. I said with emotion, "Give it me. The government will settle now. " He waved me back, andsaid there was something yet to be done first. 

"Where is this John Wilson Mackenzie?" said he. 

"Dead. "

"When did he die?"

"He didn't die at all--he was killed. "

"How?"

"Tomahawked. "

"Who tomahawked him?"

"Why, an Indian, of course. You didn't suppose it was the superintendentof a Sunday-school, did you?"

"No. An Indian, was it?"

"The same. "

"Name of the Indian?"

"His name? I don't know his name. "

"Must have his name. Who saw the tomahawking done?"

"I don't know. "

"You were not present yourself, then?"

"Which you can see by my hair. I was absent. 

"Then how do you know that Mackenzie is dead?"

"Because he certainly died at that time, and have every reason to believethat he has been dead ever since. I know he has, in fact. "

"We must have proofs. Have you got this Indian?"

"Of course not. "

"Well, you must get him. Have you got the tomahawk?"

"I never thought of such a thing. "

"You must get the tomahawk. You must produce the Indian and thetomahawk. If Mackenzie's death can be proven by these, you can then gobefore the commission appointed to audit claims with some show of gettingyour bill under such headway that your children may possibly live toreceive the money and enjoy it. But that man's death must be proven. However, I may as well tell you that the government will never pay thattransportation and those traveling expenses of the lamented Mackenzie. It may possibly pay for the barrel of beef that Sherman's soldierscaptured, if you can get a relief bill through Congress making anappropriation for that purpose; but it will not pay for the twenty-ninebarrels the Indians ate. "

"Then there is only a hundred dollars due me, and that isn't certain!After all Mackenzie's travels in Europe, Asia, and America with thatbeef; after all his trials and tribulations and transportation; after theslaughter of all those innocents that tried to collect that bill! Youngman, why didn't the First Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division tell methis?"

"He didn't know anything about the genuineness of your claim. "

"Why didn't the Second tell me? why didn't the Third? why didn't allthose divisions and departments tell me?"

"None of them knew. We do things by routine here. You have followed theroutine and found out what you wanted to know. It is the best way. It is the only way. It is very regular, and very slow, but it is verycertain. "

"Yes, certain death. It has been, to the most of our tribe. I begin tofeel that I, too, am called. "

"Young man, you love the bright creature yonder with the gentle blue eyesand the steel pens behind her ears--I see it in your soft glances; youwish to marry her--but you are poor. Here, hold out your hand--here isthe beef contract; go, take her and be happy Heaven bless you, mychildren!"

This is all I know about the great beef contract that has created so muchtalk in the community. The clerk to whom I bequeathed it died. I knownothing further about the contract, or any one connected with it. I onlyknow that if a man lives long enough he can trace a thing through theCircumlocution Office of Washington and find out, after much labor andtrouble and delay, that which he could have found out on the first day ifthe business of the Circumlocution Office were as ingeniouslysystematized as it would be if it were a great private mercantileinstitution. 

THE CASE OF GEORGE FISHER

--[Some years ago, about 1867, when this was first published, few peoplebelieved it, but considered it a mere extravaganza. In these latter daysit seems hard to realize that there was ever a time when the robbing ofour government was a novelty. The very man who showed me where to findthe documents for this case was at that very time spending hundreds ofthousands of dollars in Washington for a mail steamship concern, in theeffort to procure a subsidy for the company--a fact which was a long timein coming to the surface, but leaked out at last and underwentCongressional investigation. ]

This is history. It is not a wild extravaganza, like "John WilsonMackenzie's Great Beef Contract, " but is a plain statement of facts andcircumstances with which the Congress of the United States has interesteditself from time to time during the long period of half a century. 

I will not call this matter of George Fisher's a great deathless andunrelenting swindle upon the government and people of the United States--for it has never been so decided, and I hold that it is a grave andsolemn wrong for a writer to cast slurs or call names when such is thecase--but will simply present the evidence and let the reader deduce hisown verdict. Then we shall do nobody injustice, and our consciencesshall be clear. 

On or about the 1st day of September, 1813, the Creek war being then inprogress in Florida, the crops, herds, and houses of Mr. George Fisher, a citizen, were destroyed, either by the Indians or by the United Statestroops in pursuit of them. By the terms of the law, if the Indiansdestroyed the property, there was no relief for Fisher; but if the troopsdestroyed it, the Government of the United States was debtor to Fisherfor the amount involved. 

George Fisher must have considered that the Indians destroyed theproperty, because, although he lived several years afterward, he does notappear to have ever made any claim upon the government. 

In the course of time Fisher died, and his widow married again. And by and by, nearly twenty years after that dimly remembered raid uponFisher's corn-fields, the widow Fisher's new husband petitioned Congressfor pay for the property, and backed up the petition with manydepositions and affidavits which purported to prove that the troops, and not the Indians, destroyed the property; that the troops, for someinscrutable reason, deliberately burned down "houses" (or cabins) valuedat $600, the same belonging to a peaceable private citizen, and alsodestroyed various other property belonging to the same citizen. ButCongress declined to believe that the troops were such idiots (afterovertaking and scattering a band of Indians proved to have been founddestroying Fisher's property) as to calmly continue the work ofdestruction themselves; and make a complete job of what the Indians hadonly commenced. So Congress denied the petition of the heirs of GeorgeFisher in 1832, and did not pay them a cent. 

We hear no more from them officially until 1848, sixteen years aftertheir first attempt on the Treasury, and a full generation after thedeath of the man whose fields were destroyed. The new generation ofFisher heirs then came forward and put in a bill for damages. The SecondAuditor awarded them $8, 873, being half the damage sustained by Fisher. The Auditor said the testimony showed that at least half the destructionwas done by the Indians "before the troops started in pursuit, " and ofcourse the government was not responsible for that half. 

2. That was in April, 1848. In December, 1848, the heirs of GeorgeFisher, deceased, came forward and pleaded for a "revision" of their billof damages. The revision was made, but nothing new could be found intheir favor except an error of $100 in the former calculation. However, in order to keep up the spirits of the Fisher family, the Auditorconcluded to go back and allow interest from the date of the firstpetition (1832) to the date when the bill of damages was awarded. Thissent the Fishers home happy with sixteen years' interest on $8, 873--thesame amounting to $8, 997. 94. Total, $17, 870. 94. 

3. For an entire year the suffering Fisher family remained quiet--evensatisfied, after a fashion. Then they swooped down upon the governmentwith their wrongs once more. That old patriot, Attorney-General Toucey, burrowed through the musty papers of the Fishers and discovered one morechance for the desolate orphans--interest on that original award of$8, 873 from date of destruction of the property (1813) up to 1832!Result, $110, 004. 89 for the indigent Fishers. So now we have: First, $8, 873 damages; second, interest on it from 1832 to 1848, $8997. 94;third, interest on it dated back to 1813, $10, 004. 89. Total, $27, 875. 83!What better investment for a great-grandchild than to get the Indians toburn a corn-field for him sixty or seventy years before his birth, andplausibly lay it on lunatic United States troops?

4. Strange as it may seem, the Fishers let Congress alone for fiveyears--or, what is perhaps more likely, failed to make themselves heardby Congress for that length of time. But at last, in 1854, they got ahearing. They persuaded Congress to pass an act requiring the Auditor tore-examine their case. But this time they stumbled upon the misfortuneof an honest Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. James Guthrie), and hespoiled everything. He said in very plain language that the Fishers werenot only not entitled to another cent, but that those children of manysorrows and acquainted with grief had been paid too much already. 

5. Therefore another interval of rest and silent ensued-an intervalwhich lasted four years--viz till 1858. The "right man in the rightplace" was then Secretary of War--John B. Floyd, of peculiar renown!Here was a master intellect; here was the very man to succor thesuffering heirs of dead and forgotten Fisher. They came up from Floridawith a rush--a great tidal wave of Fishers freighted with the same oldmusty documents about the same in immortal corn-fields of their ancestor. They straight-way got an act passed transferring the Fisher matter fromthe dull Auditor to the ingenious Floyd. What did Floyd do? He said, "IT WAS PROVED that the Indians destroyed everything they could beforethe troops entered in pursuit. " He considered, therefore, that what theydestroyed must have consisted of "the houses with all their contents, andthe liquor" (the most trifling part of the destruction, and set down atonly $3, 200 all told), and that the government troops then drove them offand calmly proceeded to destroy--

Two hundred and twenty acres of corn in the field, thirty-five acres ofwheat, and nine hundred and eighty-six head of live stock! [What asingularly intelligent army we had in those days, according to Mr. Floyd--though not according to the Congress of 1832. ]

So Mr. Floyd decided that the Government was not responsible for that$3, 200 worth of rubbish which the Indians destroyed, but was responsiblefor the property destroyed by the troops--which property consisted of (Iquote from the printed United States Senate document):

 Dollars Corn at Bassett's Creek, ............... 3, 000 Cattle, ................................ 5, 000 Stock hogs, ............................ 1, 050 Drove hogs, ............................ 1, 204 Wheat, ................................. 350 Hides, ................................. 4, 000 Corn on the Alabama River, ............. 3, 500

 Total, ............. 18, 104

That sum, in his report, Mr. Floyd calls the "full value of the propertydestroyed by the troops. "

He allows that sum to the starving Fishers, TOGETHER WITH INTEREST FROM1813. From this new sum total the amounts already paid to the Fisherswere deducted, and then the cheerful remainder (a fraction under fortythousand dollars) was handed to then and again they retired to Florida ina condition of temporary tranquillity. Their ancestor's farm had nowyielded them altogether nearly sixty-seven thousand dollars in cash. 

6. Does the reader suppose that that was the end of it? Does he supposethose diffident Fishers we: satisfied? Let the evidence show. TheFishers were quiet just two years. Then they came swarming up out of thefertile swamps of Florida with their same old documents, and besiegedCongress once more. Congress capitulated on the 1st of June, 1860, andinstructed Mr. Floyd to overhaul those papers again, and pay that bill. A Treasury clerk was ordered to go through those papers and report to Mr. Floyd what amount was still due the emaciated Fishers. This clerk (I canproduce him whenever he is wanted) discovered what was apparently aglaring and recent forgery in the paper; whereby a witness's testimony asto the price of corn in Florida in 1813 was made to name double theamount which that witness had originally specified as the price! Theclerk not only called his superior's attention to this thing, but inmaking up his brief of the case called particular attention to it inwriting. That part of the brief never got before Congress, nor hasCongress ever yet had a hint of forgery existing among the Fisher papers. Nevertheless, on the basis of the double prices (and totally ignoring theclerk's assertion that the figures were manifestly and unquestionably arecent forgery), Mr. Floyd remarks in his new report that "the testimony, particularly in regard to the corn crops, DEMANDS A MUCH HIGHER ALLOWANCEthan any heretofore made by the Auditor or myself. " So he estimates thecrop at sixty bushels to the acre (double what Florida acres produce), and then virtuously allows pay for only half the crop, but allows twodollars and a half a bushel for that half, when there are rusty old booksand documents in the Congressional library to show just what the Fishertestimony showed before the forgery--viz. , that in the fall of 1813 cornwas only worth from $1. 25 to $1. 50 a bushel. Having accomplished this, what does Mr. Floyd do next? Mr. Floyd ("with an earnest desire toexecute truly the legislative will, " as he piously remarks) goes to workand makes out an entirely new bill of Fisher damages, and in this newbill he placidly ignores the Indians altogether puts no particle of thedestruction of the Fisher property upon them, but, even repenting him ofcharging them with burning the cabins and drinking the whisky andbreaking the crockery, lays the entire damage at the door of the imbecileUnited States troops down to the very last item! And not only that, butuses the forgery to double the loss of corn at "Bassett's Creek, " anduses it again to absolutely treble the loss of corn on the "AlabamaRiver. " This new and ably conceived and executed bill of Mr. Floyd'sfigures up as follows (I copy again from the printed United States Senatedocument):

 The United States in account with the legal representatives of George Fisher, deceased. DOL. C1813. --To 550 head of cattle, at 10 dollars, ............. 5, 500. 00 To 86 head of drove hogs, ......................... 1, 204. 00 To 350 head of stock hogs, ........................ 1, 750. 00 To 100 ACRES OF CORN ON BASSETT'S CREEK, .......... 6, 000. 00 To 8 barrels of whisky, ........................... 350. 00 To 2 barrels of brandy, ........................... 280. 00 To 1 barrel of rum, ............................... 70. 00 To dry-goods and merchandise in store, ............ 1, 100. 00 To 35 acres of wheat, ............................. 350. 00 To 2, 000 hides, ................................... 4, 000. 00 To furs and hats in store, ........................ 600. 00 To crockery ware in store, ........................ 100. 00 To smith's and carpenter's tools, ................. 250. 00 To houses burned and destroyed, ................... 600. 00 To 4 dozen bottles of wine, ....................... 48. 001814. --To 120 acres of corn on Alabama River, ............ 9, 500. 00 To crops of peas, fodder, etc. .................... 3, 250. 00

 Total, .......................... 34, 952. 00

 To interest on $22, 202, from July 1813 to November 1860, 47 years and 4 months, ....... 63, 053. 68 To interest on $12, 750, from September 1814 to November 1860, 46 years and 2 months, .. 35, 317. 50

 Total, ........................ 133, 323. 18

He puts everything in this time. He does not even allow that the Indiansdestroyed the crockery or drank the four dozen bottles of (currant) wine. When it came to supernatural comprehensiveness in "gobbling, " John B. Floyd was without his equal, in his own or any other generation. Subtracting from the above total the $67, 000 already paid toGeorge Fisher's implacable heirs, Mr. Floyd announced that the governmentwas still indebted to them in the sum of sixty-six thousand five hundredand nineteen dollars and eighty-five cents, "which, " Mr. Floydcomplacently remarks, "will be paid, accordingly, to the administrator ofthe estate of George Fisher, deceased, or to his attorney in fact. "

But, sadly enough for the destitute orphans, a new President came in justat this time, Buchanan and Floyd went out, and they never got theirmoney. The first thing Congress did in 1861 was to rescind theresolution of June 1, 1860, under which Mr. Floyd had been ciphering. Then Floyd (and doubtless the heirs of George Fisher likewise) had togive up financial business for a while, and go into the Confederate armyand serve their country. 

Were the heirs of George Fisher killed? No. They are back now at thisvery time (July, 1870), beseeching Congress through that blushing anddiffident creature, Garrett Davis, to commence making payments again ontheir interminable and insatiable bill of damages for corn and whiskydestroyed by a gang of irresponsible Indians, so long ago that evengovernment red-tape has failed to keep consistent and intelligent trackof it. 

Now the above are facts. They are history. Any one who doubts it cansend to the Senate Document Department of the Capitol for H. R. Ex. Doc. No. 21, 36th Congress, 2d Session; and for S. Ex. Doc. No. 106, 41stCongress, 2d Session, and satisfy himself. The whole case is set forthin the first volume of the Court of Claims Reports. 

It is my belief that as long as the continent of America holds together, the heirs of George Fisher, deceased, will still make pilgrimages toWashington from the swamps of Florida, to plead for just a little morecash on their bill of damages (even when they received the last of thatsixty-seven thousand dollars, they said it was only one fourth what thegovernment owed them on that fruitful corn-field), and as long as theychoose to come they will find Garrett Davises to drag their vampireschemes before Congress. This is not the only hereditary fraud (if fraudit is--which I have before repeatedly remarked is not proven) that isbeing quietly handed down from generation to generation of fathers andsons, through the persecuted Treasury of the United States. 

DISGRACEFUL PERSECUTION OF A BOY

In San Francisco, the other day, "A well-dressed boy, on his way toSunday-school, was arrested and thrown into the city prison for stoningChinamen. "

What a commentary is this upon human justice! What sad prominence itgives to our human disposition to tyrannize over the weak! San Franciscohas little right to take credit to herself for her treatment of this poorboy. What had the child's education been? How should he suppose it waswrong to stone a Chinaman? Before we side against him, along withoutraged San Francisco, let us give him a chance--let us hear thetestimony for the defense. 

He was a "well-dressed" boy, and a Sunday-school scholar, and thereforethe chances are that his parents were intelligent, well-to-do people, with just enough natural villainy in their composition to make them yearnafter the daily papers, and enjoy them; and so this boy had opportunitiesto learn all through the week how to do right, as well as on Sunday. 

It was in this way that he found out that the great commonwealth ofCalifornia imposes an unlawful mining-tax upon John the foreigner, andallows Patrick the foreigner to dig gold for nothing--probably becausethe degraded Mongol is at no expense for whisky, and the refined Celtcannot exist without it. 

It was in this way that he found out that a respectable number of thetax-gatherers--it would be unkind to say all of them--collect the taxtwice, instead of once; and that, inasmuch as they do it solely todiscourage Chinese immigration into the mines, it is a thing that is muchapplauded, and likewise regarded as being singularly facetious. 

It was in this way that he found out that when a white man robs asluice-box (by the term white man is meant Spaniards, Mexicans, Portuguese, Irish, Hondurans, Peruvians, Chileans, etc. , etc. ), they makehim leave the camp; and when a Chinaman does that thing, they hang him. 

It was in this way that he found out that in many districts of the vastPacific coast, so strong is the wild, free love of justice in the heartsof the people, that whenever any secret and mysterious crime iscommitted, they say, "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall, " andgo straightway and swing a Chinaman. 

It was in this way that he found out that by studying one half of eachday's "local items, " it would appear that the police of San Franciscowere either asleep or dead, and by studying the other half it would seemthat the reporters were gone mad with admiration of the energy, thevirtue, the high effectiveness, and the dare-devil intrepidity of thatvery police-making exultant mention of how "the Argus-eyed officerSo-and-so" captured a wretched knave of a Chinaman who was stealingchickens, and brought him gloriously to the city prison; and how "thegallant officer Such-and-such-a-one" quietly kept an eye on the movementsof an "unsuspecting, almond-eyed son of Confucius" (your reporter isnothing if not facetious), following him around with that far-off look. Of vacancy and unconsciousness always so finely affected by thatinscrutable being, the forty-dollar policeman, during a waking interval, and captured him at last in the very act of placing his hands in asuspicious manner upon a paper of tacks, left by the owner in an exposedsituation; and how one officer performed this prodigious thing, andanother officer that, and another the other--and pretty much every one ofthese performances having for a dazzling central incident a Chinamanguilty of a shilling's worth of crime, an unfortunate, whose misdemeanormust be hurrahed into something enormous in order to keep the public fromnoticing how many really important rascals went uncaptured in the meantime, and how overrated those glorified policemen actually are. 

It was in this way that the boy found out that the legislature, beingaware that the Constitution has made America, an asylum for the poor andthe oppressed of all nations, and that, therefore, the poor and oppressedwho fly to our shelter must not be charged a disabling admission fee, made a law that every Chinaman, upon landing, must be vaccinated upon thewharf, and pay to the state's appointed officer ten dollars for theservice, when there are plenty of doctors in San Francisco who would beglad enough to do it for him for fifty cents. 

It was in this way that the boy found out that a Chinaman had no rightsthat any man was bound to respect; that he had no sorrows that any manwas bound to pity; that neither his life nor his liberty was worth thepurchase of a penny when a white man needed a scapegoat; that nobodyloved Chinamen, nobody befriended them, nobody spared them suffering whenit was convenient to inflict it; everybody, individuals, communities, themajesty of the state itself, joined in hating, abusing, and persecutingthese humble strangers. 

And, therefore, what could have been more natural than for thissunny-hearted-boy, tripping along to Sunday-school, with his mind teemingwith freshly learned incentives to high and virtuous action, to say tohimself:

"Ah, there goes a Chinaman! God will not love me if I do not stone him. "

And for this he was arrested and put in the city jail. 

Everything conspired to teach him that it was a high and holy thing tostone a Chinaman, and yet he no sooner attempts to do his duty than he ispunished for it--he, poor chap, who has been aware all his life that oneof the principal recreations of the police, out toward the Gold Refinery, is to look on with tranquil enjoyment while the butchers of BrannanStreet set their dogs on unoffending Chinamen, and make them flee fortheir lives. 

--[I have many such memories in my mind, but am thinking just at presentof one particular one, where the Brannan Street butchers set their dogson a Chinaman who was quietly passing with a basket of clothes on hishead; and while the dogs mutilated his flesh, a butcher increased thehilarity of the occasion by knocking some of the Chinaman's teeth downhis throat with half a brick. This incident sticks in my memory with amore malevolent tenacity, perhaps, on account of the fact that I was inthe employ of a San Francisco journal at the time, and was not allowed topublish it because it might offend some of the peculiar element thatsubscribed for the paper. ]

Keeping in mind the tuition in the humanities which the entire "Pacificcoast" gives its youth, there is a very sublimity of incongruity in thevirtuous flourish with which the good city fathers of San Franciscoproclaim (as they have lately done) that "The police are positivelyordered to arrest all boys, of every description and wherever found, whoengage in assaulting Chinamen. "

Still, let us be truly glad they have made the order, notwithstanding itsinconsistency; and let us rest perfectly confident the police are glad, too. Because there is no personal peril in arresting boys, provided theybe of the small kind, and the reporters will have to laud theirperformances just as loyally as ever, or go without items. 

The new form for local items in San Francisco will now be: "Theever-vigilant and efficient officer So-and-so succeeded, yesterdayafternoon, in arresting Master Tommy Jones, after a determinedresistance, " etc. , etc. , followed by the customary statistics and finalhurrah, with its unconscious sarcasm: "We are happy in being able tostate that this is the forty-seventh boy arrested by this gallant officersince the new ordinance went into effect. The most extraordinaryactivity prevails in the police department. Nothing like it has beenseen since we can remember. "

THE JUDGE'S "SPIRITED WOMAN"

"I was sitting here, " said the judge, "in this old pulpit, holding court, and we were trying a big, wicked-looking Spanish desperado for killingthe husband of a bright, pretty Mexican woman. It was a lazy summer day, and an awfully long one, and the witnesses were tedious. None of us tookany interest in the trial except that nervous, uneasy devil of a Mexicanwoman because you know how they love and how they hate, and this one hadloved her husband with all her might, and now she had boiled it all downinto hate, and stood here spitting it at that Spaniard with her eyes;and I tell you she would stir me up, too, with a little of her summerlightning, occasionally. Well, I had my coat off and my heels up, lolling and sweating, and smoking one of those cabbage cigars the SanFrancisco people used to think were good enough for us in those times;and the lawyers they all had their coats off, and were smoking andwhittling, and the witnesses the same, and so was the prisoner. Well, the fact is, there warn't any interest in a murder trial then, becausethe fellow was always brought in 'not guilty, ' the jury expecting him todo as much for them some time; and, although the evidence was straightand square against this Spaniard, we knew we could not convict himwithout seeming to be rather high-handed and sort of reflecting on everygentleman in the community; for there warn't any carriages and liveriesthen, and so the only 'style' there was, was to keep your privategraveyard. But that woman seemed to have her heart set on hanging thatSpaniard; and you'd ought to have seen how she would glare on him aminute, and then look up at me in her pleading way, and then turn and forthe next five minutes search the jury's faces, and by and by drop herface in her hands for just a little while as if she was most ready togive up; but out she'd come again directly, and be as live and anxious asever. But when the jury announced the verdict--Not Guilty--and I toldthe prisoner he was acquitted and free to go, that woman rose up till sheappeared to be as tall and grand as a seventy-four-gun ship, and saysshe:

"'Judge, do I understand you to say that this man is not guilty thatmurdered my husband without any cause before my own eyes and my littlechildren's, and that all has been done to him that ever justice and thelaw can do?'

"'The same, ' says I. 

"And then what do you reckon she did? Why, she turned on that smirkingSpanish fool like a wildcat, and out with a 'navy' and shot him dead inopen court!"

"That was spirited, I am willing to admit. "

"Wasn't it, though?" said the judge admiringly. 

"I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I adjourned court right on thespot, and we put on our coats and went out and took up a collection forher and her cubs, and sent them over the mountains to their friends. Ah, she was a spirited wench!"

INFORMATION WANTED

 "WASHINGTON, December 10, 1867. 

"Could you give me any information respecting such islands, if any, asthe government is going to purchase?"

It is an uncle of mine that wants to know. He is an industrious man andwell disposed, and wants to make a living in an honest, humble way, butmore especially he wants to be quiet. He wishes to settle down, and bequiet and unostentatious. He has been to the new island St. Thomas, buthe says he thinks things are unsettled there. He went there early withan attache of the State Department, who was sent down with money to payfor the island. My uncle had his money in the same box, and so when theywent ashore, getting a receipt, the sailors broke open the box and tookall the money, not making any distinction between government money, whichwas legitimate money to be stolen, and my uncle's, which was his ownprivate property, and should have been respected. But he came home andgot some more and went back. And then he took the fever. There areseven kinds of fever down there, you know; and, as his blood was out oforder by reason of loss of sleep and general wear and tear of mind, hefailed to cure the first fever, and then somehow he got the other six. He is not a kind of man that enjoys fevers, though he is well meaning andalways does what he thinks is right, and so he was a good deal annoyedwhen it appeared he was going to die. 

But he worried through, and got well and started a farm. He fenced itin, and the next day that great storm came on and washed the most of itover to Gibraltar, or around there somewhere. He only said, in hispatient way, that it was gone, and he wouldn't bother about trying tofind out where it went to, though it was his opinion it went toGibraltar. 

Then he invested in a mountain, and started a farm up there, so as to beout of the way when the sea came ashore again. It was a good mountain, and a good farm, but it wasn't any use; an earthquake came the next nightand shook it all down. It was all fragments, you know, and so mixed upwith another man's property that he could not tell which were hisfragments without going to law; and he would not do that, because hismain object in going to St. Thomas was to be quiet. All that he wantedwas to settle down and be quiet. 

He thought it all over, and finally he concluded to try the low groundagain, especially as he wanted to start a brickyard this time. He boughta flat, and put out a hundred thousand bricks to dry preparatory tobaking them. But luck appeared to be against him. A volcano shoveditself through there that night, and elevated his brickyard about twothousand feet in the air. It irritated him a good deal. He has been upthere, and he says the bricks are all baked right enough, but he can'tget them down. At first, he thought maybe the government would get thebricks down for him, because since government bought the island, it oughtto protect the property where a man has invested in good faith; but allhe wants is quiet, and so he is not going to apply for the subsidy he wasthinking about. 

He went back there last week in a couple of ships of war, to prospectaround the coast for a safe place for a farm where he could be quiet;but a great "tidal wave" came, and hoisted both of the ships out into oneof the interior counties, and he came near losing his life. So he hasgiven up prospecting in a ship, and is discouraged. 

Well, now he don't know what to do. He has tried Alaska; but the bearskept after him so much, and kept him so much on the jump, as it were, that he had to leave the country. He could not be quiet there with thosebears prancing after him all the time. That is how he came to go to thenew island we have bought--St. Thomas. But he is getting to think St. Thomas is not quiet enough for a man of his turn of mind, and that is whyhe wishes me to find out if government is likely to buy some more islandsshortly. He has heard that government is thinking about buying PortoRico. If that is true, he wishes to try Porto Rico, if it is a quietplace. How is Porto Rico for his style of man? Do you think thegovernment will buy it?

SOME LEARNED FABLES, FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS

IN THREE PARTS

PART FIRST

HOW THE ANIMALS OF THE WOOD SENT OUT A SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION

Once the creatures of the forest held a great convention and appointed acommission consisting of the most illustrious scientists among them to goforth, clear beyond the forest and out into the unknown and unexploredworld, to verify the truth of the matters already taught in their schoolsand colleges and also to make discoveries. It was the most imposingenterprise of the kind the nation had ever embarked in. True, thegovernment had once sent Dr. Bull Frog, with a picked crew, to hunt for anorthwesterly passage through the swamp to the right-hand corner of thewood, and had since sent out many expeditions to hunt for Dr. Bull Frog;but they never could find him, and so government finally gave him up andennobled his mother to show its gratitude for the services her son hadrendered to science. And once government sent Sir Grass Hopper to huntfor the sources of the rill that emptied into the swamp; and afterwardsent out many expeditions to hunt for Sir Grass, and at last they weresuccessful--they found his body, but if he had discovered the sourcesmeantime, he did not let on. So government acted handsomely by deceased, and many envied his funeral. 

But these expeditions were trifles compared with the present one; forthis one comprised among its servants the very greatest among thelearned; and besides it was to go to the utterly unvisited regionsbelieved to lie beyond the mighty forest--as we have remarked before. How the members were banqueted, and glorified, and talked about!Everywhere that one of them showed himself, straightway there was a crowdto gape and stare at him. 

Finally they set off, and it was a sight to see the long procession ofdry-land Tortoises heavily laden with savants, scientific instruments, Glow-Worms and Fire-Flies for signal service, provisions, Ants andTumble-Bugs to fetch and carry and delve, Spiders to carry the surveyingchain and do other engineering duty, and so forth and so on; and afterthe Tortoises came another long train of ironclads--stately and spaciousMud Turtles for marine transportation service; and from every Tortoiseand every Turtle flaunted a flaming gladiolus or other splendid banner;at the head of the column a great band of Bumble-Bees, Mosquitoes, Katy-Dids, and Crickets discoursed martial music; and the entire trainwas under the escort and protection of twelve picked regiments of theArmy Worm. 

At the end of three weeks the expedition emerged from the forest andlooked upon the great Unknown World. Their eyes were greeted with animpressive spectacle. A vast level plain stretched before them, wateredby a sinuous stream; and beyond there towered up against the sky alongand lofty barrier of some kind, they did not know what. The Tumble-Bugsaid he believed it was simply land tilted up on its edge, because heknew he could see trees on it. But Professor Snail and the others said:

"You are hired to dig, sir--that is all. We need your muscle, not yourbrains. When we want your opinion on scientific matters, we will hastento let you know. Your coolness is intolerable, too--loafing about heremeddling with august matters of learning, when the other laborers arepitching camp. Go along and help handle the baggage. "

The Tumble-Bug turned on his heel uncrushed, unabashed, observing tohimself, "If it isn't land tilted up, let me die the death of theunrighteous. "

Professor Bull Frog (nephew of the late explorer) said he believed theridge was the wall that inclosed the earth. He continued:

"Our fathers have left us much learning, but they had not traveled far, and so we may count this a noble new discovery. We are safe for renownnow, even though our labors began and ended with this single achievement. I wonder what this wall is built of? Can it be fungus? Fungus is anhonorable good thing to build a wall of. "

Professor Snail adjusted his field-glass and examined the rampartcritically. Finally he said:

"'The fact that it is not diaphanous convinces me that it is a densevapor formed by the calorification of ascending moisture dephlogisticatedby refraction. A few endiometrical experiments would confirm this, butit is not necessary. The thing is obvious. "

So he shut up his glass and went into his shell to make a note of thediscovery of the world's end, and the nature of it. 

"Profound mind!" said Professor Angle-Worm to Professor Field-Mouse;"profound mind! nothing can long remain a mystery to that august brain. "

Night drew on apace, the sentinel crickets were posted, the Glow-Worm andFire-Fly lamps were lighted, and the camp sank to silence and sleep. After breakfast in the morning, the expedition moved on. About noon agreat avenue was reached, which had in it two endless parallel bars ofsome kind of hard black substance, raised the height of the tallest BullFrog, above the general level. The scientists climbed up on these andexamined and tested them in various ways. They walked along them for agreat distance, but found no end and no break in them. They could arriveat no decision. There was nothing in the records of science thatmentioned anything of this kind. But at last the bald and venerablegeographer, Professor Mud Turtle, a person who, born poor, and of adrudging low family, had, by his own native force raised himself to theheadship of the geographers of his generation, said:

"'My friends, we have indeed made a discovery here. We have found in apalpable, compact, and imperishable state what the wisest of our fathersalways regarded as a mere thing of the imagination. Humble yourselves, my friends, for we stand in a majestic presence. These are parallels oflatitude!"

Every heart and every head was bowed, so awful, so sublime was themagnitude of the discovery. Many shed tears. 

The camp was pitched and the rest of the day given up to writingvoluminous accounts of the marvel, and correcting astronomical tables tofit it. Toward midnight a demoniacal shriek was heard, then a clatteringand rumbling noise, and the next instant a vast terrific eye shot by, with a long tail attached, and disappeared in the gloom, still utteringtriumphant shrieks. 

The poor damp laborers were stricken to the heart with fright, andstampeded for the high grass in a body. But not the scientists. Theyhad no superstitions. They calmly proceeded to exchange theories. The ancient geographer's opinion was asked. He went into his shell anddeliberated long and profoundly. When he came out at last, they all knewby his worshiping countenance that he brought light. Said he:

"Give thanks for this stupendous thing which we have been permitted towitness. It is the Vernal Equinox!"

There were shoutings and great rejoicings. 

"But, " said the Angle-Worm, uncoiling after reflection, "this is deadsummer-time. "

"Very well, " said the Turtle, "we are far from our region; the seasondiffers with the difference of time between the two points. "

"Ah, true: True enough. But it is night. How should the sun pass inthe night?"

"In these distant regions he doubtless passes always in the night at thishour. "

"Yes, doubtless that is true. But it being night, how is it that wecould see him?"

"It is a great mystery. I grant that. But I am persuaded that thehumidity of the atmosphere in these remote regions is such that particlesof daylight adhere to the disk and it was by aid of these that we wereenabled to see the sun in the dark. "

This was deemed satisfactory, and due entry was made of the decision. 

But about this moment those dreadful shriekings were heard again; againthe rumbling and thundering came speeding up out of the night; and oncemore a flaming great eye flashed by and lost itself in gloom anddistance. 

The camp laborers gave themselves up for lost. The savants were sorelyperplexed. Here was a marvel hard to account for. They thought and theytalked, they talked and they thought. Finally the learned and aged LordGrand-Daddy-Longlegs, who had been sitting in deep study, with hisslender limbs crossed and his stemmy arms folded, said:

"Deliver your opinions, brethren, and then I will tell my thought--for Ithink I have solved this problem. "

"So be it, good your lordship, " piped the weak treble of the wrinkled andwithered Professor Woodlouse, "for we shall hear from your lordship'slips naught but wisdom. " [Here the speaker threw in a mess of trite, threadbare, exasperating quotations from the ancient poets andphilosophers, delivering them with unction in the sounding grandeurs ofthe original tongues, they being from the Mastodon, the Dodo, and otherdead languages. ] "Perhaps I ought not to presume to meddle with matterspertaining to astronomy at all, in such a presence as this, I who havemade it the business of my life to delve only among the riches of theextinct languages and unearth the opulence of their ancient lore; butstill, as unacquainted as I am with the noble science of astronomy, I begwith deference and humility to suggest that inasmuch as the last of thesewonderful apparitions proceeded in exactly the opposite direction fromthat pursued by the first, which you decide to be the Vernal Equinox, and greatly resembled it in all particulars, is it not possible, naycertain, that this last is the Autumnal Equi--"

"O-o-o!" "O-o-o! go to bed! go to bed!" with annoyed derision fromeverybody. So the poor old Woodlouse retreated out of sight, consumedwith shame. 

Further discussion followed, and then the united voice of the commissionbegged Lord Longlegs to speak. He said:

"Fellow-scientists, it is my belief that we have witnessed a thing whichhas occurred in perfection but once before in the knowledge of createdbeings. It is a phenomenon of inconceivable importance and interest, view it as one may, but its interest to us is vastly heightened by anadded knowledge of its nature which no scholar has heretofore possessedor even suspected. This great marvel which we have just witnessed, fellow-savants (it almost takes my breath away), is nothing less than thetransit of Venus!"

Every scholar sprang to his feet pale with astonishment. Then ensuedtears, handshakings, frenzied embraces, and the most extravagantjubilations of every sort. But by and by, as emotion began to retirewithin bounds, and reflection to return to the front, the accomplishedChief Inspector Lizard observed:

"But how is this? Venus should traverse the sun's surface, not theearth's. "

The arrow went home. It earned sorrow to the breast of every apostle oflearning there, for none could deny that this was a formidable criticism. But tranquilly the venerable Duke crossed his limbs behind his ears andsaid:

"My friend has touched the marrow of our mighty discovery. Yes--all thathave lived before us thought a transit of Venus consisted of a flightacross the sun's face; they thought it, they maintained it, they honestlybelieved it, simple hearts, and were justified in it by the limitationsof their knowledge; but to us has been granted the inestimable boon ofproving that the transit occurs across the earth's face, for we have SEENit!"

The assembled wisdom sat in speechless adoration of this imperialintellect. All doubts had instantly departed, like night before thelightning. 

The Tumble-Bug had just intruded, unnoticed. He now came reeling forwardamong the scholars, familiarly slapping first one and then another on theshoulder, saying "Nice ('ic) nice old boy!" and smiling a smile ofelaborate content. Arrived at a good position for speaking, he put hisleft arm akimbo with his knuckles planted in his hip just under the edgeof his cut-away coat, bent his right leg, placing his toe on the groundand resting his heel with easy grace against his left shin, puffed outhis aldermanic stomach, opened his lips, leaned his right elbow onInspector Lizard's shoulder, and--

But the shoulder was indignantly withdrawn and the hard-handed son oftoil went to earth. He floundered a bit, but came up smiling, arrangedhis attitude with the same careful detail as before, only choosingProfessor Dogtick's shoulder for a support, opened his lips and--

Went to earth again. He presently scrambled up once more, still smiling, made a loose effort to brush the dust off his coat and legs, but a smartpass of his hand missed entirely, and the force of the unchecked impulsestewed him suddenly around, twisted his legs together, and projected him, limber and sprawling, into the lap of the Lord Longlegs. Two or threescholars sprang forward, flung the low creature head over heels into acorner, and reinstated the patrician, smoothing his ruffled dignity withmany soothing and regretful speeches. Professor Bull Frog roared out:

"No more of this, sirrah Tumble-Bug! Say your say and then get you aboutyour business with speed! Quick--what is your errand? Come move off atrifle; you smell like a stable; what have you been at?"

"Please ('ic!) please your worship I chanced to light upon a find. Butno m(e-uck!) matter 'bout that. There's b('ic !) been another findwhich--beg pardon, your honors, what was that th('ic!) thing that rippedby here first?"

"It was the Vernal Equinox. "

"Inf('ic!)fernal equinox. 'At's all right. D('ic !) Dunno him. What'sother one?"

"The transit of Venus. 

"G('ic !) Got me again. No matter. Las' one dropped something. "

"Ah, indeed! Good luck! Good news! Quick what is it?"

"M('ic!) Mosey out 'n' see. It'll pay. "

No more votes were taken for four-and-twenty hours. Then the followingentry was made:

"The commission went in a body to view the find. It was found to consistof a hard, smooth, huge object with a rounded summit surmounted by ashort upright projection resembling a section of a cabbage stalk dividedtransversely. This projection was not solid, but was a hollow cylinderplugged with a soft woody substance unknown to our region--that is, ithad been so plugged, but unfortunately this obstruction had beenheedlessly removed by Norway Rat, Chief of the Sappers and Miners, beforeour arrival. The vast object before us, so mysteriously conveyed fromthe glittering domains of space, was found to be hollow and nearly filledwith a pungent liquid of a brownish hue, like rainwater that has stoodfor some time. And such a spectacle as met our view! Norway Rat wasperched upon the summit engaged in thrusting his tail into thecylindrical projection, drawing it out dripping, permitting thestruggling multitude of laborers to suck the end of it, then straightwayreinserting it and delivering the fluid to the mob as before. Evidentlythis liquor had strangely potent qualities; for all that partook of itwere immediately exalted with great and pleasurable emotions, and wentstaggering about singing ribald songs, embracing, fighting, dancing, discharging irruptions of profanity, and defying all authority. Aroundus struggled a massed and uncontrolled mob--uncontrolled and likewiseuncontrollable, for the whole army, down to the very sentinels, were madlike the rest, by reason of the drink. We were seized upon by thesereckless creatures, and within the hour we, even we, wereundistinguishable from the rest--the demoralization was complete anduniversal. In time the camp wore itself out with its orgies and sankinto a stolid and pitiable stupor, in whose mysterious bonds rank wasforgotten and strange bedfellows made, our eyes, at the resurrection, being blasted and our souls petrified with the incredible spectacle ofthat intolerable stinking scavenger, the Tumble-Bug, and the illustriouspatrician my Lord Grand Daddy, Duke of Longlegs, lying soundly steeped insleep, and clasped lovingly in each other's arms, the like whereof hathnot been seen in all the ages that tradition compasseth, and doubtlessnone shall ever in this world find faith to master the belief of it saveonly we that have beheld the damnable and unholy vision. Thusinscrutable be the ways of God, whose will be done!

"This day, by order, did the engineer-in-chief, Herr Spider, rig thenecessary tackle for the overturning of the vast reservoir, and so itscalamitous contents were discharged in a torrent upon the thirsty earth, which drank it up, and now there is no more danger, we reserving but afew drops for experiment and scrutiny, and to exhibit to the king andsubsequently preserve among the wonders of the museum. What this liquidis has been determined. It is without question that fierce and mostdestructive fluid called lightning. It was wrested, in its container, from its storehouse in the clouds, by the resistless might of the flyingplanet, and hurled at our feet as she sped by. An interesting discoveryhere results. Which is, that lightning, kept to itself, is quiescent; itis the assaulting contact of the thunderbolt that releases it fromcaptivity, ignites its awful fires, and so produces an instantaneouscombustion and explosion which spread disaster and desolation far andwide in the earth. "

After another day devoted to rest and recovery, the expedition proceededupon its way. Some days later it went into camp in a pleasant part ofthe plain, and the savants sallied forth to see what they might find. Their reward was at hand. Professor Bull Frog discovered a strange tree, and called his comrades. They inspected it with profound interest. Itwas very tall and straight, and wholly devoid of bark, limbs, or foliage. By triangulation Lord Longlegs determined its altitude; Herr Spidermeasured its circumference at the base and computed the circumference atits top by a mathematical demonstration based upon the warrant furnishedby the uniform degree of its taper upward. It was considered a veryextraordinary find; and since it was a tree of a hitherto unknownspecies, Professor Woodlouse gave it a name of a learned sound, beingnone other than that of Professor Bull Frog translated into the ancientMastodon language, for it had always been the custom with discoverers toperpetuate their names and honor themselves by this sort of connectionwith their discoveries. 

Now Professor Field-Mouse having placed his sensitive ear to the tree, detected a rich, harmonious sound issuing from it. This surprising thingwas tested and enjoyed by each scholar in turn, and great was thegladness and astonishment of all. Professor Woodlouse was requested toadd to and extend the tree's name so as to make it suggest the musicalquality it possessed--which he did, furnishing the addition AnthemSinger, done into the Mastodon tongue. 

By this time Professor Snail was making some telescopic inspections. He discovered a great number of these trees, extending in a single rank, with wide intervals between, as far as his instrument would carry, bothsouthward and northward. He also presently discovered that all thesetrees were bound together, near their tops, by fourteen great ropes, oneabove another, which ropes were continuous, from tree to tree, as far ashis vision could reach. This was surprising. Chief Engineer Spider ranaloft and soon reported that these ropes were simply a web hung therebysome colossal member of his own species, for he could see its preydangling here and there from the strands, in the shape of mighty shredsand rags that had a woven look about their texture and were no doubt thediscarded skins of prodigious insects which had been caught and eaten. And then he ran along one of the ropes to make a closer inspection, butfelt a smart sudden burn on the soles of his feet, accompanied by aparalyzing shock, wherefore he let go and swung himself to the earth by athread of his own spinning, and advised all to hurry at once to camp, lest the monster should appear and get as much interested in the savantsas they were in him and his works. So they departed with speed, makingnotes about the gigantic web as they went. And that evening thenaturalist of the expedition built a beautiful model of the colossalspider, having no need to see it in order to do this, because he hadpicked up a fragment of its vertebra by the tree, and so knew exactlywhat the creature looked like and what its habits and its preferenceswere by this simple evidence alone. He built it with a tail, teeth, fourteen legs, and a snout, and said it ate grass, cattle, pebbles, anddirt with equal enthusiasm. This animal was regarded as a very preciousaddition to science. It was hoped a dead one might be found to stuff. Professor Woodlouse thought that he and his brother scholars, by lyinghid and being quiet, might maybe catch a live one. He was advised to tryit. Which was all the attention that was paid to his suggestion. Theconference ended with the naming the monster after the naturalist, sincehe, after God, had created it. 

"And improved it, mayhap, " muttered the Tumble-Bug, who was intrudingagain, according to his idle custom and his unappeasable curiosity. 

END OF PART FIRST

SOME LEARNED FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS

PART SECOND

HOW THE ANIMALS OF THE WOOD COMPLETED THEIR SCIENTIFIC LABORS

A week later the expedition camped in the midst of a collection ofwonderful curiosities. These were a sort of vast caverns of stone thatrose singly and in bunches out of the plain by the side of the riverwhich they had first seen when they emerged from the forest. Thesecaverns stood in long, straight rows on opposite sides of broad aislesthat were bordered with single ranks of trees. The summit of each cavernsloped sharply both ways. Several horizontal rows of great square holes, obstructed by a thin, shiny, transparent substance, pierced the frontageof each cavern. Inside were caverns within caverns; and one might ascendand visit these minor compartments by means of curious winding waysconsisting of continuous regular terraces raised one above another. There were many huge, shapeless objects in each compartment which wereconsidered to have been living creatures at one time, though now the thinbrown skin was shrunken and loose, and rattled when disturbed. Spiderswere here in great number, and their cobwebs, stretched in all directionsand wreathing the great skinny dead together, were a pleasant spectacle, since they inspired with life and wholesome cheer a scene which wouldotherwise have brought to the mind only a sense of forsakenness anddesolation. Information was sought of these spiders, but in vain. Theywere of a different nationality from those with the expedition, and theirlanguage seemed but a musical, meaningless jargon. They were a timid, gentle race, but ignorant, and heathenish worshipers of unknown gods. The expedition detailed a great detachment of missionaries to teach themthe true religion, and in a week's time a precious work had been wroughtamong those darkened creatures, not three families being by that time atpeace with each other or having a settled belief in any system ofreligion whatever. This encouraged the expedition to establish a colonyof missionaries there permanently, that the work of grace might go on. 

But let us not outrun our narrative. After close examination of thefronts of the caverns, and much thinking and exchanging of theories, thescientists determined the nature of these singular formations. They saidthat each belonged mainly to the Old Red Sandstone period; that thecavern fronts rose in innumerable and wonderfully regular strata high inthe air, each stratum about five frog-spans thick, and that in thepresent discovery lay an overpowering refutation of all received geology;for between every two layers of Old Red Sandstone reposed a thin layer ofdecomposed limestone; so instead of there having been but one Old RedSandstone period there had certainly been not less than a hundred andseventy-five! And by the same token it was plain that there had alsobeen a hundred and seventy-five floodings of the earth and depositings oflimestone strata! The unavoidable deduction from which pair of facts wasthe overwhelming truth that the world, instead of being only two hundredthousand years old, was older by millions upon millions of years! Andthere was another curious thing: every stratum of Old Red Sandstone waspierced and divided at mathematically regular intervals by verticalstrata of limestone. Up-shootings of igneous rock through fractures inwater formations were common; but here was the first instance wherewater-formed rock had been so projected. It was a great and noblediscovery, and its value to science was considered to be inestimable. 

A critical examination of some of the lower strata demonstrated thepresence of fossil ants and tumble-bugs (the latter accompanied by theirpeculiar goods), and with high gratification the fact was enrolled uponthe scientific record; for this was proof that these vulgar laborersbelonged to the first and lowest orders of created beings, though at thesame time there was something repulsive in the reflection that theperfect and exquisite creature of the modern uppermost order owed itsorigin to such ignominious beings through the mysterious law ofDevelopment of Species. 

The Tumble-Bug, overhearing this discussion, said he was willing that theparvenus of these new times should find what comfort they might in theirwise-drawn theories, since as far as he was concerned he was content tobe of the old first families and proud to point back to his place amongthe old original aristocracy of the land. 

"Enjoy your mushroom dignity, stinking of the varnish of yesterday'sveneering, since you like it, " said he; "suffice it for the Tumble-Bugsthat they come of a race that rolled their fragrant spheres down thesolemn aisles of antiquity, and left their imperishable works embalmed inthe Old Red Sandstone to proclaim it to the wasting centuries as theyfile along the highway of Time!"

"Oh, take a walk!" said the chief of the expedition, with derision. 

The summer passed, and winter approached. In and about many of thecaverns were what seemed to be inscriptions. Most of the scientists saidthey were inscriptions, a few said they were not. The chief philologist, Professor Woodlouse, maintained that they were writings, done in acharacter utterly unknown to scholars, and in a language equally unknown. He had early ordered his artists and draftsmen to make facsimiles of allthat were discovered; and had set himself about finding the key to thehidden tongue. In this work he had followed the method which had alwaysbeen used by decipherers previously. That is to say, he placed a numberof copies of inscriptions before him and studied them both collectivelyand in detail. To begin with, he placed the following copies together:

 THE AMERICAN HOTEL. MEALS AT ALL HOURS. THE SHADES. NO SMOKING. BOATS FOR HIRE CHEAP UNION PRAYER MEETING, 6 P. M. BILLIARDS. THE WATERSIDE JOURNAL. THE A1 BARBER SHOP. TELEGRAPH OFFICE. KEEP OFF THE GRASS. TRY BRANDRETH'S PILLS. COTTAGES FOR RENT DURING THE WATERING SEASON. FOR SALE CHEAP. FOR SALE CHEAP. FOR SALE CHEAP. FOR SALE CHEAP. 

At first it seemed to the professor that this was a sign-language, andthat each word was represented by a distinct sign; further examinationconvinced him that it was a written language, and that every letter ofits alphabet was represented by a character of its own; and finally hedecided that it was a language which conveyed itself partly by letters, and partly by signs or hieroglyphics. This conclusion was forced uponhim by the discovery of several specimens of the following nature:

He observed that certain inscriptions were met with in greater frequencythan others. Such as "FOR SALE CHEAP"; "BILLIARDS"; "S. T. --1860--X";"KENO"; "ALE ON DRAUGHT. " Naturally, then, these must be religiousmaxims. But this idea was cast aside by and by, as the mystery of thestrange alphabet began to clear itself. In time, the professor wasenabled to translate several of the inscriptions with considerableplausibility, though not to the perfect satisfaction of all the scholars. Still, he made constant and encouraging progress. 

Finally a cavern was discovered with these inscriptions upon it:

 WATERSIDE MUSEUM. Open at All Hours. Admission 50 cents. WONDERFUL COLLECTION OF WAX-WORKS, ANCIENT FOSSILS, ETC. 

Professor Woodlouse affirmed that the word "Museum" was equivalent to thephrase "lumgath molo, " or "Burial Place. " Upon entering, the scientistswere well astonished. But what they saw may be best conveyed in thelanguage of their own official report:

"Erect, in a row, were a sort of rigid great figures which struck usinstantly as belonging to the long extinct species of reptile called MAN, described in our ancient records. This was a peculiarly gratifyingdiscovery, because of late times it has become fashionable to regard thiscreature as a myth and a superstition, a work of the inventiveimaginations of our remote ancestors. But here, indeed, was Man, perfectly preserved, in a fossil state. And this was his burial place, as already ascertained by the inscription. And now it began to besuspected that the caverns we had been inspecting had been his ancienthaunts in that old time that he roamed the earth--for upon the breast ofeach of these tall fossils was an inscription in the character heretoforenoticed. One read, 'CAPTAIN KIDD THE PIRATE'; another, 'QUEEN VICTORIA';another, 'ABE LINCOLN'; another, 'GEORGE WASHINGTON, ' etc. 

"With feverish interest we called for our ancient scientific records todiscover if perchance the description of Man there set down would tallywith the fossils before us. Professor Woodlouse read it aloud in itsquaint and musty phraseology, to wit:

"'In ye time of our fathers Man still walked ye earth, as by tradition weknow. It was a creature of exceeding great size, being compassed aboutwith a loose skin, sometimes of one color, sometimes of many, the whichit was able to cast at will; which being done, the hind legs werediscovered to be armed with short claws like to a mole's but broader, andye forelegs with fingers of a curious slimness and a length much moreprodigious than a frog's, armed also with broad talons for scratching inye earth for its food. It had a sort of feathers upon its head such ashath a rat, but longer, and a beak suitable for seeking its food by yesmell thereof. When it was stirred with happiness, it leaked water fromits eyes; and when it suffered or was sad, it manifested it with ahorrible hellish cackling clamor that was exceeding dreadful to hear andmade one long that it might rend itself and perish, and so end itstroubles. Two Mans being together, they uttered noises at each otherlike this: "Haw-haw-haw--dam good, dam good, " together with other soundsof more or less likeness to these, wherefore ye poets conceived that theytalked, but poets be always ready to catch at any frantic folly, God heknows. Sometimes this creature goeth about with a long stick ye which itputteth to its face and bloweth fire and smoke through ye same with asudden and most damnable bruit and noise that doth fright its prey todeath, and so seizeth it in its talons and walketh away to its habitat, consumed with a most fierce and devilish joy. '

"Now was the description set forth by our ancestors wonderfully indorsedand confirmed by the fossils before us, as shall be seen. The specimenmarked 'Captain Kidd' was examined in detail. Upon its head and part ofits face was a sort of fur like that upon the tail of a horse. Withgreat labor its loose skin was removed, whereupon its body was discoveredto be of a polished white texture, thoroughly petrified. The straw ithad eaten, so many ages gone by, was still in its body, undigested--andeven in its legs. 

"Surrounding these fossils were objects that would mean nothing to theignorant, but to the eye of science they were a revelation. They laidbare the secrets of dead ages. These musty Memorials told us when Manlived, and what were his habits. For here, side by side with Man, werethe evidences that he had lived in the earliest ages of creation, thecompanion of the other low orders of life that belonged to that forgottentime. Here was the fossil nautilus that sailed the primeval seas; herewas the skeleton of the mastodon, the ichthyosaurus, the cave-bear, theprodigious elk. Here, also, were the charred bones of some of theseextinct animals and of the young of Man's own species, split lengthwise, showing that to his taste the marrow was a toothsome luxury. It wasplain that Man had robbed those bones of their contents, since notooth-mark of any beast was upon them albeit the Tumble-Bug intruded theremark that 'no beast could mark a bone with its teeth, anyway. ' Herewere proofs that Man had vague, groveling notions of art; for this factwas conveyed by certain things marked with the untranslatable words, 'FLINT HATCHETS, KNIVES, ARROW--HEADS, AND BONE ORNAMENTS OF PRIMEVALMAN. ' Some of these seemed to be rude weapons chipped out of flint, andin a secret place was found some more in process of construction, withthis untranslatable legend, on a thin, flimsy material, lying by:

 "'Jones, if you don't want to be discharged from the Musseum, make the next primeaveal weppons more careful--you couldn't even fool one of these sleepy old syentific grannys from the Coledge with the last ones. And mind you the animles you carved on some of the Bone Ornaments is a blame sight too good for any primeaveal man that was ever fooled. --Varnum, Manager. '

"Back of the burial place was a mass of ashes, showing that Man alwayshad a feast at a funeral--else why the ashes in such a place; andshowing, also, that he believed in God and the immortality of the soil--else why these solemn ceremonies?

"To, sum up. We believe that Man had a written language. We know thathe indeed existed at one time, and is not a myth; also, that he was thecompanion of the cave-bear, the mastodon, and other extinct species; thathe cooked and ate them and likewise the young of his own kind; also, thathe bore rude weapons, and knew something of art; that he imagined he hada soul, and pleased himself with the fancy that it was immortal. But letus not laugh; there may be creatures in existence to whom we and ourvanities and profundities may seem as ludicrous. "

END OF PART SECOND

SOME LEARNED FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS

PART THIRD

Near the margin of the great river the scientists presently found a huge, shapely stone, with this inscription:

 "In 1847, in the spring, the river overflowed its banks and covered the whole township. The depth was from two to six feet. More than 900 head of cattle were lost, and many homes destroyed. The Mayor ordered this memorial to be erected to perpetuate the event. God spare us the repetition of it!"

With infinite trouble, Professor Woodlouse succeeded in making atranslation of this inscription, which was sent home, and straightway anenormous excitement was created about it. It confirmed, in a remarkableway, certain treasured traditions of the ancients. The translation wasslightly marred by one or two untranslatable words, but these did notimpair the general clearness of the meaning. It is here presented:

 "One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven years ago, the (fires?) descended and consumed the whole city. Only some nine hundred souls were saved, all others destroyed. The (king?) commanded this stone to be set up to . . . (untranslatable) . . . Prevent the repetition of it. "

This was the first successful and satisfactory translation that had beenmade of the mysterious character let behind him by extinct man, and itgave Professor Woodlouse such reputation that at once every seat oflearning in his native land conferred a degree of the most illustriousgrade upon him, and it was believed that if he had been a soldier and hadturned his splendid talents to the extermination of a remote tribe ofreptiles, the king would have ennobled him and made him rich. And this, too, was the origin of that school of scientists called Manologists, whose specialty is the deciphering of the ancient records of the extinctbird termed Man. [For it is now decided that Man was a bird and not areptile. ] But Professor Woodlouse began and remained chief of these, forit was granted that no translations were ever so free from error as his. Others made mistakes he seemed incapable of it. Many a memorial of thelost race was afterward found, but none ever attained to the renown andveneration achieved by the "Mayoritish Stone" it being so called from theword "Mayor" in it, which, being translated "King, " "Mayoritish Stone"was but another way of saying "King Stone. "

Another time the expedition made a great "find. " It was a vast roundflattish mass, ten frog-spans in diameter and five or six high. Professor Snail put on his spectacles and examined it all around, andthen climbed up and inspected the top. He said:

"The result of my perlustration and perscontation of this isoperimetricalprotuberance is a belief at it is one of those rare and wonderfulcreation left by the Mound Builders. The fact that this one islamellibranchiate in its formation, simply adds to its interest as beingpossibly of a different kind from any we read of in the records ofscience, but yet in no manner marring its authenticity. Let themegalophonous grasshopper sound a blast and summon hither the perfunctoryand circumforaneous Tumble-Bug, to the end that excavations may be madeand learning gather new treasures. "

Not a Tumble-Bug could be found on duty, so the Mound was excavated by aworking party of Ants. Nothing was discovered. This would have been agreat disappointment, had not the venerable Longlegs explained thematter. He said:

"It is now plain to me that the mysterious and forgotten race of MoundBuilders did not always erect these edifices as mausoleums, else in thiscase, as in all previous cases, their skeletons would be found here, along with the rude implements which the creatures used in life. Is notthis manifest?"

"True! true!" from everybody. 

"Then we have made a discovery of peculiar value here; a discovery whichgreatly extends our knowledge of this creature in place of diminishingit; a discovery which will add luster to the achievements of thisexpedition and win for us the commendations of scholars everywhere. For the absence of the customary relics here means nothing less thanthis: The Mound Builder, instead of being the ignorant, savage reptile wehave been taught to consider him, was a creature of cultivation and highintelligence, capable of not only appreciating worthy achievements of thegreat and noble of his species, but of commemorating them!Fellow-scholars, this stately Mound is not a sepulcher, it is a monument!"

A profound impression was produced by this. 

But it was interrupted by rude and derisive laughter--and the Tumble-Bugappeared. 

"A monument!" quoth he. "A monument setup by a Mound Builder! Aye, soit is! So it is, indeed, to the shrewd keen eye of science; but to anignorant poor devil who has never seen a college, it is not a Monument, strictly speaking, but is yet a most rich and noble property; and withyour worship's good permission I will proceed to manufacture it intospheres of exceedings grace and--"

The Tumble-Bug was driven away with stripes, and the draftsmen of theexpedition were set to making views of the Monument from differentstandpoints, while Professor Woodlouse, in a frenzy of scientific zeal, traveled all over it and all around it hoping to find an inscription. But if there had ever been one, it had decayed or been removed by somevandal as a relic. 

The views having been completed, it was now considered safe to load theprecious Monument itself upon the backs of four of the largest Tortoisesand send it home to the king's museum, which was done; and when itarrived it was received with enormous Mat and escorted to its futureabiding-place by thousands of enthusiastic citizens, King Bullfrog XVI. Himself attending and condescending to sit enthroned upon it throughoutthe progress. 

The growing rigor of the weather was now admonishing the scientists toclose their labors for the present, so they made preparations to journeyhomeward. But even their last day among the Caverns bore fruit; for oneof the scholars found in an out-of-the-way corner of the Museum or"Burial Place" a most strange and extraordinary thing. It was nothingless than a double Man-Bird lashed together breast to breast by a naturalligament, and labeled with the untranslatable words, "Siamese Twins. "The official report concerning this thing closed thus:

"Wherefore it appears that there were in old times two distinct speciesof this majestic fowl, the one being single and the other double. Naturehas a reason for all things. It is plain to the eye of science that theDouble-Man originally inhabited a region where dangers abounded; hence hewas paired together to the end that while one part slept the other mightwatch; and likewise that, danger being discovered, there might always bea double instead of a single power to oppose it. All honor to themystery-dispelling eye of godlike Science!"

And near the Double Man-Bird was found what was plainly an ancient recordof his, marked upon numberless sheets of a thin white substance and boundtogether. Almost the first glance that Professor Woodlouse threw into itrevealed this following sentence, which he instantly translated and laidbefore the scientists, in a tremble, and it uplifted every soul therewith exultation and astonishment:

"In truth it is believed by many that the lower animals reason and talktogether. "

When the great official report of the expedition appeared, the abovesentence bore this comment:

"Then there are lower animals than Man! This remarkable passage can meannothing else. Man himself is extinct, but they may still exist. Whatcan they be? Where do they inhabit? One's enthusiasm bursts all boundsin the contemplation of the brilliant field of discovery andinvestigation here thrown open to science. We close our labors with thehumble prayer that your Majesty will immediately appoint a commission andcommand it to rest not nor spare expense until the search for thishitherto unsuspected race of the creatures of God shall be crowned withsuccess. "

The expedition then journeyed homeward after its long absence and itsfaithful endeavors, and was received with a mighty ovation by the wholegrateful country. There were vulgar, ignorant carpers, of course, asthere always are and always will be; and naturally one of these was theobscene Tumble-Bug. He said that all he had learned by his travels wasthat science only needed a spoonful of supposition to build a mountain ofdemonstrated fact out of; and that for the future he meant to be contentwith the knowledge that nature had made free to all creatures and not goprying into the august secrets of the Deity. 

MY LATE SENATORIAL SECRETARYSHIP--[Written about 1867. ]

I am not a private secretary to a senator any more I now. I held theberth two months in security and in great cheerfulness of spirit, but mybread began to return from over the waters then--that is to say, my workscame back and revealed themselves. I judged it best to resign. The wayof it was this. My employer sent for me one morning tolerably early, and, as soon as I had finished inserting some conundrums clandestinelyinto his last great speech upon finance, I entered the presence. Therewas something portentous in his appearance. His cravat was untied, hishair was in a state of disorder, and his countenance bore about it thesigns of a suppressed storm. He held a package of letters in his tensegrasp, and I knew that the dreaded Pacific mail was in. He said:

"I thought you were worthy of confidence. "

I said, "Yes, sir. "

He said, "I gave you a letter from certain of my constituents in theState of Nevada, asking the establishment of a post-office at Baldwin'sRanch, and told you to answer it, as ingeniously as you could, witharguments which should persuade them that there was no real necessity foras office at that place. "

I felt easier. "Oh, if that is all, sir, I did do that. "

"Yes, you did. I will read your answer for your own humiliation:

 'WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 'Messrs. Smith, Jones, and others. 

 'GENTLEMEN: What the mischief do you suppose you want with a post-office at Baldwin's Ranch? It would not do you any good. If any letters came there, you couldn't read them, you know; and, besides, such letters as ought to pass through, with money in them, for other localities, would not be likely to get through, you must perceive at once; and that would make trouble for us all. No, don't bother about a post-office in your camp. I have your best interests at heart, and feel that it would only be an ornamental folly. What you want is a nice jail, you know--a nice, substantial jail and a free school. These will be a lasting benefit to you. These will make you really contented and happy. I will move in the matter at once. 'Very truly, etc. , Mark Twain, 'For James W. N------, U. S. Senator. '

"That is the way you answered that letter. Those people say they willhang me, if I ever enter that district again; and I am perfectlysatisfied they will, too. "

"Well, sir, I did not know I was doing any harm. I only wanted toconvince them. "

"Ah. Well, you did convince them, I make no manner of doubt. Now, hereis another specimen. I gave you a petition from certain gentlemen ofNevada, praying that I would get a bill through Congress incorporatingthe Methodist Episcopal Church of the State of Nevada. I told you tosay, in reply, that the creation of such a law came more properly withinthe province of the state legislature; and to endeavor to show them that, in the present feebleness of the religious element in that newcommonwealth, the expediency of incorporating the church wasquestionable. What did you write?

 "'WASHINGTON, Nov. 24. 

 "'Rev. John Halifax and others. 

 "'GENTLEMEN: You will have to go to the state legislature about that speculation of yours--Congress don't know anything about religion. But don't you hurry to go there, either; because this thing you propose to do out in that new country isn't expedient--in fact, it is ridiculous. Your religious people there are too feeble, in intellect, in morality, in piety in everything, pretty much. You had better drop this--you can't make it work. You can't issue stock on an incorporation like that--or if you could, it would only keep you in trouble all the time. The other denominations would abuse it, and "bear" it, and "sell it short, " and break it down. They would do with it just as they would with one of your silver-mines out there--they would try to make all the world believe it was "wildcat. " You ought not to do anything that is calculated to bring a sacred thing into disrepute. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves that is what I think about it. You close your petition with the words: "And we will ever pray. " I think you had better you need to do it. "'Very truly, etc. , "'MARK TWAIN, "'For James W. N-----, U. S. Senator. '

"That luminous epistle finishes me with the religious element among myconstituents. But that my political murder might be made sure, some evilinstinct prompted me to hand you this memorial from the grave company ofelders composing the board of aldermen of the city of San Francisco, totry your hand upon a memorial praying that the city's right to thewater-lots upon the city front might be established by law of Congress. I told you this was a dangerous matter to move in. I told you to write anon-committal letter to the aldermen--an ambiguous letter--a letter thatshould avoid, as far as possible, all real consideration and discussionof the water-lot question. If there is any feeling left in you--anyshame--surely this letter you wrote, in obedience to that order, ought toevoke it, when its words fall upon your ears:

 'WASHINGTON, Nov. 27

 'The Honorable Board of Aldermen, etc. 

 'GENTLEMEN: George Washington, the revered Father of his Country, is dead. His long and brilliant career is closed, alas! forever. He was greatly respected in this section of the country, and his untimely decease cast a gloom over the whole community. He died on the 14th day of December, 1799. He passed peacefully away from the scene of his honors and his great achievements, the most lamented hero and the best beloved that ever earth hath yielded unto Death. At such a time as this, you speak of water-lots! what a lot was his!

 'What is fame! Fame is an accident. Sir Isaac Newton discovered an apple falling to the ground--a trivial discovery, truly, and one which a million men had made before him--but his parents were influential, and so they tortured that small circumstance into something wonderful, and, lo! the simple world took up the shout and, in almost the twinkling of an eye, that man was famous. Treasure these thoughts. 

 'Poesy, sweet poesy, who shall estimate what the world owes to thee!

 "Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow-- And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. "

 "Jack and Gill went up the hill To draw a pail of water; Jack fell down and broke his crown, And Gill came tumbling after. "

 'For simplicity, elegance of diction, and freedom from immoral tendencies, I regard those two poems in the light of gems. They are suited to all grades of intelligence, to every sphere of life --to the field, to the nursery, to the guild. Especially should no Board of Aldermen be without them. 

 'Venerable fossils! write again. Nothing improves one so much as friendly correspondence. Write again--and if there is anything in this memorial of yours that refers to anything in particular, do not be backward about explaining it. We shall always be happy to hear you chirp. 'Very truly, etc. , "'MARK TWAIN, 'For James W. N-----, U. S. Senator. '

"That is an atrocious, a ruinous epistle! Distraction!"

"Well, sir, I am really sorry if there is anything wrong about it--but--but it appears to me to dodge the water-lot question. "

"Dodge the mischief! Oh!--but never mind. As long as destruction mustcome now, let it be complete. Let it be complete--let this last of yourperformances, which I am about to read, make a finality of it. I am aruined man. I had my misgivings when I gave you the letter fromHumboldt, asking that the post route from Indian Gulch to Shakespeare Gapand intermediate points be changed partly to the old Mormon trail. But Itold you it was a delicate question, and warned you to deal with itdeftly--to answer it dubiously, and leave them a little in the dark. And your fatal imbecility impelled you to make this disastrous reply. I should think you would stop your ears, if you are not dead to allshame:

 "'WASHINGTON, Nov. 30. 

 "'Messes. Perkins, Wagner, et at. 

 "'GENTLEMEN: It is a delicate question about this Indian trail, but, handled with proper deftness and dubiousness, I doubt not we shall succeed in some measure or otherwise, because the place where the route leaves the Lassen Meadows, over beyond where those two Shawnee chiefs, Dilapidated Vengeance and Biter-of-the-Clouds, were scalped last winter, this being the favorite direction to some, but others preferring something else in consequence of things, the Mormon trail leaving Mosby's at three in the morning, and passing through Jaw bone Flat to Blucher, and then down by Jug-Handle, the road passing to the right of it, and naturally leaving it on the right, too, and Dawson's on the left of the trail where it passes to the left of said Dawson's and onward thence to Tomahawk, thus making the route cheaper, easier of access to all who can get at it, and compassing all the desirable objects so considered by others, and, therefore, conferring the most good upon the greatest number, and, consequently, I am encouraged to hope we shall. However, I shall be ready, and happy, to afford you still further information upon the subject, from time to time, as you may desire it and the Post-office Department be enabled to furnish it to me. "'Very truly, etc. , "'MARK TWAIN, "'For James W. N-----, U. S. Senator. '

"There--now what do you think of that?"

"Well, I don't know, sir. It--well, it appears to me--to be dubiousenough. "

"Du--leave the house! I am a ruined man. Those Humboldt savages neverwill forgive me for tangling their brains up with this inhuman letter. I have lost the respect of the Methodist Church, the board of aldermen--"

"Well, I haven't anything to say about that, because I may have missed ita little in their cases, but I was too many for the Baldwin's Ranchpeople, General!"

"Leave the house! Leave it forever and forever, too. "

I regarded that as a sort of covert intimation that my service could bedispensed with, and so I resigned. I never will be a private secretaryto a senator again. You can't please that kind of people. They don'tknow anything. They can't appreciate a party's efforts. 

A FASHION ITEM--[Written about 1867. ]

At General G----'s reception the other night, the most fashionablydressed lady was Mrs. G. C. She wore a pink satin dress, plain in frontbut with a good deal of rake to it--to the train, I mean; it was said tobe two or three yards long. One could see it creeping along the floorsome little time after the woman was gone. Mrs. C. Wore also a whitebodice, cut bias, with Pompadour sleeves, flounced with ruches; low neck, with the inside handkerchief not visible, with white kid gloves. She hadon a pearl necklace, which glinted lonely, high up the midst of thatbarren waste of neck and shoulders. Her hair was frizzled into a tangledchaparral, forward of her ears, aft it was drawn together, and compactlybound and plaited into a stump like a pony's tail, and furthermore wascanted upward at a sharp angle, and ingeniously supported by a red velvetcrupper, whose forward extremity was made fast with a half-hitch around ahairpin on the top of her head. Her whole top hamper was neat andbecoming. She had a beautiful complexion when she first came, but itfaded out by degrees in an unaccountable way. However, it is not lostfor good. I found the most of it on my shoulder afterward. (I stoodnear the door when she squeezed out with the throng. ) There were otherladies present, but I only took notes of one as a specimen. I wouldgladly enlarge upon the subject were I able to do it justice. 

RILEY-NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT

One of the best men in Washington--or elsewhere--is RILEY, correspondentof one of the great San Francisco dailies. 

Riley is full of humor, and has an unfailing vein of irony, which makeshis conversation to the last degree entertaining (as long as the remarksare about somebody else). But notwithstanding the possession of thesequalities, which should enable a man to write a happy and an appetizingletter, Riley's newspaper letters often display a more than earthlysolemnity, and likewise an unimaginative devotion to petrified facts, which surprise and distress all men who know him in his unofficialcharacter. He explains this curious thing by saying that his employerssent him to Washington to write facts, not fancy, and that several timeshe has come near losing his situation by inserting humorous remarkswhich, not being looked for at headquarters, and consequently notunderstood, were thought to be dark and bloody speeches intended toconvey signals and warnings to murderous secret societies, or somethingof that kind, and so were scratched out with a shiver and a prayer andcast into the stove. Riley says that sometimes he is so afflicted witha yearning to write a sparkling and absorbingly readable letter that hesimply cannot resist it, and so he goes to his den and revels in thedelight of untrammeled scribbling; and then, with suffering such as onlya mother can know, he destroys the pretty children of his fancy andreduces his letter to the required dismal accuracy. Having seen Riley dothis very thing more than once, I know whereof I speak. Often I havelaughed with him over a happy passage, and grieved to see him plow hispen through it. He would say, "I had to write that or die; and I've gotto scratch it out or starve. They wouldn't stand it, you know. "

I think Riley is about the most entertaining company I ever saw. Welodged together in many places in Washington during the winter of '67-8, moving comfortably from place to place, and attracting attention bypaying our board--a course which cannot fail to make a person conspicuousin Washington. Riley would tell all about his trip to California in theearly days, by way of the Isthmus and the San Juan River; and about hisbaking bread in San Francisco to gain a living, and setting up tenpins, and practising law, and opening oysters, and delivering lectures, andteaching French, and tending bar, and reporting for the newspapers, andkeeping dancing-schools, and interpreting Chinese in the courts--whichlatter was lucrative, and Riley was doing handsomely and laying up alittle money when people began to find fault because his translationswere too "free, " a thing for which Riley considered he ought not to beheld responsible, since he did not know a word of the Chinese tongue, andonly adopted interpreting as a means of gaining an honest livelihood. Through the machinations of enemies he was removed from the position ofofficial interpreter, and a man put in his place who was familiar withthe Chinese language, but did not know any English. And Riley used totell about publishing a newspaper up in what is Alaska now, but was onlyan iceberg then, with a population composed of bears, walruses, Indians, and other animals; and how the iceberg got adrift at last, and left allhis paying subscribers behind, and as soon as the commonwealth floatedout of the jurisdiction of Russia the people rose and threw off theirallegiance and ran up the English flag, calculating to hook on and becomean English colony as they drifted along down the British Possessions; buta land breeze and a crooked current carried them by, and they ran up theStars and Stripes and steered for California, missed the connection againand swore allegiance to Mexico, but it wasn't any use; the anchors camehome every time, and away they went with the northeast trades driftingoff sideways toward the Sandwich Islands, whereupon they ran up theCannibal flag and had a grand human barbecue in honor of it, in which itwas noticed that the better a man liked a friend the better he enjoyedhim; and as soon as they got fairly within the tropics the weather got sofearfully hot that the iceberg began to melt, and it got so sloppy underfoot that it was almost impossible for ladies to get about at all; and atlast, just as they came in sight of the islands, the melancholy remnantof the once majestic iceberg canted first to one side and then to theother, and then plunged under forever, carrying the national archivesalong with it--and not only the archives and the populace, but someeligible town lots which had increased in value as fast as theydiminished in size in the tropics, and which Riley could have sold atthirty cents a pound and made himself rich if he could have kept theprovince afloat ten hours longer and got her into port. 

Riley is very methodical, untiringly accommodating, never forgetsanything that is to be attended to, is a good son, a stanch friend, and apermanent reliable enemy. He will put himself to any amount of troubleto oblige a body, and therefore always has his hands full of things to bedone for the helpless and the shiftless. And he knows how to do nearlyeverything, too. He is a man whose native benevolence is a well-springthat never goes dry. He stands always ready to help whoever needs help, as far as he is able--and not simply with his money, for that is a cheapand common charity, but with hand and brain, and fatigue of limb andsacrifice of time. This sort of men is rare. 

Riley has a ready wit, a quickness and aptness at selecting and applyingquotations, and a countenance that is as solemn and as blank as the backside of a tombstone when he is delivering a particularly exasperatingjoke. One night a negro woman was burned to death in a house next doorto us, and Riley said that our landlady would be oppressively emotionalat breakfast, because she generally made use of such opportunities asoffered, being of a morbidly sentimental turn, and so we should find itbest to let her talk along and say nothing back--it was the only way tokeep her tears out of the gravy. Riley said there never was a funeral inthe neighborhood but that the gravy was watery for a week. 

And, sure enough, at breakfast the landlady was down in the very sloughsof woe--entirely brokenhearted. Everything she looked at reminded her ofthat poor old negro woman, and so the buckwheat cakes made her sob, thecoffee forced a groan, and when the beefsteak came on she fetched a wailthat made our hair rise. Then she got to talking about deceased, andkept up a steady drizzle till both of us were soaked through and through. Presently she took a fresh breath and said, with a world of sobs:

"Ah, to think of it, only to think of it!--the poor old faithfulcreature. For she was so faithful. Would you believe it, she had been aservant in that selfsame house and that selfsame family for twenty sevenyears come Christmas, and never a cross word and never a lick! And, oh, to think she should meet such a death at last!--a-sitting over the redhot stove at three o'clock in the morning and went to sleep and fell onit and was actually roasted! Not just frizzled up a bit, but literallyroasted to a crisp! Poor faithful creature, how she was cooked! I ambut a poor woman, but even if I have to scrimp to do it, I will put up atombstone over that lone sufferer's grave--and Mr. Riley if you wouldhave the goodness to think up a little epitaph to put on it which wouldsort of describe the awful way in which she met her--"

"Put it, 'Well done, good and faithful servant, '" said Riley, and neversmiled. 

A FINE OLD MAN

John Wagner, the oldest man in Buffalo--one hundred and four years old--recently walked a mile and a half in two weeks. 

He is as cheerful and bright as any of these other old men that chargearound so persistently and tiresomely in the newspapers, and in every wayas remarkable. 

Last November he walked five blocks in a rainstorm, without any shelterbut an umbrella, and cast his vote for Grant, remarking that he had votedfor forty-seven presidents--which was a lie. 

His "second crop" of rich brown hair arrived from New York yesterday, andhe has a new set of teeth coming from Philadelphia. 

He is to be married next week to a girl one hundred and two years old, who still takes in washing. 

They have been engaged eighty years, but their parents persistentlyrefused their consent until three days ago. 

John Wagner is two years older than the Rhode Island veteran, and yet hasnever tasted a drop of liquor in his life--unless-unless you countwhisky. 

SCIENCE V. S. LUCK--[Written about 1867. ]

At that time, in Kentucky (said the Hon. Mr. K-----); the law was verystrict against what is termed "games of chance. " About a dozen of theboys were detected playing "seven up" or "old sledge" for money, and thegrand jury found a true bill against them. Jim Sturgis was retained todefend them when the case came up, of course. The more he studied overthe matter, and looked into the evidence, the plainer it was that he mustlose a case at last--there was no getting around that painful fact. Those boys had certainly been betting money on a game of chance. Evenpublic sympathy was roused in behalf of Sturgis. People said it was apity to see him mar his successful career with a big prominent case likethis, which must go against him. 

But after several restless nights an inspired idea flashed upon Sturgis, and he sprang out of bed delighted. He thought he saw his way through. The next day he whispered around a little among his clients and a fewfriends, and then when the case came up in court he acknowledged theseven-up and the betting, and, as his sole defense, had the astoundingeffrontery to put in the plea that old sledge was not a game of chance!There was the broadest sort of a smile all over the faces of thatsophisticated audience. The judge smiled with the rest. But Sturgismaintained a countenance whose earnestness was even severe. The oppositecounsel tried to ridicule him out of his position, and did not succeed. The judge jested in a ponderous judicial way about the thing, but did notmove him. The matter was becoming grave. The judge lost a little of hispatience, and said the joke had gone far enough. Jim Sturgis said heknew of no joke in the matter--his clients could not be punished forindulging in what some people chose to consider a game of chance until itwas proven that it was a game of chance. Judge and counsel said thatwould be an easy matter, and forthwith called Deacons Job, Peters, Burke, and Johnson, and Dominies Wirt and Miggles, to testify; and theyunanimously and with strong feeling put down the legal quibble of Sturgisby pronouncing that old sledge was a game of chance. 

"What do you call it now?" said the judge. 

"I call it a game of science!" retorted Sturgis; "and I'll prove it, too!"

They saw his little game. 

He brought in a cloud of witnesses, and produced an overwhelming mass oftestimony, to show that old sledge was not a game of chance but a game ofscience. 

Instead of being the simplest case in the world, it had somehow turnedout to be an excessively knotty one. The judge scratched his head overit awhile, and said there was no way of coming to a determination, because just as many men could be brought into court who would testify onone side as could be found to testify on the other. But he said he waswilling to do the fair thing by all parties, and would act upon anysuggestion Mr. Sturgis would make for the solution of the difficulty. 

Mr. Sturgis was on his feet in a second. 

"Impanel a jury of six of each, Luck versus Science. Give them candlesand a couple of decks of cards. Send them into the jury-room, and justabide by the result!"

There was no disputing the fairness of the proposition. The four deaconsand the two dominies were sworn in as the "chance" jurymen, and sixinveterate old seven-up professors were chosen to represent the "science"side of the issue. They retired to the jury-room. 

In about two hours Deacon Peters sent into court to borrow three dollarsfrom a friend. [Sensation. ] In about two hours more Dominie Migglessent into court to borrow a "stake" from a friend. [Sensation. ] Duringthe next three or four hours the other dominie and the other deacons sentinto court for small loans. And still the packed audience waited, for itwas a prodigious occasion in Bull's Corners, and one in which everyfather of a family was necessarily interested. 

The rest of the story can be told briefly. About daylight the jury camein, and Deacon Job, the foreman, read the following:

 VERDICT:

 We, the jury in the case of the Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. John Wheeler et al. , have carefully considered the points of the case, and tested the merits of the several theories advanced, and do hereby unanimously decide that the game commonly known as old sledge or seven-up is eminently a game of science and not of chance. In demonstration whereof it is hereby and herein stated, iterated, reiterated, set forth, and made manifest that, during the entire night, the "chance" men never won a game or turned a jack, although both feats were common and frequent to the opposition; and furthermore, in support of this our verdict, we call attention to the significant fact that the "chance" men are all busted, and the "science" men have got the money. It is the deliberate opinion of this jury, that the "chance" theory concerning seven-up is a pernicious doctrine, and calculated to inflict untold suffering and pecuniary loss upon any community that takes stock in it. 

"That is the way that seven-up came to be set apart and particularized inthe statute-books of Kentucky as being a game not of chance but ofscience, and therefore not punishable under the law, " said Mr. K-----. "That verdict is of record, and holds good to this day. "

THE LATE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN--[Written about 1870. ]

["Never put off till to-morrow what you can do day after to-morrow justas well. "--B. F. ]

This party was one of those persons whom they call Philosophers. He wastwins, being born simultaneously in two different houses in the city ofBoston. These houses remain unto this day, and have signs upon themworded in accordance with the facts. The signs are considered wellenough to have, though not necessary, because the inhabitants point outthe two birthplaces to the stranger anyhow, and sometimes as often asseveral times in the same day. The subject of this memoir was of avicious disposition, and early prostituted his talents to the inventionof maxims and aphorisms calculated to inflict suffering upon the risinggeneration of all subsequent ages. His simplest acts, also, werecontrived with a view to their being held up for the emulation of boysforever--boys who might otherwise have been happy. It was in this spiritthat he became the son of a soap-boiler, and probably for no other reasonthan that the efforts of all future boys who tried to be anything mightbe looked upon with suspicion unless they were the sons of soap-boilers. With a malevolence which is without parallel in history, he would workall day, and then sit up nights, and let on to be studying algebra by thelight of a smoldering fire, so that all other boys might have to do thatalso, or else have Benjamin Franklin thrown up to them. Not satisfiedwith these proceedings, he had a fashion of living wholly on bread andwater, and studying astronomy at meal-time--a thing which has broughtaffliction to millions of boys since, whose fathers had read Franklin'spernicious biography. 

His maxims were full of animosity toward boys. Nowadays a boy cannotfollow out a single natural instinct without tumbling over some of thoseeverlasting aphorisms and hearing from Franklin, on the spot. If he buystwo cents' worth of peanuts, his father says, "Remember what Franklin hassaid, my son--'A grout a day's a penny a year"'; and the comfort is allgone out of those peanuts. If he wants to spin his top when he has donework, his father quotes, "Procrastination is the thief of time. " If hedoes a virtuous action, he never gets anything for it, because "Virtue isits own reward. " And that boy is hounded to death and robbed of hisnatural rest, because Franklin, said once, in one of his inspired flightsof malignity:

 Early to bed and early to rise Makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise. 

As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise onsuch terms. The sorrow that that maxim has cost me, through my parents, experimenting on me with it, tongue cannot tell. The legitimate result ismy present state of general debility, indigence, and mental aberration. My parents used to have me up before nine o'clock in the morningsometimes when I was a boy. If they had let me take my natural restwhere would I have been now? Keeping store, no doubt, and respected byall. 

And what an adroit old adventurer the subject of this memoir was!In order to get a chance to fly his kite on Sunday he used to hang a keyon the string and let on to be fishing for lightning. And a guilelesspublic would go home chirping about the "wisdom" and the "genius" of thehoary Sabbath-breaker. If anybody caught him playing "mumblepeg" byhimself, after the age of sixty, he would immediately appear to beciphering out how the grass grew--as if it was any of his business. My grandfather knew him well, and he says Franklin was alwaysfixed--always ready. If a body, during his old age, happened on himunexpectedly when he was catching flies, or making mud-pies, or slidingon a cellar door, he would immediately look wise, and rip out a maxim, and walk off with his nose in the air and his cap turned wrong sidebefore, trying to appear absent-minded and eccentric. He was a hard lot. 

He invented a stove that would smoke your head off in four hours by theclock. One can see the almost devilish satisfaction he took in it by hisgiving it his name. 

He was always proud of telling how he entered Philadelphia for the firsttime, with nothing in the world but two shillings in his pocket and fourrolls of bread under his arm. But really, when you come to examine itcritically, it was nothing. Anybody could have done it. 

To the subject of this memoir belongs the honor of recommending the armyto go back to bows and arrows in place of bayonets and muskets. He observed, with his customary force, that the bayonet was very wellunder some circumstances, but that he doubted whether it could be usedwith accuracy at a long range. 

Benjamin Franklin did a great many notable things for his country, and made her young name to be honored in many lands as the mother of sucha son. It is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. No; the simple idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with a great show of originality out of truisms thathad become wearisome platitudes as early as the dispersion from Babel;and also to snub his stove, and his military inspirations, his unseemlyendeavor to make himself conspicuous when he entered Philadelphia, andhis flying his kite and fooling away his time in all sorts of such wayswhen he ought to have been foraging for soap-fat, or constructingcandles. I merely desired to do away with somewhat of the prevalentcalamitous idea among heads of families that Franklin acquired his greatgenius by working for nothing, studying by moonlight, and getting up inthe night instead of waiting till morning like a Christian; and that thisprogram, rigidly inflicted, will make a Franklin of every father's fool. It is time these gentlemen were finding out that these execrableeccentricities of instinct and conduct are only the evidences of genius, not the creators of it. I wish I had been the father of my parents longenough to make them comprehend this truth, and thus prepare them to lettheir son have an easier time of it. When I was a child I had to boilsoap, notwithstanding my father was wealthy, and I had to get up earlyand study geometry at breakfast, and peddle my own poetry, and doeverything just as Franklin did, in the solemn hope that I would be aFranklin some day. And here I am. 

MR. BLOKE'S ITEM--[Written about 1865. ]

Our esteemed friend, Mr. John William Bloke, of Virginia City, walkedinto the office where we are sub-editor at a late hour last night, withan expression of profound and heartfelt suffering upon his countenance, and, sighing heavily, laid the following item reverently upon the desk, and walked slowly out again. He paused a moment at the door, and seemedstruggling to command his feelings sufficiently to enable him to speak, and then, nodding his head toward his manuscript, ejaculated in a brokenvoice, "Friend of mine--oh! how sad!" and burst into tears. We were somoved at his distress that we did not think to call him back and endeavorto comfort him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper hadalready gone to press, but knowing that our friend would consider thepublication of this item important, and cherishing the hope that to printit would afford a melancholy satisfaction to his sorrowing heart, westopped, the press at once and inserted it in our columns:

 DISTRESSING ACCIDENT. --Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr. William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park, was leaving his residence to go down-town, as has been his usual custom for many years with the exception only of a short interval in the spring of 1850, during which he was confined to his bed by injuries received in attempting to stop a runaway horse by thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing up his hands and shouting, which if he had done so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and saw the sad occurrence notwithstanding it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitering in another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and on the lookout, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her own mother is said to have stated, who is no more, but died in the full hope of a glorious resurrection, upwards of three years ago; aged eighty-six, being a Christian woman and without guile, as it were, or property, in consequence of the fire of 1849, which destroyed every single thing she had in the world. But such is life. Let us all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and let us endeavor so to conduct ourselves that when we come to die we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our heart, and say with earnestness and sincerity that from this day forth we will beware of the intoxicating bowl. --'First Edition of the Californian. '

The head editor has been in here raising the mischief, and tearing hishair and kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a pickpocket. He says that every time he leaves me in charge of the paper for half anhour I get imposed upon by the first infant or the first idiot that comesalong. And he says that that distressing item of Mr. Bloke's is nothingbut a lot of distressing bash, and has no point to it, and no sense init, and no information in it, and that there was no sort of necessity forstopping the press to publish it. 

Now all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been asunaccommodating and unsympathetic as some people, I would have toldMr. Bloke that I wouldn't receive his communication at such a late hour;but no, his snuffling distress touched my heart, and I jumped at thechance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read his item tosee whether there was anything wrong about it, but hastily wrote the fewlines which preceded it, and sent it to the printers. And what has mykindness done for me? It has done nothing but bring down upon me a stormof abuse and ornamental blasphemy. 

Now I will read that item myself, and see if there is any foundation forall this fuss. And if there is, the author of it shall hear from me. 

I have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little mixed at afirst glance. However, I will peruse it once more. 

I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more mixed thanever. 

I have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of it Iwish I may get my just deserts. It won't bear analysis. There arethings about it which I cannot understand at all. It don't say whateverbecame of William Schuyler. It just says enough about him to get oneinterested in his career, and then drops him. Who is William Schuyler, anyhow, and what part of South Park did he live in, and if he starteddown-town at six o'clock, did he ever get there, and if he did, didanything happen to him? Is he the individual that met with the"distressing accident"? Considering the elaborate circumstantiality ofdetail observable in the item, it seems to me that it ought to containmore information than it does. On the contrary, it is obscure and notonly obscure, but utterly incomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr. Schuyler's leg, fifteen years ago, the "distressing accident" thatplunged Mr. Bloke into unspeakable grief, and caused him to come up hereat dead of night and stop our press to acquaint the world with thecircumstance? Or did the "distressing accident" consist in thedestruction of Schuyler's mother-in-law's property in early times?Or did it consist in the death of that person herself three years ago(albeit it does not appear that she died by accident)? In a word, whatdid that "distressing accident" consist in? What did that driveling assof a Schuyler stand in the wake of a runaway horse for, with his shoutingand gesticulating, if he wanted to stop him? And how the mischief couldhe get run over by a horse that had already passed beyond him? And whatare we to take "warning" by? And how is this extraordinary chapter ofincomprehensibilities going to be a "lesson" to us? And, above all, whathas the intoxicating "bowl" got to do with it, anyhow? It is not statedthat Schuyler drank, or that his wife drank, or that his mother-in-lawdrank, or that the horse drank wherefore, then, the reference to theintoxicating bowl? It does seem to me that if Mr. Bloke had let theintoxicating bowl alone himself, he never would have got into so muchtrouble about this exasperating imaginary accident. I have read this. Absurd item over and over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head swims; but I can make neither head nor tail of it. Therecertainly seems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it isimpossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was thesufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to requestthat the next time anything happens to one of Mr. Bloke's friends, hewill append such explanatory notes to his account of it as will enable meto find out what sort of an accident it was and whom it happened to. Ihad rather all his friends should die than that I should be driven to theverge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out the meaning of another suchproduction as the above. 

A MEDIEVAL ROMANCE

CHAPTER I

THE SECRET REVEALED. 

It was night. Stillness reigned in the grand old feudal castle ofKlugenstein. The year 1222 was drawing to a close. Far away up in thetallest of the castle's towers a single light glimmered. A secretcouncil was being held there. The stern old lord of Klugenstein sat ina chair of state meditating. Presently he, said, with a tenderaccent:

"My daughter!"

A young man of noble presence, clad from head to heel in knightly mail, answered:

"Speak, father!"

"My daughter, the time is come for the revealing of the mystery that hathpuzzled all your young life. Know, then, that it had its birth in thematters which I shall now unfold. My brother Ulrich is the great Duke ofBrandenburgh. Our father, on his deathbed, decreed that if no son wereborn to Ulrich, the succession should pass to my house, provided a sonwere born to me. And further, in case no son, were born to either, butonly daughters, then the succession should pass to Ulrich's daughter, if she proved stainless; if she did not, my daughter should succeed, if she retained a blameless name. And so I, and my old wife here, prayedfervently for the good boon of a son, but the prayer was vain. You wereborn to us. I was in despair. I saw the mighty prize slipping from mygrasp, the splendid dream vanishing away. And I had been so hopeful!Five years had Ulrich lived in wedlock, and yet his wife had borne noheir of either sex. 

"'But hold, ' I said, 'all is not lost. ' A saving scheme had shot athwartmy brain. You were born at midnight. Only the leech, the nurse, and sixwaiting-women knew your sex. I hanged them every one before an hour hadsped. Next morning all the barony went mad with rejoicing over theproclamation that a son was born to Klugenstein, an heir to mightyBrandenburgh! And well the secret has been kept. Your mother's ownsister nursed your infancy, and from that time forward we feared nothing. 

"When you were ten years old, a daughter was born to Ulrich. We grieved, but hoped for good results from measles, or physicians, or other naturalenemies of infancy, but were always disappointed. She lived, she throve--Heaven's malison upon her! But it is nothing. We are safe. For, Ha-ha! have we not a son? And is not our son the future Duke? Ourwell-beloved Conrad, is it not so?--for, woman of eight-and-twenty years--as you are, my child, none other name than that hath ever fallen to you!

"Now it hath come to pass that age hath laid its hand upon my brother, and he waxes feeble. The cares of state do tax him sore. Therefore hewills that you shall come to him and be already Duke--in act, though notyet in name. Your servitors are ready--you journey forth to-night. 

"Now listen well. Remember every word I say. There is a law as old asGermany that if any woman sit for a single instant in the great ducalchair before she hath been absolutely crowned in presence of the people, SHE SHALL DIE! So heed my words. Pretend humility. Pronounce yourjudgments from the Premier's chair, which stands at the foot of thethrone. Do this until you are crowned and safe. It is not likely thatyour sex will ever be discovered; but still it is the part of wisdom tomake all things as safe as may be in this treacherous earthly life. "

"Oh; my father, is it for this my life hath been a lie! Was it that Imight cheat my unoffending cousin of her rights? Spare me, father, spare your child!"

"What, huzzy! Is this my reward for the august fortune my brain haswrought for thee? By the bones of my father, this puling sentiment ofthine but ill accords with my humor. 

"Betake thee to the Duke, instantly! And beware how thou meddlest with mypurpose!"

Let this suffice, of the conversation. It is enough for us to know thatthe prayers, the entreaties and the tears of the gentle-natured girlavailed nothing. They nor anything could move the stout old lord ofKlugenstein. And so, at last, with a heavy heart, the daughter saw thecastle gates close behind her, and found herself riding away in thedarkness surrounded by a knightly array of armed, vassals and a bravefollowing of servants. 

The old baron sat silent for many minutes after his daughter's departure, and then he turned to his sad wife and said:

"Dame, our matters seem speeding fairly. It is full three months since Isent the shrewd and handsome Count Detzin on his devilish mission to mybrother's daughter Constance. If he fail, we are not wholly safe; but ifhe do succeed, no power can bar our girl from being Duchess e'en thoughill-fortune should decree she never should be Duke!"

"My heart is full of bodings, yet all may still be well. "

"Tush, woman! Leave the owls to croak. To bed with ye, and dream ofBrandenburgh and grandeur!"

CHAPTER II. 

FESTIVITY AND TEARS

Six days after the occurrences related in the above chapter, thebrilliant capital of the Duchy of Brandenburgh was resplendent withmilitary pageantry, and noisy with the rejoicings of loyal multitudes;for Conrad, the young heir to the crown, was come. The old Duke's, heartwas full of happiness, for Conrad's handsome person and graceful bearinghad won his love at once. The great halls of tie palace were throngedwith nobles, who welcomed Conrad bravely; and so bright and happy did allthings seem, that he felt his fears and sorrows passing away and givingplace to a comforting contentment. 

But in a remote apartment of the palace a scene of a different naturewas, transpiring. By a window stood the Duke's only child, the LadyConstance. Her eyes were red and swollen, and full of tears. She wasalone. Presently she fell to weeping anew, and said aloud:

"The villain Detzin is gone--has fled the dukedom! I could not believeit at first, but alas! it is too true. And I loved him so. I dared tolove him though I knew the Duke my father would never let me wed him. I loved him--but now I hate him! With all, my soul I hate him! Oh, whatis to become of me! I am lost, lost, lost! I shall go mad!"

CHAPTER III. 

THE PLOT THICKENS. 

Few months drifted by. All men published the praises of the youngConrad's government and extolled the wisdom of his judgments, themercifulness of his sentences, and the modesty with which he bore himselfin his great office. The old Duke soon gave everything into his hands, and sat apart and listened with proud satisfaction while his heirdelivered the decrees of the crown from the seat of the premier. It seemed plain that one so loved and praised and honored of all menas Conrad was, could not be otherwise than happy. But strange enough, he was not. For he saw with dismay that the Princess Constance had begunto love him! The love of, the rest of the world was happy fortune forhim, but this was freighted with danger! And he saw, moreover, that thedelighted Duke had discovered his daughter's passion likewise, and wasalready dreaming of a marriage. Every day somewhat of the deep sadnessthat had been in the princess' face faded away; every day hope andanimation beamed brighter from her eye; and by and by even vagrant smilesvisited the face that had been so troubled. 

Conrad was appalled. He bitterly cursed himself for having yielded tothe instinct that had made him seek the companionship of one of his ownsex when he was new and a stranger in the palace--when he was sorrowfuland yearned for a sympathy such as only women can give or feel. He nowbegan to avoid, his cousin. But this only made matters worse, for, naturally enough, the more he avoided her, the more she cast herself inhis way. He marveled at this at first; and next it startled him. Thegirl haunted him; she hunted him; she happened upon him at all times andin all places, in the night as well as in the day. She seemed singularlyanxious. There was surely a mystery somewhere. 

This could not go on forever. All the world was talking about it. TheDuke was beginning to look perplexed. Poor Conrad was becoming a veryghost through dread and dire distress. One day as he was emerging from aprivate ante-room attached to the picture gallery, Constance confrontedhim, and seizing both his hands, in hers, exclaimed:

"Oh, why, do you avoid me? What have I done--what have I said, to loseyour kind opinion of me--for, surely I had it once? Conrad, do notdespise me, but pity a tortured heart? I cannot, --cannot hold the wordsunspoken longer, lest they kill me--I LOVE you, CONRAD! There, despiseme if you must, but they would be uttered!"

Conrad was speechless. Constance hesitated a moment, and then, misinterpreting his silence, a wild gladness flamed in her eyes, and sheflung her arms about his neck and said:

"You relent! you relent! You can love me--you will love me! Oh, say youwill, my own, my worshipped Conrad!'"

"Conrad groaned aloud. A sickly pallor overspread his countenance, andhe trembled like an aspen. Presently, in desperation, he thrust the poorgirl from him, and cried:

"You know not what you ask! It is forever and ever impossible!" And thenhe fled like a criminal and left the princess stupefied with amazement. A minute afterward she was crying and sobbing there, and Conrad wascrying and sobbing in his chamber. Both were in despair. Both save ruinstaring them in the face. 

By and by Constance rose slowly to her feet and moved away, saying:

"To think that he was despising my love at the very moment that I thoughtit was melting his cruel heart! I hate him! He spurned me--did thisman--he spurned me from him like a dog!"

CHAPTER IV

THE AWFUL REVELATION. 

Time passed on. A settled sadness rested once more upon the countenanceof the good Duke's daughter. She and Conrad were seen together no morenow. The Duke grieved at this. But as the weeks wore away, Conrad'scolor came back to his cheeks and his old-time vivacity to his eye, andhe administered the government with a clear and steadily ripening wisdom. 

Presently a strange whisper began to be heard about the palace. It grewlouder; it spread farther. The gossips of the city got hold-of it. Itswept the dukedom. And this is what the whisper said:

"The Lady Constance hath given birth to a child!"

When the lord of Klugenstein heard it, he swung his plumed helmet thricearound his head and shouted:

"Long live. Duke Conrad!--for lo, his crown is sure, from this dayforward! Detzin has done his errand well, and the good scoundrel shallbe rewarded!"

And he spread, the tidings far and wide, and for eight-and-forty hours nosoul in all the barony but did dance and sing, carouse and illuminate, tocelebrate the great event, and all at proud and happy old Klugenstein'sexpense. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE FRIGHTFUL CATASTROPHE. 

The trial was at hand. All the great lords and barons of Brandenburghwere assembled in the Hall of Justice in the ducal palace. No space wasleft unoccupied where there was room for a spectator to stand or sit. Conrad, clad in purple and ermine, sat in the premier's chair, and oneither side sat the great judges of the realm. The old Duke had sternlycommanded that the trial of his daughter should proceed, without favor, and then had taken to his bed broken-hearted. His days were numbered. Poor Conrad had begged, as for his very life, that he might be spared themisery of sitting in judgment upon his cousin's crime, but it did notavail. 

The saddest heart in all that great assemblage was in Conrad's breast. 

The gladdest was in his father's. For, unknown to his daughter "Conrad, "the old Baron Klugenstein was come, and was among the crowd of nobles, triumphant in the swelling fortunes of his house. 

After the heralds had made due proclamation and the other preliminarieshad followed, the venerable Lord Chief justice said:

"Prisoner, stand forth!"

The unhappy princess rose and stood unveiled before the vast multitude. The Lord Chief Justice continued:

"Most noble lady, before the great judges of this realm it hath beencharged and proven that out of holy wedlock your Grace hath given birthunto a child; and by our ancient law the penalty is death, excepting inone sole contingency, whereof his Grace the acting Duke, our good LordConrad, will advertise you in his solemn sentence now; wherefore, giveheed. "

Conrad stretched forth the reluctant sceptre, and in the self-same momentthe womanly heart beneath his robe yearned pityingly toward the doomedprisoner, and the tears came into his eyes. He opened his lips to speak, but the Lord Chief Justice said quickly:

"Not there, your Grace, not there! It is not lawful to pronouncejudgment upon any of the ducal line SAVE FROM THE DUCAL THRONE!"

A shudder went to the heart of poor Conrad, and a tremor shook the ironframe of his old father likewise. CONRAD HAD NOT BEEN CROWNED--dared heprofane the throne? He hesitated and turned pale with fear. But it mustbe done. Wondering eyes were already upon him. They would be suspiciouseyes if he hesitated longer. He ascended the throne. Presently hestretched forth the sceptre again, and said:

"Prisoner, in the name of our sovereign lord, Ulrich, Duke ofBrandenburgh, I proceed to the solemn duty that hath devolved upon me. Give heed to my words. By the ancient law of the land, except youproduce the partner of your guilt and deliver him up to the executioner, you must surely die. Embrace this opportunity--save yourself while yetyou may. Name the father of your child!"

A solemn hush fell upon the great court--a silence so profound that mencould hear their own hearts beat. Then the princess slowly turned, witheyes gleaming with hate, and pointing her finger straight at Conrad, said:

"Thou art the man!"

An appalling conviction of his helpless, hopeless peril struck a chill toConrad's heart like the chill of death itself. What power on earth couldsave him! To disprove the charge, he must reveal that he was a woman;and for an uncrowned woman to sit in the ducal chair was death! At oneand the same moment, he and his grim old father swooned and fell to, theground. 

[The remainder of this thrilling and eventful story will NOT be found inthis or any other publication, either now or at any future time. ]

The truth is, I have got my hero (or heroine) into such a particularlyclose place, that I do not see how I am ever going to get him (or her)out of it again--and therefore I will wash my hands of the wholebusiness, and leave that person to get out the best way that offers--orelse stay there. I thought it was going to be easy enough to straightenout that little difficulty, but it looks different now. 

PETITION CONCERNING COPYRIGHT

TO THE HONORABLE THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVESIN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:

Whereas, The Constitution guarantees equal rights to all, backed by theDeclaration of Independence; and

Whereas, Under our laws, the right of property in real estate isperpetual; and

Whereas, Under our laws, the right of property in the literary result ofa citizen's intellectual labor is restricted to forty-two years; and

Whereas, Forty-two years seems an exceedingly just and righteous term, and a sufficiently long one for the retention of property;

Therefore, Your petitioner, having the good of his country solely atheart, humbly prays that "equal rights" and fair and equal treatment maybe meted out to all citizens, by the restriction of rights in allproperty, real estate included, to the beneficent term of forty-twoyears. Then shall all men bless your honorable body and be happy. Andfor this will your petitioner ever pray. MARK TWAIN. 

A PARAGRAPH NOT ADDED TO THE PETITION

The charming absurdity of restricting property-rights in books toforty-two years sticks prominently out in the fact that hardly any man'sbooks ever live forty-two years, or even the half of it; and so, for thesake of getting a shabby advantage of the heirs of about one Scott orBurns or Milton in a hundred years, the lawmakers of the "Great" Republicare content to leave that poor little pilfering edict upon thestatute-books. It is like an emperor lying in wait to rob a Phenix'snest, and waiting the necessary century to get the chance. 

AFTER-DINNER SPEECH

[AT A FOURTH OF JULY GATHERING, IN LONDON, OF AMERICANS]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I thank you for the complimentwhich has just been tendered me, and to show my appreciation of it I willnot afflict you with many words. It is pleasant to celebrate in thispeaceful way, upon this old mother soil, the anniversary of an experimentwhich was born of war with this same land so long ago, and wrought out toa successful issue by the devotion of our ancestors. It has taken nearlya hundred years to bring the English and Americans into kindly andmutually appreciative relations, but I believe it has been accomplishedat last. It was a great step when the two last misunderstandings weresettled by arbitration instead of cannon. It is another great step whenEngland adopts our sewing-machines without claiming the invention--asusual. It was another when they imported one of our sleeping-cars theother day. And it warmed my heart more than I can tell, yesterday, whenI witnessed the spectacle of an Englishman ordering an American sherrycobbler of his own free will and accord--and not only that but with agreat brain and a level head reminding the barkeeper not to forget thestrawberries. With a common origin, a common language, a commonliterature, a common religion and--common drinks, what is longer needfulto the cementing of the two nations together in a permanent bond ofbrotherhood?

This is an age of progress, and ours is a progressive land. A great andglorious land, too--a land which has developed a Washington, a Franklin, a William M. Tweed, a Longfellow, a Motley, a Jay Gould, a Samuel C. Pomeroy, a recent Congress which has never had its equal (in somerespects), and a United States Army which conquered sixty Indians ineight months by tiring them out--which is much better than uncivilizedslaughter, God knows. We have a criminal jury system which is superiorto any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficultyof finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read. And I may observe that we have an insanity plea that would have savedCain. I think I can say, --and say with pride, that we have somelegislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world. 

I refer with effusion to our railway system, which consents to let uslive, though it might do the opposite, being our owners. It onlydestroyed three thousand and seventy lives last year by collisions, andtwenty-seven thousand two hundred and sixty by running over heedless andunnecessary people at crossings. The companies seriously regretted thekilling of these thirty thousand people, and went so far as to pay forsome of them--voluntarily, of course, for the meanest of us would notclaim that we possess a court treacherous enough to enforce a law againsta railway company. But, thank Heaven, the railway companies aregenerally disposed to do the right and kindly thing without compulsion. I know of an instance which greatly touched me at the time. After anaccident the company sent home the remains of a dear distant old relativeof mine in a basket, with the remark, "Please state what figure you holdhim at--and return the basket. " Now there couldn't be anythingfriendlier than that. 

But I must not stand here and brag all night. However, you won't mind abody bragging a little about his country on the fourth of July. It is afair and legitimate time to fly the eagle. I will say only one more wordof brag--and a hopeful one. It is this. We have a form of governmentwhich gives each man a fair chance and no favor. With us no individualis born with a right to look down upon his neighbor and hold him incontempt. Let such of us as are not dukes find our consolation in that. And we may find hope for the future in the fact that as unhappy as is thecondition of our political morality to-day, England has risen up out ofa far fouler since the days when Charles I. Ennobled courtesans and allpolitical place was a matter of bargain and sale. There is hope for usyet. 

 [At least the above is the speech which I was going to make, but our minister, General Schenck, presided, and after the blessing, got up and made a great long inconceivably dull harangue, and wound up by saying that inasmuch as speech-making did not seem to exhilarate the guests much, all further oratory would be dispensed with during the evening, and we could just sit and talk privately to our elbow-neighbors and have a good sociable time. It is known that in consequence of that remark forty-four perfected speeches died in the womb. The depression, the gloom, the solemnity that reigned over the banquet from that time forth will be a lasting memory with many that were there. By that one thoughtless remark General Schenck lost forty-four of the best friends he had in England. More than one said that night, "And this is the sort of person that is sent to represent us in a great sister empire!"]

LIONIZING MURDERERS

I had heard so much about the celebrated fortune-teller Madame-----, thatI went to see her yesterday. She has a dark complexion naturally, andthis effect is heightened by artificial aids which cost her nothing. She wears curls--very black ones, and I had an impression that she gavetheir native attractiveness a lift with rancid butter. She wears areddish check handkerchief, cast loosely around her neck, and it wasplain that her other one is slow getting back from the wash. I presumeshe takes snuff. At any rate, something resembling it had lodged amongthe hairs sprouting from her upper lip. I know she likes garlic--I knewthat as soon as she sighed. She looked at me searchingly for nearly aminute, with her black eyes, and then said:

"It is enough. Come!"

She started down a very dark and dismal corridor--I stepping close afterher. Presently she stopped, and said that, as the way was so crooked anddark, perhaps she had better get a light. But it seemed ungallant toallow a woman to put herself to so much trouble for me, and so I said:

"It is not worth while, madam. If you will heave another sigh, I think Ican follow it. "

So we got along all right. Arrived at her official and mysterious den, she asked me to tell her the date of my birth, the exact hour of thatoccurrence, and the color of my grandmother's hair. I answered asaccurately as I could. Then she said:

"Young man, summon your fortitude--do not tremble. I am about to revealthe past. "

"Information concerning the future would be, in a general way, more--"

"Silence! You have had much trouble, some joy, some good fortune, somebad. Your great grandfather was hanged. "

"That is a l--"

"Silence! Hanged sir. But it was not his fault. He could not help it. "

"I am glad you do him justice. "

"Ah--grieve, rather, that the jury did. He was hanged. His star crossesyours in the fourth division, fifth sphere. Consequently you will behanged also. "

"In view of this cheerful--"

"I must have silence. Yours was not, in the beginning, a criminalnature, but circumstances changed it. At the age of nine you stolesugar. At the age of fifteen you stole money. At twenty you stolehorses. At twenty-five you committed arson. At thirty, hardened incrime, you became an editor. You are now a public lecturer. Worsethings are in store for you. You will be sent to Congress. Next, to thepenitentiary. Finally, happiness will come again--all will be well--youwill be hanged. "

I was now in tears. It seemed hard enough to go to Congress; but to behanged--this was too sad, too dreadful. The woman seemed surprised at mygrief. I told her the thoughts that were in my mind. Then she comfortedme. 

"Why, man, " she said, "hold up your head--you have nothing to grieveabout. Listen. 

--[In this paragraph the fortune-teller details the exact history of thePike-Brown assassination case in New Hampshire, from the succoring andsaving of the stranger Pike by the Browns, to the subsequent hanging andcoffining of that treacherous miscreant. She adds nothing, inventsnothing, exaggerates nothing (see any New England paper for November, 1869). This Pike-Brown case is selected merely as a type, to illustratea custom that prevails, not in New Hampshire alone, but in every state inthe Union--I mean the sentimental custom of visiting, petting, glorifying, and snuffling over murderers like this Pike, from the daythey enter the jail under sentence of death until they swing from thegallows. The following extract from the Temple Bar (1866) reveals thefact that this custom is not confined to the United States. --"on December31, 1841, a man named John Johnes, a shoemaker, murdered his sweetheart, Mary Hallam, the daughter of a respectable laborer, at Mansfield, in thecounty of Nottingham. He was executed on March 23, 1842. He was a manof unsteady habits, and gave way to violent fits of passion. The girldeclined his addresses, and he said if he did not have her no one elseshould. After he had inflicted the first wound, which was notimmediately fatal, she begged for her life, but seeing him resolved, asked for time to pray. He said that he would pray for both, andcompleted the crime. The wounds were inflicted by a shoemaker's knife, and her throat was cut barbarously. After this he dropped on his kneessome time, and prayed God to have mercy on two unfortunate lovers. He made no attempt to escape, and confessed the crime. After hisimprisonment he behaved in a most decorous manner; he won upon the goodopinion of the jail chaplain, and he was visited by the Bishop ofLincoln. It does not appear that he expressed any contrition for thecrime, but seemed to pass away with triumphant certainty that he wasgoing to rejoin his victim in heaven. He was visited by some pious andbenevolent ladies of Nottingham, some of whom declared he was a child ofGod, if ever there was one. One of the ladies sent him a while camelliato wear at his execution. "]

"You will live in New Hampshire. In your sharp need and distress theBrown family will succor you--such of them as Pike the assassin leftalive. They will be benefactors to you. When you shall have grown fatupon their bounty, and are grateful and happy, you will desire to makesome modest return for these things, and so you will go to the house somenight and brain the whole family with an ax. You will rob the deadbodies of your benefactors, and disburse your gains in riotous livingamong the rowdies and courtesans of Boston. Then you will, be arrested, tried, condemned to be hanged, thrown into prison. Now is your happyday. You will be converted--you will be converted just as soon asevery effort to compass pardon, commutation, or reprieve has failed--andthen!--Why, then, every morning and every afternoon, the best and purestyoung ladies of the village will assemble in your cell and sing hymns. This will show that assassination is respectable. Then you will write atouching letter, in which you will forgive all those recent Browns. Thiswill excite the public admiration. No public can withstand magnanimity. Next, they will take you to the scaffold, with great eclat, at the headof an imposing procession composed of clergymen, officials, citizensgenerally, and young ladies walking pensively two and two, and bearingbouquets and immortelles. You will mount the scaffold, and while thegreat concourse stand uncovered in your presence, you will read yoursappy little speech which the minister has written for you. And then, inthe midst of a grand and impressive silence, they will swing you intoper--Paradise, my son. There will not be a dry eye on the ground. Youwill be a hero! Not a rough there but will envy you. Not a rough therebut will resolve to emulate you. And next, a great procession willfollow you to the tomb--will weep over your remains--the young ladieswill sing again the hymns made dear by sweet associations connected withthe jail, and, as a last tribute of affection, respect, and appreciationof your many sterling qualities, they will walk two and two around yourbier, and strew wreaths of flowers on it. And lo! you are canonized. Think of it, son-ingrate, assassin, robber of the dead, drunken brawleramong thieves and harlots in the slums of Boston one month, and the petof the pure and innocent daughters of the land the next! A bloody andhateful devil--a bewept, bewailed, and sainted martyr--all in a month!Fool!--so noble a fortune, and yet you sit here grieving!"

"No, madam, " I said, "you do me wrong, you do, indeed. I am perfectlysatisfied. I did not know before that my great-grandfather was hanged, but it is of no consequence. He has probably ceased to bother about itby this time--and I have not commenced yet. I confess, madam, that I dosomething in the way of editing and lecturing, but the other crimes youmention have escaped my memory. Yet I must have committed them--youwould not deceive a stranger. But let the past be as it was, and let thefuture be as it may--these are nothing. I have only cared for one thing. I have always felt that I should be hanged some day, and somehow thethought has annoyed me considerably; but if you can only assure me that Ishall be hanged in New Hampshire--"

"Not a shadow of a doubt!"

"Bless you, my benefactress!--excuse this embrace--you have removed agreat load from my breast. To be hanged in New Hampshire is happiness--it leaves an honored name behind a man, and introduces him at once intothe best New Hampshire society in the other world. "

I then took leave of the fortune-teller. But, seriously, is it well toglorify a murderous villain on the scaffold, as Pike was glorified in NewHampshire? Is it well to turn the penalty for a bloody crime into areward? Is it just to do it? Is, it safe?

A NEW CRIME

LEGISLATION NEEDED

This country, during the last thirty or forty years, has produced some ofthe most remarkable cases of insanity of which there is any mention inhistory. For instance, there was the Baldwin case, in Ohio, twenty-twoyears ago. Baldwin, from his boyhood up, had been of a vindictive, malignant, quarrelsome nature. He put a boy's eye out once, and neverwas heard upon any occasion to utter a regret for it. He did many suchthings. But at last he did something that was serious. He called at ahouse just after dark one evening, knocked, and when the occupant came tothe door, shot him dead, and then tried to escape, but was captured. Two days before, he had wantonly insulted a helpless cripple, and the manhe afterward took swift vengeance upon with an assassin bullet hadknocked him down. Such was the Baldwin case. The trial was long andexciting; the community was fearfully wrought up. Men said thisspiteful, bad-hearted villain had caused grief enough in his time, andnow he should satisfy the law. But they were mistaken; Baldwin wasinsane when he did the deed--they had not thought of that. By theargument of counsel it was shown that at half past ten in the morning onthe day of the murder, Baldwin became insane, and remained so for elevenhours and a half exactly. This just covered the case comfortably, and hewas acquitted. Thus, if an unthinking and excited community had beenlistened to instead of the arguments of counsel, a poor crazy creaturewould have been held to a fearful responsibility for a mere freak ofmadness. Baldwin went clear, and although his relatives and friends werenaturally incensed against the community for their injurious suspicionsand remarks, they said let it go for this time, and did not prosecute. The Baldwins were very wealthy. This same Baldwin had momentary fits ofinsanity twice afterward, and on both occasions killed people he hadgrudges against. And on both these occasions the circumstances of thekilling were so aggravated, and the murders so seemingly heartless andtreacherous, that if Baldwin had not been insane he would have beenhanged without the shadow of a doubt. As it was, it required all hispolitical and family influence to get him clear in one of the cases, andcost him not less than ten thousand dollars to get clear in the other. One of these men he had notoriously been threatening to kill for twelveyears. The poor creature happened, by the merest piece of ill fortune, to come along a dark alley at the very moment that Baldwin's insanitycame upon him, and so he was shot in the back with a gun loaded withslugs. 

Take the case of Lynch Hackett, of Pennsylvania. Twice, in public, heattacked a German butcher by the name of Bemis Feldner, with a cane, andboth times Feldner whipped him with his fists. Hackett was a vain, wealthy, violent gentleman, who held his blood and family in high esteem, and believed that a reverent respect was due to his great riches. Hebrooded over the shame of his chastisement for two weeks, and then, in amomentary fit of insanity, armed himself to the teeth, rode into town, waited a couple of hours until he saw Feldner coming down the street withhis wife on his arm, and then, as the couple passed the doorway in whichhe had partially concealed himself, he drove a knife into Feldner's neck, killing him instantly. The widow caught the limp form and eased it tothe earth. Both were drenched with blood. Hackett jocosely remarked toher that as a professional butcher's recent wife she could appreciate theartistic neatness of the job that left her in condition to marry again, in case she wanted to. This remark, and another which he made to afriend, that his position in society made the killing of an obscurecitizen simply an "eccentricity" instead of a crime, were shown to beevidences of insanity, and so Hackett escaped punishment. The jury werehardly inclined to accept these as proofs at first, inasmuch as theprisoner had never been insane before the murder, and under thetranquilizing effect of the butchering had immediately regained his rightmind; but when the defense came to show that a third cousin of Hackett'swife's stepfather was insane, and not only insane, but had a nose thevery counterpart of Hackett's, it was plain that insanity was hereditaryin the family, and Hackett had come by it by legitimate inheritance. 

Of course the jury then acquitted him. But it was a merciful providencethat Mrs. H. 's people had been afflicted as shown, else Hackett wouldcertainly have been hanged. 

However, it is not possible to recount all the marvelous cases ofinsanity that have come under the public notice in the last thirty orforty years. There was the Durgin case in New Jersey three years ago. The servant girl, Bridget Durgin, at dead of night, invaded hermistress's bedroom and carved the lady literally to pieces with a knife. Then she dragged the body to the middle of the floor, and beat and bangedit with chairs and such things. Next she opened the feather beds, andstrewed the contents around, saturated everything with kerosene, and setfire to the general wreck. She now took up the young child of themurdered woman in her blood smeared hands and walked off, through thesnow, with no shoes on, to a neighbor's house a quarter of a mile off, and told a string of wild, incoherent stories about some men coming andsetting fire to the house; and then she cried piteously, and withoutseeming to think there was anything suggestive about the blood upon herhands, her clothing, and the baby, volunteered the remark that she wasafraid those men had murdered her mistress! Afterward, by her ownconfession and other testimony, it was proved that the mistress hadalways been kind to the girl, consequently there was no revenge in themurder; and it was also shown that the girl took nothing away from theburning house, not even her own shoes, and consequently robbery was notthe motive. 

Now, the reader says, "Here comes that same old plea of insanity again. "But the reader has deceived himself this time. No such plea was offeredin her defense. The judge sentenced her, nobody persecuted the governorwith petitions for her pardon, and she was promptly hanged. 

There was that youth in Pennsylvania, whose curious confession waspublished some years ago. It was simply a conglomeration of incoherentdrivel from beginning to end; and so was his lengthy speech on thescaffold afterward. For a whole year he was haunted with a desire todisfigure a certain young woman, so that no one would marry her. He didnot love her himself, and did not want to marry her, but he did not wantanybody else to do it. He would not go anywhere with her, and yet wasopposed to anybody else's escorting her. Upon one occasion he declinedto go to a wedding with her, and when she got other company, lay in waitfor the couple by the road, intending to make them go back or kill theescort. After spending sleepless nights over his ruling desire for afull year, he at last attempted its execution--that is, attempted todisfigure the young woman. It was a success. It was permanent. Intrying to shoot her cheek (as she sat at the supper-table with herparents and brothers and sisters) in such a manner as to mar itscomeliness, one of his bullets wandered a little out of the course, andshe dropped dead. To the very last moment of his life he bewailed theill luck that made her move her face just at the critical moment. And sohe died, apparently about half persuaded that somehow it was chiefly herown fault that she got killed. This idiot was hanged. The plea, ofinsanity was not offered. 

Insanity certainly is on the increase in the world, and crime is dyingout. There are no longer any murders--none worth mentioning, at anyrate. Formerly, if you killed a man, it was possible that you wereinsane--but now, if you, having friends and money, kill a mate, it isevidence that you are a lunatic. In these days, too, if a person of goodfamily and high social standing steals anything, they call itkleptomania, and send him to the lunatic asylum. If a person of highstanding squanders his fortune in dissipation, and closes his career withstrychnine or a bullet, "Temporary Aberration" is what was the troublewith him. 

Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so commonthat the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminalcase that comes before the courts? And is it not so cheap, and socommon, and often so trivial, that the reader smiles in derision when thenewspaper mentions it?

And is it not curious to note how very often it wins acquittal for theprisoner? Of late years it does not seem possible for a man to soconduct himself, before killing another man, as not to be manifestlyinsane. If he talks about the stars, he is insane. If he appearsnervous and uneasy an hour before the killing, he is insane. If he weepsover a great grief, his friends shake their heads, and fear that he is"not right. " If, an hour after the murder, he seems ill at ease, preoccupied, and excited, he is, unquestionably insane. 

Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law againstinsanity. There is where the true evil lies. 

A CURIOUS DREAM

CONTAINING A MORAL

Night before last I had a singular dream. I seemed to be sitting on adoorstep (in no particular city perhaps) ruminating, and the time ofnight appeared to be about twelve or one o'clock. The weather was balmyand delicious. There was no human sound in the air, not even a footstep. There was no sound of any kind to emphasize the dead stillness, exceptthe occasional hollow barking of a dog in the distance and the fainteranswer of a further dog. Presently up the street I heard a bonyclack-clacking, and guessed it was the castanets of a serenading party. In a minute more a tall skeleton, hooded, and half clad in a tattered andmoldy shroud, whose shreds were flapping about the ribby latticework ofits person, swung by me with a stately stride and disappeared in the graygloom of the starlight. It had a broken and worm-eaten coffin on itsshoulder and a bundle of something in its hand. I knew what theclack-clacking was then; it was this party's joints working together, and his elbows knocking against his sides as he walked. I may say I wassurprised. Before I could collect my thoughts and enter upon anyspeculations as to what this apparition might portend, I heard anotherone coming for I recognized his clack-clack. He had two-thirds of acoffin on his shoulder, and some foot and head boards under his arm. I mightily wanted, to peer under his hood and speak to him, but when heturned and smiled upon me with his cavernous sockets and his projectinggrin as he went by, I thought I would not detain him. He was hardly gonewhen I heard the clacking again, and another one issued from the shadowyhalf-light. This one was bending under a heavy gravestone, and dragginga shabby coffin after him by a string. When he got to me he gave me asteady look for a moment or two, and then rounded to and backed up to me, saying:

"Ease this down for a fellow, will you?"

I eased the gravestone down till it rested on the ground, and in doing sonoticed that it bore the name of "John Baxter Copmanhurst, " with "May, 1839, " as the date of his death. Deceased sat wearily down by me, andwiped his os frontis with his major maxillary--chiefly from former habitI judged, for I could not see that he brought away any perspiration. 

"It is too bad, too bad, " said he, drawing the remnant of the shroudabout him and leaning his jaw pensively on his hand. Then he put hisleft foot up on his knee and fell to scratching his anklebone absentlywith a rusty nail which he got out of his coffin. 

"What is too bad, friend?"

"Oh, everything, everything. I almost wish I never had died. "

"You surprise me. Why do you say this? Has anything gone wrong? Whatis the matter?"

"Matter! Look at this shroud-rags. Look at this gravestone, allbattered up. Look at that disgraceful old coffin. All a man's propertygoing to ruin and destruction before his eyes, and ask him if anything iswrong? Fire and brimstone!"

"Calm yourself, calm yourself, " I said. "It is too bad--it is certainlytoo bad, but then I had not supposed that you would much mind suchmatters situated as you are. "

"Well, my dear sir, I do mind them. My pride is hurt, and my comfort isimpaired--destroyed, I might say. I will state my case--I will put it toyou in such a way that you can comprehend it, if you will let me, " saidthe poor skeleton, tilting the hood of his shroud back, as if he wereclearing for action, and thus unconsciously giving himself a jaunty andfestive air very much at variance with the grave character of hisposition in life--so to speak--and in prominent contrast with hisdistressful mood. 

"Proceed, " said I. 

"I reside in the shameful old graveyard a block or two above you here, in this street--there, now, I just expected that cartilage would let go!--third rib from the bottom, friend, hitch the end of it to my spine witha string, if you have got such a thing about you, though a bit of silverwire is a deal pleasanter, and more durable and becoming, if one keeps itpolished--to think of shredding out and going to pieces in this way, juston account of the indifference and neglect of one's posterity!"--and thepoor ghost grated his teeth in a way that gave me a wrench and a shiver--for the effect is mightily increased by the absence of muffling fleshand cuticle. "I reside in that old graveyard, and have for these thirtyyears; and I tell you things are changed since I first laid this oldtired frame there, and turned over, and stretched out for a long sleep, with a delicious sense upon me of being done with bother, and grief, and anxiety, and doubt, and fear, forever and ever, and listening withcomfortable and increasing satisfaction to the sexton's work, from thestartling clatter of his first spadeful on my coffin till it dulled awayto the faint patting that shaped the roof of my new home-delicious! My!I wish you could try it to-night!" and out of my reverie deceased fetchedme a rattling slap with a bony hand. 

"Yes, sir, thirty years ago I laid me down there, and was happy. For itwas out in the country then--out in the breezy, flowery, grand old woods, and the lazy winds gossiped with the leaves, and the squirrels caperedover us and around us, and the creeping things visited us, and the birdsfilled the tranquil solitude with music. Ah, it was worth ten years of aman's life to be dead then! Everything was pleasant. I was in a goodneighborhood, for all the dead people that lived near me belonged to thebest families in the city. Our posterity appeared to think the world ofus. They kept our graves in the very best condition; the fences werealways in faultless repair, head-boards were kept painted or whitewashed, and were replaced with new ones as soon as they began to look rusty ordecayed; monuments were kept upright, railings intact and bright, therose-bushes and shrubbery trimmed, trained, and free from blemish, thewalks clean and smooth and graveled. But that day is gone by. Ourdescendants have forgotten us. My grandson lives in a stately housebuilt with money made by these old hands of mine, and I sleep in aneglected grave with invading vermin that gnaw my shroud to build themnests withal! I and friends that lie with me founded and secured theprosperity of this fine city, and the stately bantling of our lovesleaves us to rot in a dilapidated cemetery which neighbors curse andstrangers scoff at. See the difference between the old time and this--for instance: Our graves are all caved in now; our head-boards haverotted away and tumbled down; our railings reel this way and that, withone foot in the air, after a fashion of unseemly levity; our monumentslean wearily, and our gravestones bow their heads discouraged; there beno adornments any more--no roses, nor shrubs, nor graveled walks, noranything that is a comfort to the eye; and even the paintless old boardfence that did make a show of holding us sacred from companionship withbeasts and the defilement of heedless feet, has tottered till itoverhangs the street, and only advertises the presence of our dismalresting-place and invites yet more derision to it. And now we cannothide our poverty and tatters in the friendly woods, for the city hasstretched its withering arms abroad and taken us in, and all that remainsof the cheer of our old home is the cluster of lugubrious forest treesthat stand, bored and weary of a city life, with their feet in ourcoffins, looking into the hazy distance and wishing they were there. I tell you it is disgraceful!

"You begin to comprehend--you begin to see how it is. While ourdescendants are living sumptuously on our money, right around us in thecity, we have to fight hard to keep skull and bones together. Bless you, there isn't a grave in our cemetery that doesn't leak not one. Everytime it rains in the night we have to climb out and roost in the treesand sometimes we are wakened suddenly by the chilly water trickling downthe back of our necks. Then I tell you there is a general heaving up ofold graves and kicking over of old monuments, and scampering of oldskeletons for the trees! Bless me, if you had gone along there some suchnights after twelve you might have seen as many as fifteen of us roostingon one limb, with our joints rattling drearily and the wind wheezingthrough our ribs! Many a time we have perched there for three or fourdreary hours, and then come down, stiff and chilled through and drowsy, and borrowed each other's skulls to bail out our graves with--if you willglance up in my mouth now as I tilt my head back, you can see that myhead-piece is half full of old dry sediment how top-heavy and stupid itmakes me sometimes! Yes, sir, many a time if you had happened to comealong just before the dawn you'd have caught us bailing out the gravesand hanging our shrouds on the fence to dry. Why, I had an elegantshroud stolen from there one morning--think a party by the name of Smithtook it, that resides in a plebeian graveyard over yonder--I think sobecause the first time I ever saw him he hadn't anything on but a checkshirt, and the last time I saw him, which was at a social gathering inthe new cemetery, he was the best-dressed corpse in the company--and itis a significant fact that he left when he saw me; and presently an oldwoman from here missed her coffin--she generally took it with her whenshe went anywhere, because she was liable to take cold and bring on thespasmodic rheumatism that originally killed her if she exposed herself tothe night air much. She was named Hotchkiss--Anna Matilda Hotchkiss--youmight know her? She has two upper front teeth, is tall, but a good dealinclined to stoop, one rib on the left side gone, has one shred of rustyhair hanging from the left side of her head, and one little tuft justabove and a little forward of her right ear, has her underjaw wired onone side where it had worked loose, small bone of left forearm gone--lostin a fight has a kind of swagger in her gait and a 'gallus' way of goingwith: her arms akimbo and her nostrils in the air has been pretty freeand easy, and is all damaged and battered up till she looks like aqueensware crate in ruins--maybe you have met her?"

"God forbid!" I involuntarily ejaculated, for somehow I was not lookingfor that form of question, and it caught me a little off my guard. But Ihastened to make amends for my rudeness, and say, "I simply meant I hadnot had the honor--for I would not deliberately speak discourteously of afriend of yours. You were saying that you were robbed--and it was ashame, too--but it appears by what is left of the shroud you have on thatit was a costly one in its day. How did--"

A most ghastly expression began to develop among the decayed features andshriveled integuments of my guest's face, and I was beginning to growuneasy and distressed, when he told me he was only working up a deep, sly smile, with a wink in it, to suggest that about the time he acquiredhis present garment a ghost in a neighboring cemetery missed one. Thisreassured me, but I begged him to confine himself to speech thenceforth, because his facial expression was uncertain. Even with the mostelaborate care it was liable to miss fire. Smiling should especially beavoided. What he might honestly consider a shining success was likely tostrike me in a very different light. I said I liked to see a skeletoncheerful, even decorously playful, but I did not think smiling was askeleton's best hold. 

"Yes, friend, " said the poor skeleton, "the facts are just as I havegiven them to you. Two of these old graveyards--the one that I residedin and one further along have been deliberately neglected by ourdescendants of to-day until there is no occupying them any longer. Asidefrom the osteological discomfort of it--and that is no light matter thisrainy weather--the present state of things is ruinous to property. Wehave got to move or be content to see our effects wasted away and utterlydestroyed. 

"Now, you will hardly believe it, but it is true, nevertheless, that thereisn't a single coffin in good repair among all my acquaintance--now thatis an absolute fact. I do not refer to low people who come in a pine boxmounted on an express-wagon, but I am talking about your high-toned, silver-mounted burial-case, your monumental sort, that travel under blackplumes at the head of a procession and have choice of cemetery lots--I mean folks like the Jarvises, and the Bledsoes and Burlings, and such. They are all about ruined. The most substantial people in our set, theywere. And now look at them--utterly used up and poverty-stricken. Oneof the Bledsoes actually traded his monument to a late barkeeper for somefresh shavings to put under his head. I tell you it speaks volumes, forthere is nothing a corpse takes so much pride in as his monument. Heloves to read the inscription. He comes after a while to believe what itsays himself, and then you may see him sitting on the fence night afternight enjoying it. Epitaphs are cheap, and they do a poor chap a worldof good after he is dead, especially if he had hard luck while he wasalive. I wish they were used more. Now I don't complain, butconfidentially I do think it was a little shabby in my descendants togive me nothing but this old slab of a gravestone--and all the more thatthere isn't a compliment on it. It used to have:

 'GONE TO HIS JUST REWARD'

on it, and I was proud when I first saw it, but by and by I noticed thatwhenever an old friend of mine came along he would hook his chin on therailing and pull a long face and read along down till he came to that, and then he would chuckle to himself and walk off, looking satisfied andcomfortable. So I scratched it off to get rid of those fools. But adead man always takes a deal of pride in his monument. Yonder goes halfa dozen of the Jarvises now, with the family monument along. AndSmithers and some hired specters went by with his awhile ago. Hello, Higgins, good-by, old friend! That's Meredith Higgins--died in '44--belongs to our set in the cemetery--fine old family--great-grand motherwas an Injun--I am on the most familiar terms with him he didn't hear mewas the reason he didn't answer me. And I am sorry, too, because I wouldhave liked to introduce you. You would admire him. He is the mostdisjointed, sway-backed, and generally distorted old skeleton you eversaw, but he is full of fun. When he laughs it sounds like rasping twostones together, and he always starts it off with a cheery screech likeraking a nail across a window-pane. Hey, Jones! That is old ColumbusJones--shroud cost four hundred dollars entire trousseau, includingmonument, twenty-seven hundred. This was in the spring of '26. It wasenormous style for those days. Dead people came all the way from theAlleghanies to see his things--the party that occupied the grave next tomine remembers it well. Now do you see that individual going along witha piece of a head-board under his arm, one leg-bone below his knee gone, and not a thing in the world on? That is Barstow Dalhousie, and next toColumbus Jones he was the most sumptuously outfitted person that everentered our cemetery. We are all leaving. We cannot tolerate thetreatment we are receiving at the hands of our descendants. They opennew cemeteries, but they leave us to our ignominy. They mend thestreets, but they never mend anything that is about us or belongs to us. Look at that coffin of mine--yet I tell you in its day it was a piece offurniture that would have attracted attention in any drawing-room in thiscity. You may have it if you want it--I can't afford to repair it. Put a new bottom in her, and part of a new top, and a bit of fresh liningalong the left side, and you'll find her about as comfortable as anyreceptacle of her species you ever tried. No thanks no, don't mention ityou have been civil to me, and I would give you all the property I havegot before I would seem ungrateful. Now this winding-sheet is a kind ofa sweet thing in its way, if you would like to--No? Well, just as yousay, but I wished to be fair and liberal there's nothing mean about me. Good-by, friend, I must be going. I may have a good way to go to-night--don't know. I only know one thing for certain, and that is that I amon the emigrant trail now, and I'll never sleep in that crazy oldcemetery again. I will travel till I fiend respectable quarters, if Ihave to hoof it to New Jersey. All the boys are going. It was decidedin public conclave, last night, to emigrate, and by the time the sunrises there won't be a bone left in our old habitations. Such cemeteriesmay suit my surviving friends, but they do not suit the remains that havethe honor to make these remarks. My opinion is the general opinion. If you doubt it, go and see how the departing ghosts upset things beforethey started. They were almost riotous in their demonstrations ofdistaste. Hello, here are some of the Bledsoes, and if you will give mea lift with this tombstone I guess I will join company and jog along withthem--mighty respectable old family, the Bledsoes, and used to alwayscome out in six-horse hearses and all that sort of thing fifty years agowhen I walked these streets in daylight. Good-by, friend. "

And with his gravestone on his shoulder he joined the grisly procession, dragging his damaged coffin after him, for notwithstanding he pressed itupon me so earnestly, I utterly refused his hospitality. I suppose thatfor as much as two hours these sad outcasts went clacking by, laden withtheir dismal effects, and all that time I sat pitying them. One or twoof the youngest and least dilapidated among them inquired about midnighttrains on the railways, but the rest seemed unacquainted with that modeof travel, and merely asked about common public roads to various townsand cities, some of which are not on the map now, and vanished from itand from the earth as much as thirty years ago, and some few of themnever had existed anywhere but on maps, and private ones in real-estateagencies at that. And they asked about the condition of the cemeteriesin these towns and cities, and about the reputation the citizens bore asto reverence for the dead. 

This whole matter interested me deeply, and likewise compelled mysympathy for these homeless ones. And it all seeming real, and I notknowing it was a dream, I mentioned to one shrouded wanderer an idea thathad entered my head to publish an account of this curious and verysorrowful exodus, but said also that I could not describe it truthfully, and just as it occurred, without seeming to trifle with a grave subjectand exhibit an irreverence for the dead that would shock and distresstheir surviving friends. But this bland and stately remnant of a formercitizen leaned him far over my gate and whispered in my ear, and said:

"Do not let that disturb you. The community that can stand suchgraveyards as those we are emigrating from can stand anything a body cansay about the neglected and forsaken dead that lie in them. "

At that very moment a cock crowed, and the weird procession vanished andleft not a shred or a bone behind. I awoke, and found myself lying withmy head out of the bed and "sagging" downward considerably--a positionfavorable to dreaming dreams with morals in them, maybe, but not poetry. 

NOTE. --The reader is assured that if the cemeteries in his town are keptin good order, this Dream is not leveled at his town at all, but isleveled particularly and venomously at the next town. 

A TRUE STORY

REPEATED WORD FOR WORD AS I HEARD IT--[Written about 1876]

It was summer-time, and twilight. We were sitting on the porch of thefarmhouse, on the summit of the hill, and "Aunt Rachel" was sittingrespectfully below our level, on the steps-for she was our Servant, andcolored. She was of mighty frame and stature; she was sixty years old, but her eye was undimmed and her strength unabated. She was a cheerful, hearty soul, and it was no more trouble for her to laugh than it is for abird to sing. She was under fire now, as usual when the day was done. That is to say, she was being chaffed without mercy, and was enjoying it. She would let off peal after of laughter, and then sit with her face inher hands and shake with throes of enjoyment which she could no longerget breath enough to express. It such a moment as this a thoughtoccurred to me, and I said:

"Aunt Rachel, how is it that you've lived sixty years and never had anytrouble?"

She stopped quaking. She paused, and there was moment of silence. Sheturned her face over her shoulder toward me, and said, without even asmile her voice:

"Misto C-----, is you in 'arnest?"

It surprised me a good deal; and it sobered my manner and my speech, too. I said:

"Why, I thought--that is, I meant--why, you can't have had any trouble. I've never heard you sigh, and never seen your eye when there wasn't alaugh in it. "

She faced fairly around now, and was full earnestness. 

"Has I had any trouble? Misto C-----, I's gwyne to tell you, den I leaveit to you. I was bawn down 'mongst de slaves; I knows all 'bout slavery, 'case I ben one of 'em my own se'f. Well sah, my ole man--dat's myhusban'--he was lov an' kind to me, jist as kind as you is to yo' ownwife. An' we had chil'en--seven chil'en--an' loved dem chil'en jist desame as you loves yo' chil'en. Dey was black, but de Lord can't makechil'en so black but what dey mother loves 'em an' wouldn't give 'em up, no, not for anything dat's in dis whole world. 

"Well, sah, I was raised in ole Fo'ginny, but mother she was raised inMaryland; an' my souls she was turrible when she'd git started! My lan!but she'd make de fur fly! When she'd git into dem tantrums, she alwayshad one word dat she said. She'd straighten herse'f up an' put her fistsin her hips an' say, 'I want you to understan' dat I wa'n't bawn in themash to be fool' by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, I is!''Ca'se you see, dat's what folks dat's bawn in Maryland calls deyselves, an' dey's proud of it. Well, dat was her word. I don't ever forgit it, beca'se she said it so much, an' beca'se she said it one day when mylittle Henry tore his wris' awful, and most busted 'is head, right up atde top of his forehead, an' de niggers didn't fly aroun' fas' enough to'tend to him. An' when dey talk' back at her, she up an' she says, 'Look-a-heah!' she says, 'I want you niggers to understan' dat I wa'n'tbawn in de mash be fool' by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's chickens, I is!' an' den she clar' dat kitchen an' bandage' up de chile herse'f. So I says dat word, too, when I's riled. 

"Well, bymeby my ole mistis say she's broke, an she got to sell all deniggers on de place. An' when I heah dat dey gwyne to sell us all off atoction in Richmon', oh, de good gracious! I know what dat mean!"

Aunt Rachel had gradually risen, while she warmed to her subject, and nowshe towered above us, black against the stars. 

"Dey put chains on us an' put us on a stan' as high as dis po'ch--twentyfoot high--an' all de people stood aroun', crowds 'an' crowds. An' dey'dcome up dah an' look at us all roun', an' squeeze our arm, an' make usgit up an' walk, an' den say, Dis one too ole, ' or 'Dis one lame, ' or'Dis one don't 'mount to much. ' An' dey sole my ole man, an' took himaway, an' dey begin to sell my chil'en an' take dem away, an' I begin tocry; an' de man say, 'Shet up yo' damn blubberin', ' an' hit me on de moufwid his han'. An' when de las' one was gone but my little Henry, I grab'him clost up to my breas' so, an' I ris up an' says, 'You sha'nt take himaway, ' I says; 'I'll kill de man dat tetch him!' I says. But my littleHenry whisper an' say 'I gwyne to run away, an' den I work an' buy yo'freedom' Oh, bless de chile, he always so good! But dey got him--dey gothim, de men did; but I took and tear de clo'es mos' off of 'em an' beat'em over de head wid my chain; an' dey give it to me too, but I didn'tmine dat. 

"Well, dah was my ole man gone, an' all my chil'en, all my seven chil'en--an' six of 'em I hain't set eyes on ag'in to dis day, an' dat'stwenty-two year ago las' Easter. De man dat bought me b'long' inNewbern, an' he took me dah. Well, bymeby de years roll on an' de wawcome. My marster he was a Confedrit colonel, an' I was his family'scook. So when de Unions took dat town dey all run away an' lef' me allby myse'f wid de other niggers in dat mons'us big house. So de big Unionofficers move in dah, an' dey ask me would I cook for dem. 'Lord blessyou, ' says I, 'dat what I's for. '

"Dey wa'n't no small-fry officers, mine you, de was de biggest dey is;an' de way dey made dem sojers mosey roun'! De Gen'l he tole me to bossdat kitchen; an' he say, 'If anybody come meddlin' wid you, you jist make'em walk chalk; don't you be afeared, ' he say; 'you's 'mong frens now. '

"Well, I thinks to myse'f, if my little Henry ever got a chance to runaway, he'd make to de Norf, o' course. So one day I comes in dah whar debig officers was, in de parlor, an' I drops a kurtchy, so, an' I up an'tole 'em 'bout my Henry, dey a-listenin' to my troubles jist de same asif I was white folks; an' I says, 'What I come for is beca'se if he gotaway and got up Norf whar you gemmen comes from, you might 'a' seen him, maybe, an' could tell me so as I could fine him ag'in; he was verylittle, an' he had a sk-yar on his lef' wris' an' at de top of hisforehead. ' Den dey look mournful, an' de Gen'l says, 'How long sence youlos' him?' an' I say, 'Thirteen year. Den de Gen'l say, 'He wouldn't belittle no mo' now--he's a man!'

"I never thought o' dat befo'! He was only dat little feller to me yit. I never thought 'bout him growin' up an' bein' big. But I see it den. None o' de gemmen had run acrost him, so dey couldn't do nothin' for me. But all dat time, do' I didn't know it, my Henry was run off to de Norf, years an' years, an' he was a barber, too, an' worked for hisse'f. An'bymeby, when de waw come he ups an' he says: 'I's done barberin', ' hesays, 'I's gwyne to fine my ole mammy, less'n she's dead. ' So he soleout an' went to whar dey was recruitin', an' hired hisse'f out to decolonel for his servant an' den he went all froo de battles everywhah, huntin' for his ole mammy; yes, indeedy, he'd hire to fust one officeran' den another, tell he'd ransacked de whole Souf; but you see I didn'tknow nuffin 'bout dis. How was I gwyne to know it?

"Well, one night we had a big sojer ball; de sojers dah at Newbern wasalways havin' balls an' carryin' on. Dey had 'em in my kitchen, heaps o'times, 'ca'se it was so big. Mine you, I was down on sich doin's;beca'se my place was wid de officers, an' it rasp me to have dem commonsojers cavortin' roun' in my kitchen like dat. But I alway' stood aroun'an kep' things straight, I did; an' sometimes dey'd git my dander up, an'den I'd make 'em clar dat kitchen mine I tell you!

"Well, one night--it was a Friday night--dey comes a whole platoon f'm anigger ridgment da was on guard at de house--de house was head quarters, you know-an' den I was jist a-bilin' mad? I was jist a-boomin'! Iswelled aroun', an swelled aroun'; I jist was a-itchin' for 'em to dosomefin for to start me. An' dey was a-waltzin' an a dancin'! my but deywas havin' a time! an I jist a-swellin' an' a-swellin' up! Pooty soon, 'long comes sich a spruce young nigger a-sailin' down de room wid ayaller wench roun' de wais'; an' roun an' roun' an roun' dey went, enoughto make a body drunk to look at 'em; an' when dey got abreas' o' me, deywent to kin' o' balancin' aroun' fust on one leg an' den on t'other, an'smilin' at my big red turban, an' makin' fun, an' I ups an' says 'Gitalong wid you!--rubbage!' De young man's face kin' o' changed, all of asudden, for 'bout a second but den he went to smilin' ag'in, same as hewas befo'. Well, 'bout dis time, in comes some niggers dat played musicand b'long' to de ban', an' dey never could git along widout puttin' onairs. An de very fust air dey put on dat night, I lit into em! Deylaughed, an' dat made me wuss. De res' o' de niggers got to laughin', an' den my soul alive but I was hot! My eye was jist a-blazin'! I jiststraightened myself up so--jist as I is now, plum to de ceilin', mos'--an' I digs my fists into my hips, an' I says, 'Look-a-heah!' I says, 'Iwant you niggers to understan' dat I wa'n't bawn in de mash to be fool'by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue hen's Chickens, I is!'--an' den I seedat young man stan' a-starin' an' stiff, lookin' kin' o' up at de ceilin'like he fo'got somefin, an' couldn't 'member it no mo'. Well, I jistmarch' on dem niggers--so, lookin' like a gen'l--an' dey jist cave' awaybefo' me an' out at de do'. An' as dis young man a-goin' out, I heah himsay to another nigger, 'Jim, ' he says, 'you go 'long an' tell de cap'n Ibe on han' 'bout eight o'clock in de mawnin'; dey's somefin on my mine, 'he says; 'I don't sleep no mo' dis night. You go 'long, ' he says, 'an'leave me by my own se'f. '

"Dis was 'bout one o'clock in de mawnin'. Well, 'bout seven, I was upan' on han', gittin' de officers' breakfast. I was a-stoopin' down by destove jist so, same as if yo' foot was de stove--an' I'd opened de stovedo' wid my right han'--so, pushin' it back, jist as I pushes yo' foot--an' I'd jist got de pan o' hot biscuits in my han' an' was 'bout toraise up, when I see a black face come aroun' under mine, an' de eyesa-lookin' up into mine, jist as I's a-lookin' up clost under yo' facenow; an' I jist stopped right dah, an' never budged! jist gazed an' gazedso; an' de pan begin to tremble, an' all of a sudden I knowed! De pandrop' on de flo' an' I grab his lef' han' an' shove back his sleeve--jistso, as I's doin' to you--an' den I goes for his forehead an' push de hairback so, an' 'Boy!' I says, 'if you an't my Henry, what is you doin' widdis welt on yo' wris' an' dat sk-yar on yo' forehead? De Lord God obheaven be praise', I got my own ag'in!'

 "Oh no' Misto C-----, I hain't had no trouble. An' no joy!"

THE SIAMESE TWINS--[Written about 1868. ]

I do not wish to write of the personal habits of these strange creaturessolely, but also of certain curious details of various kinds concerningthem, which, belonging only to their private life, have never crept intoprint. Knowing the Twins intimately, I feel that I am peculiarly wellqualified for the task I have taken upon myself. 

The Siamese Twins are naturally tender and affectionate indisposition, and have clung to each other with singular fidelity throughout a long andeventful life. Even as children they were inseparable companions; and itwas noticed that they always seemed to prefer each other's society tothat of any other persons. They nearly always played together; and, soaccustomed was their mother to this peculiarity, that, whenever both ofthem chanced to be lost, she usually only hunted for one of them--satisfied that when she found that one she would find his brothersomewhere in the immediate neighborhood. And yet these creatures wereignorant and unlettered-barbarians themselves and the offspring ofbarbarians, who knew not the light of philosophy and science. What awithering rebuke is this to our boasted civilization, with itsquarrelings, its wranglings, and its separations of brothers!

As men, the Twins have not always lived in perfect accord; but stillthere has always been a bond between them which made them unwilling to goaway from each other and dwell apart. They have even occupied the samehouse, as a general thing, and it is believed that they have never failedto even sleep together on any night since they were born. How surely dothe habits of a lifetime become second nature to us! The Twins always goto bed at the same time; but Chang usually gets up about an hour beforehis brother. By an understanding between themselves, Chang does all theindoor work and Eng runs all the errands. This is because Eng likes togo out; Chang's habits are sedentary. However, Chang always goes along. Eng is a Baptist, but Chang is a Roman Catholic; still, to please hisbrother, Chang consented to be baptized at the same time that Eng was, oncondition that it should not "count. " During the war they were strongpartisans, and both fought gallantly all through the great struggle--Engon the Union side and Chang on the Confederate. They took each otherprisoners at Seven Oaks, but the proofs of capture were so evenlybalanced in favor of each, that a general army court had to be assembledto determine which one was properly the captor and which the captive. The jury was unable to agree for a long time; but the vexed question wasfinally decided by agreeing to consider them both prisoners, and thenexchanging them. At one time Chang was convicted of disobedience oforders, and sentenced to ten days in the guard-house, but Eng, in spiteof all arguments, felt obliged to share his imprisonment, notwithstandinghe himself was entirely innocent; and so, to save the blameless brotherfrom suffering, they had to discharge both from custody--the just rewardof faithfulness. 

Upon one occasion the brothers fell out about something, and Changknocked Eng down, and then tripped and fell on him, whereupon bothclinched and began to beat and gouge each other without mercy. Thebystanders interfered, and tried to separate them, but they could not doit, and so allowed them to fight it out. In the end both were disabled, and were carried to the hospital on one and the same shutter. 

Their ancient habit of going always together had its drawbacks when theyreached man's estate, and entered upon the luxury of courting. Both fellin love with the same girl. Each tried to steal clandestine interviewswith her, but at the critical moment the other would always turn up. By and by Eng saw, with distraction, that Chang had won the girl'saffections; and, from that day forth, he had to bear with the agony ofbeing a witness to all their dainty billing and cooing. But with amagnanimity that did him infinite credit, he succumbed to his fate, andgave countenance and encouragement to a state of things that bade fair tosunder his generous heart-strings. He sat from seven every evening untiltwo in the morning, listening to the fond foolishness of the two lovers, and to the concussion of hundreds of squandered kisses--for the privilegeof sharing only one of which he would have given his right hand. But hesat patiently, and waited, and gaped, and yawned, and stretched, andlonged for two o'clock to come. And he took long walks with the loverson moonlight evenings--sometimes traversing ten miles, notwithstanding hewas usually suffering from rheumatism. He is an inveterate smoker; buthe could not smoke on these occasions, because the young lady waspainfully sensitive to the smell of tobacco. Eng cordially wanted themmarried, and done with it; but although Chang often asked the momentousquestion, the young lady could not gather sufficient courage to answer itwhile Eng was by. However, on one occasion, after having walked somesixteen miles, and sat up till nearly daylight, Eng dropped asleep, fromsheer exhaustion, and then the question was asked and answered. Thelovers were married. All acquainted with the circumstance applauded thenoble brother-in-law. His unwavering faithfulness was the theme of everytongue. He had stayed by them all through their long and arduouscourtship; and when at last they were married, he lifted his hands abovetheir heads, and said with impressive unction, "Bless ye, my children, Iwill never desert ye!" and he kept his word. Fidelity like this is alltoo rare in this cold world. 

By and by Eng fell in love with his sister-in-law's sister, and marriedher, and since that day they have all lived together, night and day, inan exceeding sociability which is touching and beautiful to behold, andis a scathing rebuke to our boasted civilization. 

The sympathy existing between these two brothers is so close and sorefined that the feelings, the impulses, the emotions of the one areinstantly experienced by the other. When one is sick, the other is sick;when one feels pain, the other feels it; when one is angered, the other'stemper takes fire. We have already seen with what happy facility theyboth fell in love with the same girl. Now Chang is bitterly opposed toall forms of intemperance, on principle; but Eng is the reverse--for, while these men's feelings and emotions are so closely wedded, theirreasoning faculties are unfettered; their thoughts are free. Changbelongs to the Good Templars, and is a hard--working, enthusiasticsupporter of all temperance reforms. But, to his bitter distress, everynow and then Eng gets drunk, and, of course, that makes Chang drunk too. This unfortunate thing has been a great sorrow to Chang, for it almostdestroys his usefulness in his favorite field of effort. As sure as heis to head a great temperance procession Eng ranges up alongside of him, prompt to the minute, and drunk as a lord; but yet no more dismally andhopelessly drunk than his brother, who has not tasted a drop. And so thetwo begin to hoot and yell, and throw mud and bricks at the GoodTemplars; and, of course, they break up the procession. It would bemanifestly wrong to punish Chang for what Eng does, and, therefore, theGood Templars accept the untoward situation, and suffer in silence andsorrow. They have officially and deliberately examined into the matter, and find Chang blameless. They have taken the two brothers and filledChang full of warm water and sugar and Eng full of whisky, and intwenty-five minutes it was not possible to tell which was the drunkest. Both were as drunk as loons--and on hot whisky punches, by the smell oftheir breath. Yet all the while Chang's moral principles were unsullied, his conscience clear; and so all just men were forced to confess that hewas not morally, but only physically, drunk. By every right and by everymoral evidence the man was strictly sober; and, therefore, it caused hisfriends all the more anguish to see him shake hands with the pump and tryto wind his watch with his night-key. 

There is a moral in these solemn warnings--or, at least, a warning inthese solemn morals; one or the other. No matter, it is somehow. Let usheed it; let us profit by it. 

I could say more of an instructive nature about these interesting beings, but let what I have written suffice. 

Having forgotten to mention it sooner, I will remark in conclusion thatthe ages of the Siamese Twins are respectively fifty-one and fifty-threeyears. 

SPEECH AT THE SCOTTISH BANQUET IN LONDON--[Written about 1872. ]

On the anniversary festival of the Scottish Corporation of London onMonday evening, in response to the toast of "The Ladies, " MARK TWAINreplied. The following is his speech as reported in the London Observer:

I am proud, indeed, of the distinction of being chosen to respond to thisespecial toast, to 'The Ladies, ' or to women if you please, for that isthe preferable term, perhaps; it is certainly the older, and thereforethe more entitled to reverence [Laughter. ] I have noticed that theBible, with that plain, blunt honesty which is such a conspicuouscharacteristic of the Scriptures, is always particular to never refer toeven the illustrious mother of all mankind herself as a 'lady, ' butspeaks of her as a woman, [Laughter. ] It is odd, but you will find it isso. I am peculiarly proud of this honor, because I think that the toastto women is one which, by right and by every rule of gallantry, shouldtake precedence of all others--of the army, of the navy, of even royaltyitself perhaps, though the latter is not necessary in this day and inthis land, for the reason that, tacitly, you do drink a broad generalhealth to all good women when you drink the health of the Queen ofEngland and the Princess of Wales. [Loud cheers. ] I have in mind a poemjust now which is familiar to you all, familiar to everybody. And whatan inspiration that was (and how instantly the present toast recalls theverses to all our minds) when the most noble, the most gracious, thepurest, and sweetest of all poets says:

 "Woman! O woman!--er-- Wom--"

[Laughter. ] However, you remember the lines; and you remember howfeelingly, how daintily, how almost imperceptibly the verses raise upbefore you, feature by feature, the ideal of a true and perfect woman;and how, as you contemplate the finished marvel, your homage grows intoworship of the intellect that could create so fair a thing out of merebreath, mere words. And you call to mind now, as I speak, how the poet, with stern fidelity to the history of all humanity, delivers thisbeautiful child of his heart and his brain over to the trials and sorrowsthat must come to all, sooner or later, that abide in the earth, and howthe pathetic story culminates in that apostrophe--so wild, so regretful, so full of mournful retrospection. The lines run thus:

 "Alas!--alas!--a--alas! ----Alas!--------alas!"

--and so on. [Laughter. ] I do not remember the rest; but, takentogether, it seems to me that poem is the noblest tribute to woman thathuman genius has ever brought forth--[laughter]--and I feel that if Iwere to talk hours I could not do my great theme completer or moregraceful justice than I have now done in simply quoting that poet'smatchless words. [Renewed laughter. ] The phases of the womanly natureare infinite in their variety. Take any type of woman, and you shallfind in it something to respect, something to admire, something to love. And you shall find the whole joining you heart and hand. Who was morepatriotic than Joan of Arc? Who was braver? Who has given us a granderinstance of self-sacrificing devotion? Ah! you remember, you rememberwell, what a throb of pain, what a great tidal wave of grief swept overus all when Joan of Arc fell at Waterloo. [Much laughter. ] Who does notsorrow for the loss of Sappho, the sweet singer of Israel? [Laughter. ]Who among us does not miss the gentle ministrations, the softeninginfluences, the humble piety of Lucretia Borgia? [Laughter. ] Who canjoin in the heartless libel that says woman is extravagant in dress whenhe can look back and call to mind our simple and lowly mother Eve arrayedin her modification of the Highland costume. [Roars of laughter. ]Sir, women have been soldiers, women have been painters, women have beenpoets. As long as language lives the name of Cleopatra will live. 

And, not because she conquered George III. [laughter]--but because shewrote those divine lines:

 "Let dogs delight to bark and bite, For God hath made them so. "

[More laughter. ] The story of the world is adorned with the names ofillustrious ones of our own sex--some of them sons of St. Andrew, too--Scott, Bruce, Burns, the warrior Wallace, Ben Nevis--[laughter]--thegifted Ben Lomond, and the great new Scotchman, Ben Disraeli. [Greatlaughter. ] Out of the great plains of history tower whole mountainranges of sublime women--the Queen of Sheba, Josephine, Semiramis, SaireyGamp; the list is endless--[laughter]--but I will not call the mightyroll, the names rise up in your own memories at the mere suggestion, luminous with the glory of deeds that cannot die, hallowed by the lovingworship of the good and the true of all epochs and all climes. [Cheers. ]Suffice it for our pride and our honor that we in our day have added toit such names as those of Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale. [Cheers. ] Woman is all that she should be-gentle, patient, longsuffering, trustful, unselfish, full of generous impulses. It is herblessed mission to comfort the sorrowing, plead for the erring, encouragethe faint of purpose, succor the distressed, uplift the fallen, befriendthe friendless in a word, afford the healing of her sympathies and a homein her heart for all the bruised and persecuted children of misfortunethat knock at its hospitable door. [Cheers. ] And when I say, God blessher, there is none among us who has known the ennobling affection of awife, or the steadfast devotion of a mother, but in his heart will say, Amen! [Loud and prolonged cheering. ]

--[Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, at that time Prime Minister of England, hadjust been elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University, and had made aspeech which gave rise to a world of discussion. ]

A GHOST STORY

I took a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose upperstories had been wholly unoccupied for years until I came. The place hadlong been given up to dust and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. I seemed groping among the tombs and invading the privacy of the dead, that first night I climbed up to my quarters. For the first time in mylife a superstitious dread came over me; and as I turned a dark angle ofthe stairway and an invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof in my face andclung there, I shuddered as one who had encountered a phantom. 

I was glad enough when I reached my room and locked out the mold and thedarkness. A cheery fire was burning in the grate, and I sat down beforeit with a comforting sense of relief. For two hours I sat there, thinking of bygone times; recalling old scenes, and summoninghalf-forgotten faces out of the mists of the past; listening, in fancy, to voices that long ago grew silent for all time, and to once familiarsongs that nobody sings now. And as my reverie softened down to a sadderand sadder pathos, the shrieking of the winds outside softened to a wail, the angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquilpatter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, until thehurrying footsteps of the last belated straggler died away in thedistance and left no sound behind. 

The fire had burned low. A sense of loneliness crept over me. I aroseand undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room, doing stealthily what Ihad to do, as if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers itwould be fatal to break. I covered up in bed, and lay listening to therain and wind and the faint creaking of distant shutters, till theylulled me to sleep. 

I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know. All at once I foundmyself awake, and filled with a shuddering expectancy. All was still. All but my own heart--I could hear it beat. Presently the bedclothesbegan to slip away slowly toward the foot of the bed, as if some one werepulling them! I could not stir; I could not speak. Still the blanketsslipped deliberately away, till my breast was uncovered. Then with agreat effort I seized them and drew them over my head. I waited, listened, waited. Once more that steady pull began, and once more I laytorpid a century of dragging seconds till my breast was naked again. Atlast I roused my energies and snatched the covers back to their place andheld them with a strong grip. I waited. By and by I felt a faint tug, and took a fresh grip. The tug strengthened to a steady strain--it grewstronger and stronger. My hold parted, and for the third time theblankets slid away. I groaned. An answering groan came from the foot ofthe bed! Beaded drops of sweat stood upon my forehead. I was more deadthan alive. Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room--the step ofan elephant, it seemed to me--it was not like anything human. But it wasmoving from me--there was relief in that. I heard it approach the door--pass out without moving bolt or lock--and wander away among the dismalcorridors, straining the floors and joists till they creaked again as itpassed--and then silence reigned once more. 

When my excitement had calmed, I said to myself, "This is a dream--simplya hideous dream. " And so I lay thinking it over until I convinced myselfthat it was a dream, and then a comforting laugh relaxed my lips and Iwas happy again. I got up and struck a light; and when I found that thelocks and bolts were just as I had left them, another soothing laughwelled in my heart and rippled from my lips. I took my pipe and lit it, and was just sitting down before the fire, when-down went the pipe out ofmy nerveless fingers, the blood forsook my cheeks, and my placidbreathing was cut short with a gasp! In the ashes on the hearth, side byside with my own bare footprint, was another, so vast that in comparisonmine was but an infant's! Then I had had a visitor, and the elephanttread was explained. 

I put out the light and returned to bed, palsied with fear. I lay a longtime, peering into the darkness, and listening. --Then I heard a gratingnoise overhead, like the dragging of a heavy body across the floor; thenthe throwing down of the body, and the shaking of my windows in responseto the concussion. In distant parts of the building I heard the muffledslamming of doors. I heard, at intervals, stealthy footsteps creeping inand out among the corridors, and up and down the stairs. Sometimes thesenoises approached my door, hesitated, and went away again. I heard theclanking of chains faintly, in remote passages, and listened while theclanking grew nearer--while it wearily climbed the stairways, markingeach move by the loose surplus of chain that fell with an accented rattleupon each succeeding step as the goblin that bore it advanced. I heardmuttered sentences; half-uttered screams that seemed smothered violently;and the swish of invisible garments, the rush of invisible wings. Then Ibecame conscious that my chamber was invaded--that I was not alone. I heard sighs and breathings about my bed, and mysterious whisperings. Three little spheres of soft phosphorescent light appeared on the ceilingdirectly over my head, clung and glowed there a moment, and then dropped--two of them upon my face and one upon the pillow. They, spattered, liquidly, and felt warm. Intuition told me they had--turned to gouts ofblood as they fell--I needed no light to satisfy myself of that. Then Isaw pallid faces, dimly luminous, and white uplifted hands, floatingbodiless in the air--floating a moment and then disappearing. The whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, anal a solemnstillness followed. I waited and listened. I felt that I must havelight or die. I was weak with fear. I slowly raised myself toward asitting posture, and my face came in contact with a clammy hand!All strength went from me apparently, and I fell back like a strickeninvalid. Then I heard the rustle of a garment it seemed to pass to thedoor and go out. 

When everything was still once more, I crept out of bed, sick and feeble, and lit the gas with a hand that trembled as if it were aged with ahundred years. The light brought some little cheer to my spirits. I satdown and fell into a dreamy contemplation of that great footprint in theashes. By and by its outlines began to waver and grow dim. I glanced upand the broad gas-flame was slowly wilting away. In the same moment Iheard that elephantine tread again. I noted its approach, nearer andnearer, along the musty halls, and dimmer and dimmer the light waned. The tread reached my very door and paused--the light had dwindled to asickly blue, and all things about me lay in a spectral twilight. Thedoor did not open, and yet I felt a faint gust of air fan my cheek, andpresently was conscious of a huge, cloudy presence before me. I watchedit with fascinated eyes. A pale glow stole over the Thing; gradually itscloudy folds took shape--an arm appeared, then legs, then a body, andlast a great sad face looked out of the vapor. Stripped of its filmyhousings, naked, muscular and comely, the majestic Cardiff Giant loomedabove me!

All my misery vanished--for a child might know that no harm could comewith that benignant countenance. My cheerful spirits returned at once, and in sympathy with them the gas flamed up brightly again. Never alonely outcast was so glad to welcome company as I was to greet thefriendly giant. I said:

"Why, is it nobody but you? Do you know, I have been scared to death forthe last two or three hours? I am most honestly glad to see you. I wishI had a chair--Here, here, don't try to sit down in that thing--"

But it was too late. He was in it before I could stop him and down hewent--I never saw a chair shivered so in my life. 

"Stop, stop, you'll ruin ev--"

Too late again. There was another crash, and another chair was resolvedinto its original elements. 

"Confound it, haven't you got any judgment at' all? Do you want to ruinall the furniture on the place? Here, here, you petrified fool--"

But it was no use. Before I could arrest him he had sat down on the bed, and it was a melancholy ruin. 

"Now what sort of a way is that to do? First you come lumbering aboutthe place bringing a legion of vagabond goblins along with you to worryme to death, and then when I overlook an indelicacy of costume whichwould not be tolerated anywhere by cultivated people except in arespectable theater, and not even there if the nudity were of your sex, you repay me by wrecking all the furniture you can find to sit down on. And why will you? You damage yourself as much as you do me. You havebroken off the end of your spinal column, and littered up the floor withchips of your hams till the place looks like a marble yard. You ought tobe ashamed of yourself--you are big enough to know better. "

"Well, I will not break any more furniture. But what am I to do? I havenot had a chance to sit down for a century. " And the tears came into hiseyes. 

"Poor devil, " I said, "I should not have been so harsh with you. And youare an orphan, too, no doubt. But sit down on the floor here--nothingelse can stand your weight--and besides, we cannot be sociable with youaway up there above me; I want you down where I can perch on this highcounting-house stool and gossip with you face to face. " So he sat downon the floor, and lit a pipe which I gave him, threw one of my redblankets over his shoulders, inverted my sitz-bath on his head, helmetfashion, and made himself picturesque and comfortable. Then he crossedhis ankles, while I renewed the fire, and exposed the flat, honeycombedbottoms of his prodigious feet to the grateful warmth. 

"What is the matter with the bottom of your feet and the back of yourlegs, that they are gouged up so?"

"Infernal chilblains--I caught them clear up to the back of my head, roosting out there under Newell's farm. But I love the place; I love itas one loves his old home. There is no peace for me like the peace Ifeel when I am there. "

We talked along for half an hour, and then I noticed that he lookedtired, and spoke of it. 

"Tired?" he said. "Well, I should think so. And now I will tell you allabout it, since you have treated me so well. I am the spirit of thePetrified Man that lies across the street there in the museum. I am theghost of the Cardiff Giant. I can have no rest, no peace, till they havegiven that poor body burial again. Now what was the most natural thingfor me to do, to make men satisfy this wish? Terrify them into it!haunt the place where the body lay! So I haunted the museum night afternight. I even got other spirits to help me. But it did no good, fornobody ever came to the museum at midnight. Then it occurred to me tocome over the way and haunt this place a little. I felt that if I evergot a hearing I must succeed, for I had the most efficient company thatperdition could furnish. Night after night we have shivered aroundthrough these mildewed halls, dragging chains, groaning, whispering, tramping up and down stairs, till, to tell you the truth, I am almostworn out. But when I saw a light in your room to-night I roused myenergies again and went at it with a deal of the old freshness. But I amtired out--entirely fagged out. Give me, I beseech you, give me somehope!" I lit off my perch in a burst of excitement, and exclaimed:

"This transcends everything! everything that ever did occur! Why youpoor blundering old fossil, you have had all your trouble for nothing--you have been haunting a plaster cast of yourself--the real CardiffGiant is in Albany!--[A fact. The original fraud was ingeniously andfraudfully duplicated, and exhibited in New York as the "only genuine"Cardiff Giant (to the unspeakable disgust of the owners of the realcolossus) at the very same time that the latter was drawing crowds at amuseum is Albany, ]--Confound it, don't you know your own remains?"

I never saw such an eloquent look of shame, of pitiable humiliation, overspread a countenance before. 

The Petrified Man rose slowly to his feet, and said:

"Honestly, is that true?"

"As true as I am sitting here. "

He took the pipe from his mouth and laid it on the mantel, then stoodirresolute a moment (unconsciously, from old habit, thrusting his handswhere his pantaloons pockets should have been, and meditatively droppinghis chin on his breast); and finally said:

"Well-I never felt so absurd before. The Petrified Man has soldeverybody else, and now the mean fraud has ended by selling its ownghost! My son, if there is any charity left in your heart for a poorfriendless phantom like me, don't let this get out. Think how you wouldfeel if you had made such an ass of yourself. "

I heard his stately tramp die away, step by step down the stairs and outinto the deserted street, and felt sorry that he was gone, poor fellow--and sorrier still that he had carried off my red blanket and mybath-tub. 

THE CAPITOLINE VENUS

CHAPTER I

[Scene-An Artist's Studio in Rome. ]

"Oh, George, I do love you!"

"Bless your dear heart, Mary, I know that--why is your father soobdurate?"

"George, he means well, but art is folly to him--he only understandsgroceries. He thinks you would starve me. "

"Confound his wisdom--it savors of inspiration. Why am I not amoney-making bowelless grocer, instead of a divinely gifted sculptorwith nothing to eat?"

"Do not despond, Georgy, dear--all his prejudices will fade away as soonas you shall have acquired fifty thousand dol--"

"Fifty thousand demons! Child, I am in arrears for my board!"

CHAPTER II

[Scene-A Dwelling in Rome. ]

"My dear sir, it is useless to talk. I haven't anything against you, butI can't let my daughter marry a hash of love, art, and starvation--Ibelieve you have nothing else to offer. "

"Sir, I am poor, I grant you. But is fame nothing? The Hon. BellamyFoodle of Arkansas says that my new statue of America, is a clever pieceof sculpture, and he is satisfied that my name will one day be famous. "

"Bosh! What does that Arkansas ass know about it? Fame's nothing--themarket price of your marble scarecrow is the thing to look at. It tookyou six months to chisel it, and you can't sell it for a hundred dollars. No, sir! Show me fifty thousand dollars and you can have my daughter--otherwise she marries young Simper. You have just six months to raisethe money in. Good morning, sir. "

"Alas! Woe is me!"

CHAPTER III

[ Scene-The Studio. ]

"Oh, John, friend of my boyhood, I am the unhappiest of men. "

"You're a simpleton!"

"I have nothing left to love but my poor statue of America--and see, evenshe has no sympathy for me in her cold marble countenance--so beautifuland so heartless!"

"You're a dummy!"

"Oh, John!"

Oh, fudge! Didn't you say you had six months to raise the money in?"

"Don't deride my agony, John. If I had six centuries what good would itdo? How could it help a poor wretch without name, capital, or friends?"

"Idiot! Coward! Baby! Six months to raise the money in--and five willdo!"

"Are you insane?"

"Six months--an abundance. Leave it to me. I'll raise it. "

"What do you mean, John? How on earth can you raise such a monstrous sumfor me?"

"Will you let that be my business, and not meddle? Will you leave thething in my hands? Will you swear to submit to whatever I do? Will youpledge me to find no fault with my actions?"

"I am dizzy--bewildered--but I swear. "

John took up a hammer and deliberately smashed the nose of America! Hemade another pass and two of her fingers fell to the floor--another, andpart of an ear came away--another, and a row of toes was mangled anddismembered--another, and the left leg, from the knee down, lay afragmentary ruin!

John put on his hat and departed. 

George gazed speechless upon the battered and grotesque nightmare beforehim for the space of thirty seconds, and then wilted to the floor andwent into convulsions. 

John returned presently with a carriage, got the broken-hearted artistand the broken-legged statue aboard, and drove off, whistling low andtranquilly. 

He left the artist at his lodgings, and drove off and disappeared downthe Via Quirinalis with the statue. 

CHAPTER IV

[Scene--The Studio. ]

"The six months will be up at two o'clock to-day! Oh, agony! My life isblighted. I would that I were dead. I had no supper yesterday. I havehad no breakfast to-day. I dare not enter an eating-house. And hungry?--don't mention it! My bootmaker duns me to death--my tailor duns me--my landlord haunts me. I am miserable. I haven't seen John since thatawful day. She smiles on me tenderly when we meet in the greatthoroughfares, but her old flint of a father makes her look in the otherdirection in short order. Now who is knocking at that door? Who is cometo persecute me? That malignant villain the bootmaker, I'll warrant. Come in!"

"Ah, happiness attend your highness--Heaven be propitious to your grace!I have brought my lord's new boots--ah, say nothing about the pay, thereis no hurry, none in the world. Shall be proud if my noble lord willcontinue to honor me with his custom--ah, adieu!"

"Brought the boots himself! Don't wait his pay! Takes his leave with abow and a scrape fit to honor majesty withal! Desires a continuance ofmy custom! Is the world coming to an end? Of all the--come in!"

"Pardon, signore, but I have brought your new suit of clothes for--"

"Come in!"

"A thousand pardons for this intrusion, your worship. But I haveprepared the beautiful suite of rooms below for you--this wretched den isbut ill suited to--"

"Come in!"

"I have called to say that your credit at our bank, some time sinceunfortunately interrupted, is entirely and most satisfactorily restored, and we shall be most happy if you will draw upon us for any--"

"COME IN!"

"My noble boy, she is yours! She'll be here in a moment! Take her--marry her--love her--be happy!--God bless you both! Hip, hip, hur--"

"COME IN!!!!!"

"Oh, George, my own darling, we are saved!"

"Oh, Mary, my own darling, we are saved--but I'll swear I don't know whynor how!"

CHAPTER V

[Scene-A Roman Cafe. ]

One of a group of American gentlemen reads and translates from the weeklyedition of 'Il Slangwhanger di Roma' as follows:

WONDERFUL DISCOVERY--Some six months ago Signor John Smitthe, an Americangentleman now some years a resident of Rome, purchased for a trifle asmall piece of ground in the Campagna, just beyond the tomb of the Scipiofamily, from the owner, a bankrupt relative of the Princess Borghese. Mr. Smitthe afterward went to the Minister of the Public Records and hadthe piece of ground transferred to a poor American artist named GeorgeArnold, explaining that he did it as payment and satisfaction forpecuniary damage accidentally done by him long since upon propertybelonging to Signor Arnold, and further observed that he would makeadditional satisfaction by improving the ground for Signor A. , at his owncharge and cost. Four weeks ago, while making some necessary excavationsupon the property, Signor Smitthe unearthed the most remarkable ancientstatue that has ever bees added to the opulent art treasures of Rome. It was an exquisite figure of a woman, and though sadly stained by thesoil and the mold of ages, no eye can look unmoved upon its ravishingbeauty. The nose, the left leg from the knee down, an ear, and also thetoes of the right foot and two fingers of one of the hands were gone, but otherwise the noble figure was in a remarkable state of preservation. The government at once took military possession of the statue, andappointed a commission of art-critics, antiquaries, and cardinal princesof the church to assess its value and determine the remuneration thatmust go to the owner of the ground in which it was found. The wholeaffair was kept a profound secret until last night. In the mean time thecommission sat with closed doors and deliberated. Last night theydecided unanimously that the statue is a Venus, and the work of someunknown but sublimely gifted artist of the third century before Christ. They consider it the most faultless work of art the world has anyknowledge of. 

At midnight they held a final conference and, decided that the Venus wasworth the enormous sum of ten million francs! In accordance with Romanlaw and Roman usage, the government being half-owner in all works of artfound in the Campagna, the State has naught to do but pay five millionfrancs to Mr. Arnold and take permanent possession of the beautifulstatue. This morning the Venus will be removed to the Capitol, there toremain, and at noon the commission will wait upon Signor Arnold with HisHoliness the Pope's order upon the Treasury for the princely sum of fivemillion francs is gold!

Chorus of Voices. --"Luck! It's no name for it!"

Another Voice. --"Gentlemen, I propose that we immediately form anAmerican joint-stock company for the purchase of lands and excavations ofstatues here, with proper connections in Wall Street to bull and bear thestock. "

All. --"Agreed. "

CHAPTER VI

[Scene--The Roman Capitol Ten Years Later. ]

"Dearest Mary, this is the most celebrated statue in the world. This isthe renowned 'Capitoline Venus' you've heard so much about. Here she iswith her little blemishes 'restored' (that is, patched) by the most notedRoman artists--and the mere fact that they did the humble patching of sonoble a creation will make their names illustrious while the worldstands. How strange it seems this place! The day before I last stoodhere, ten happy years ago, I wasn't a rich man bless your soul, I hadn'ta cent. And yet I had a good deal to do with making Rome mistress ofthis grandest work of ancient art the world contains. "

"The worshiped, the illustrious Capitoline Venus--and what a sum she isvalued at! Ten millions of francs!"

"Yes--now she is. "

"And oh, Georgy, how divinely beautiful she is!"

"Ah, yes but nothing to what she was before that blessed John Smith brokeher leg and battered her nose. Ingenious Smith!--gifted Smith!--nobleSmith! Author of all our bliss! Hark! Do you know what that wheezemeans? Mary, that cub has got the whooping-cough. Will you never learnto take care of the children!"

THE END

The Capitoline Venus is still in the Capitol at Rome, and is still themost charming and most illustrious work of ancient art the world canboast of. But if ever it shall be your fortune to stand before it and gointo the customary ecstasies over it, don't permit this true and secrethistory of its origin to mar your bliss--and when you read about agigantic Petrified man being dug up near Syracuse, in the State of NewYork, or near any other place, keep your own counsel--and if the Barnumthat buried him there offers to sell to you at an enormous sum, don't youbuy. Send him to the Pope!

[NOTE. --The above sketch was written at the time the famous swindle ofthe "Petrified Giant" was the sensation of the day in the United States]

SPEECH ON ACCIDENT INSURANCE

DELIVERED IN HARTFORD, AT A DINNER TO CORNELIUS WALFORD, OF LONDON

GENTLEMEN: I am glad, indeed, to assist in welcoming the distinguishedguest of this occasion to a city whose fame as an insurance center hasextended to all lands, and given us the name of being a quadruple band ofbrothers working sweetly hand in hand--the Colt's Arms Company making thedestruction of our race easy and convenient, our life insurance citizenspaying for the victims when they pass away, Mr. Batterson perpetuatingtheir memory with his stately monuments, and our fire-insurance comradestaking care of their hereafter. I am glad to assist in welcoming ourguest first, because he is an Englishman, and I owe a heavy debt ofhospitality to certain of his fellow-countrymen; and secondly, because heis in sympathy with insurance and has been the means of making may othermen cast their sympathies in the same direction. 

Certainly there is no nobler field for human effort than the insuranceline of business--especially accident insurance. Ever since I have beena director in an accident-insurance company I have felt that I am abetter man. Life has seemed more precious. Accidents have assumed akindlier aspect. Distressing special providences have lost half theirhorror. I look upon a cripple now with affectionate interest--as anadvertisement. I do not seem to care for poetry any more. I do not carefor politics--even agriculture does not excite me. But to me now thereis a charm about a railway collision that is unspeakable. 

There is nothing more beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen anentire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boonof a broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears intheir eyes, to bless this beneficent institution. In all my experienceof life, I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into afreshly mutilated man's face when he feels in his vest pocket with hisremaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right. And I have seennothing so sad as the look that came into another splintered customer'sface when he found he couldn't collect on a wooden leg. 

I will remark here, by way of advertisement, that that noble charitywhich we have named the HARTFORD ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY--[Thespeaker is a director of the company named. ]--is an institution which ispeculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to prosper who gives ithis custom. 

No man can take out a policy in it and not get crippled before the yearis out. Now there was one indigent man who had been disappointed sooften with other companies that he had grown disheartened, his appetiteleft him, he ceased to smile--life was but a weariness. Three weeks agoI got him to insure with us, and now he is the brightest, happiest spiritin this land has a good steady income and a stylish suit of new bandagesevery day, and travels around on a shutter. 

I will say, in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to our guest isnone the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that Ican say the same for the rest of the speakers. 

JOHN CHINAMAN IN NEW YORK

As I passed along by one of those monster American tea stores in NewYork, I found a Chinaman sitting before it acting in the capacity of asign. Everybody that passed by gave him a steady stare as long as theirheads would twist over their shoulders without dislocating their necks, and a group had stopped to stare deliberately. 

Is it not a shame that we, who prate so much about civilization andhumanity, are content to degrade a fellow-being to such an office asthis? Is it not time for reflection when we find ourselves willing tosee in such a being matter for frivolous curiosity instead of regret andgrave reflection? Here was a poor creature whom hard fortune had exiledfrom his natural home beyond the seas, and whose troubles ought to havetouched these idle strangers that thronged about him; but did it?Apparently not. Men calling themselves the superior race, the race ofculture and of gentle blood, scanned his quaint Chinese hat, with peakedroof and ball on top, and his long queue dangling down his back; hisshort silken blouse, curiously frogged and figured (and, like the rest ofhis raiment, rusty, dilapidated, and awkwardly put on); his blue cotton, tight-legged pants, tied close around the ankles; and his clumsyblunt-toed shoes with thick cork soles; and having so scanned him fromhead to foot, cracked some unseemly joke about his outlandish attire orhis melancholy face, and passed on. In my heart I pitied the friendlessMongol. I wondered what was passing behind his sad face, and whatdistant scene his vacant eye was dreaming of. Were his thoughts with hisheart, ten thousand miles away, beyond the billowy wastes of the Pacific?among the ricefields and the plumy palms of China? under the shadows ofremembered mountain peaks, or in groves of bloomy shrubs and strangeforest trees unknown to climes like ours? And now and then, ripplingamong his visions and his dreams, did he hear familiar laughter andhalf-forgotten voices, and did he catch fitful glimpses of the friendlyfaces of a bygone time? A cruel fate it is, I said, that is befallenthis bronzed wanderer. In order that the group of idlers might betouched at least by the words of the poor fellow, since the appeal of hispauper dress and his dreary exile was lost upon them, I touched him onthe shoulder and said:

"Cheer up--don't be downhearted. It is not America that treats you inthis way, it is merely one citizen, whose greed of gain has eaten thehumanity out of his heart. America has a broader hospitality for theexiled and oppressed. America and Americans are always ready to help theunfortunate. Money shall be raised--you shall go back to China you shallsee your friends again. What wages do they pay you here?"

"Divil a cint but four dollars a week and find meself; but it's aisy, barrin' the troublesome furrin clothes that's so expinsive. "

The exile remains at his post. The New York tea merchants who needpicturesque signs are not likely to run out of Chinamen. 

HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL PAPER--[Written abort 1870. ]

I did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper withoutmisgivings. Neither would a landsman take command of a ship withoutmisgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary an object. The regular editor of the paper was going off for a holiday, and Iaccepted the terms he offered, and took his place. 

The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought all theweek with unflagging pleasure. We went to press, and I waited a day withsome solicitude to see whether my effort was going to attract any notice. As I left the office, toward sundown, a group of men and boys at the footof the stairs dispersed with one impulse, and gave me passageway, and Iheard one or two of them say: "That's him!" I was naturally pleased bythis incident. The next morning I found a similar group at the foot ofthe stairs, and scattering couples and individuals standing here andthere in the street and over the way, watching me with interest. Thegroup separated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say, "Look at his eye!" I pretended not to observe the notice I wasattracting, but secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing towrite an account of it to my aunt. I went up the short flight of stairs, and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I drew near the door, which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young rural-looking men, whose faces blanched and lengthened when they saw me, and then they bothplunged through the window with a great crash. I was surprised. 

In about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing beard and a finebut rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation. Heseemed to have something on his mind. He took off his hat and set it onthe floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy of ourpaper. 

He put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his spectacles withhis handkerchief he said, "Are you the new editor?"

I said I was. 

"Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?"

"No, " I said; "this is my first attempt. "

"Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture practically?"

"No; I believe I have not. "

"Some instinct told me so, " said the old gentleman, putting on hisspectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity, while he foldedhis paper into a convenient shape. "I wish to read you what must havemade me have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, and see ifit was you that wrote it:

 "'Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree. '

"Now, what do you think of that? for I really suppose you wrote it?"

"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have nodoubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of turnips arespoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree--"

"Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!"

"Oh, they don't, don't they? Well, who said they did? The language wasintended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knowsanything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine. "

Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds, andstamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I didnot know as much as a cow; and then went--out and banged the door afterhim, and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he was displeasedabout something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I could not beany help to him. 

Pretty soon after this a long, cadaverous creature, with lanky lockshanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling from thehills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and halted, motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in listeningattitude. No sound was heard. 

Still he listened. No sound. Then he turned the key in the door, andcame elaborately tiptoeing toward me till he was within long reachingdistance of me, when he stopped and, after scanning my face with intenseinterest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, andsaid:

"There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick! Relieve me. I suffer. "

I read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see therelief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go outof the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like the mercifulmoonlight over a desolate landscape:

 The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it. It should not be imported earlier than June or later than September. In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch out its young. 

 It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain. Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat cakes in July instead of August. 

 Concerning the pumpkin. This berry is a favorite with the natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the gourd and one or two varieties of the squash. But the custom of planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that, the pumpkin as a shade tree is a failure. 

 Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to spawn--

The excited listener sprang toward me to shake hands, and said:

"There, there--that will do. I know I am all right now, because you haveread it just as I did, word, for word. But, stranger, when I first readit this morning, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before, notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch so strict, but now Ibelieve I am crazy; and with that I fetched a howl that you might haveheard two miles, and started out to kill somebody--because, you know, I knew it would come to that sooner or later, and so I might as wellbegin. I read one of them paragraphs over again, so as to be certain, and then I burned my house down and started. I have crippled severalpeople, and have got one fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I wanthim. But I thought I would call in here as I passed along and make thething perfectly certain; and now it is certain, and I tell you it islucky for the chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure, as I went back. Good-by, sir, good-by; you have taken a great load offmy mind. My reason has stood the strain of one of your agriculturalarticles, and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now. Good-by, sir. "

I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this personhad been entertaining himself with, for I could not help feeling remotelyaccessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly banished, for theregular editor walked in! [I thought to myself, Now if you had gone toEgypt as I recommended you to, I might have had a chance to get my handin; but you wouldn't do it, and here you are. I sort of expected you. ]

The editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected. 

He surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and those two young farmershad made, and then said "This is a sad business--a very sad business. There is the mucilage-bottle broken, and six panes of glass, and aspittoon, and two candlesticks. But that is not the worst. Thereputation of the paper is injured--and permanently, I fear. True, therenever was such a call for the paper before, and it never sold such alarge edition or soared to such celebrity; but does one want to be famousfor lunacy, and prosper upon the infirmities of his mind? My friend, asI am an honest man, the street out here is full of people, and others areroosting on the fences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because theythink you are crazy. And well they might after reading your editorials. They are a disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head thatyou could edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know the firstrudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as beingthe same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and yourecommend the domestication of the pole-cat on account of its playfulnessand its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams will lie quiet ifmusic be played to them was superfluous--entirely superfluous. Nothingdisturbs clams. Clams always lie quiet. Clams care nothing whateverabout music. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! if you had made theacquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not havegraduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I never saw anythinglike it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut as an article ofcommerce is steadily gaining in favor is simply calculated to destroythis journal. I want you to throw up your situation and go. I want nomore holiday--I could not enjoy it if I had it. Certainly not with youin my chair. I would always stand in dread of what you might be going torecommend next. It makes me lose all patience every time I think of yourdiscussing oyster-beds under the head of 'Landscape Gardening. ' I wantyou to go. Nothing on earth could persuade me to take another holiday. Oh! why didn't you tell me you didn't know anything about agriculture?"

"Tell you, you corn-stalk, you cabbage, you son of a cauliflower? It'sthe first time I ever heard such an unfeeling remark. I tell you I havebeen in the editorial business going on fourteen years, and it is thefirst time I ever heard of a man's having to know anything in order toedit a newspaper. You turnip! Who write the dramatic critiques for thesecond-rate papers? Why, a parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprenticeapothecaries, who know just as much about good acting as I do about goodfarming and no more. Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who do up the heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largestopportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticize the Indiancampaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam, and whonever have had to run a foot-race with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows out ofthe several members of their families to build the evening camp-firewith. Who write the temperance appeals, and clamor about the flowingbowl? Folks who will never draw another sober breath till they do it inthe grave. Who edit the agricultural papers, you--yam? Men, as ageneral thing, who fail in the poetry line, yellow-colored novel line, sensation, drama line, city-editor line, and finally fall back onagriculture as a temporary reprieve from the poorhouse. You try to tellme anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through itfrom Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the biggerthe noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. Heaven knowsif I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and impudent instead ofdiffident, I could have made a name for myself in this cold, selfishworld. I take my leave, sir. Since I have been treated as you havetreated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I have done my duty. Ihave fulfilled my contract as far as I was permitted to do it. I said Icould make your paper of interest to all classes--and I have. I said Icould run your circulation up to twenty thousand copies, and if I had hadtwo more weeks I'd have done it. And I'd have given you the best classof readers that ever an agricultural paper had--not a farmer in it, nor asolitary individual who could tell a watermelon-tree from a peach-vine tosave his life. You are the loser by this rupture, not me, Pie-plant. Adios. "

I then left. 

THE PETRIFIED MAN

Now, to show how really hard it is to foist a moral or a truth upon anunsuspecting public through a burlesque without entirely and absurdlymissing one's mark, I will here set down two experiences of my own inthis thing. In the fall of 1862, in Nevada and California, the peoplegot to running wild about extraordinary petrifactions and other naturalmarvels. One could scarcely pick up a paper without finding in it one ortwo glorified discoveries of this kind. The mania was becoming a littleridiculous. I was a brand-new local editor in Virginia City, and I feltcalled upon to destroy this growing evil; we all have our benignant, fatherly moods at one time or another, I suppose. I chose to kill thepetrifaction mania with a delicate, a very delicate satire. But maybe itwas altogether too delicate, for nobody ever perceived the satire part ofit at all. I put my scheme in the shape of the discovery of a remarkablypetrified man. 

I had had a temporary falling out with Mr. ----, the new coroner andjustice of the peace of Humboldt, and thought I might as well touch himup a little at the same time and make him ridiculous, and thus combinepleasure with business. So I told, in patient, belief-compelling detail, all about the finding of a petrified-man at Gravelly Ford (exactly ahundred and twenty miles, over a breakneck mountain trail from where---- lived); how all the savants of the immediate neighborhood had been toexamine it (it was notorious that there was not a living creature withinfifty miles of there, except a few starving Indians; some crippledgrasshoppers, and four or five buzzards out of meat and too feeble to getaway); how those savants all pronounced the petrified man to have been ina state of complete petrifaction for over ten generations; and then, witha seriousness that I ought to have been ashamed to assume, I stated thatas soon as Mr. ----heard the news he summoned a jury, mounted his mule, and posted off, with noble reverence for official duty, on that awfulfive days' journey, through alkali, sage brush, peril of body, andimminent starvation, to hold an inquest on this man that had been deadand turned to everlasting stone for more than three hundred years!And then, my hand being "in, " so to speak, I went on, with the sameunflinching gravity, to state that the jury returned a verdict thatdeceased came to his death from protracted exposure. This only moved meto higher flights of imagination, and I said that the jury, with thatcharity so characteristic of pioneers, then dug a grave, and were aboutto give the petrified man Christian burial, when they found that for agesa limestone sediment had been trickling down the face of the stoneagainst which he was sitting, and this stuff had run under him andcemented him fast to the "bed-rock"; that the jury (they were allsilver-miners) canvassed the difficulty a moment, and then got out theirpowder and fuse, and proceeded to drill a hole under him, in order toblast him from his position, when Mr. ----, "with that delicacy socharacteristic of him, forbade them, observing that it would be littleless than sacrilege to do such a thing. "

From beginning to end the "Petrified Man" squib was a string of roaringabsurdities, albeit they were told with an unfair pretense of truth thateven imposed upon me to some extent, and I was in some danger ofbelieving in my own fraud. But I really had no desire to deceiveanybody, and no expectation of doing it. I depended on the way thepetrified man was sitting to explain to the public that he was a swindle. Yet I purposely mixed that up with other things, hoping to make itobscure--and I did. I would describe the position of one foot, and thensay his right thumb was against the side of his nose; then talk about hisother foot, and presently come back and say the fingers of his right handwere spread apart; then talk about the back of his head a little, andreturn and say the left thumb was hooked into the right little finger;then ramble off about something else, and by and by drift back again andremark that the fingers of the left hand were spread like those of theright. But I was too ingenious. I mixed it up rather too much; and soall that description of the attitude, as a key to the humbuggery of thearticle, was entirely lost, for nobody but me ever discovered andcomprehended the peculiar and suggestive position of the petrified man'shands. 

As a satire on the petrifaction mania, or anything else, my petrified Manwas a disheartening failure; for everybody received him in innocent goodfaith, and I was stunned to see the creature I had begotten to pull downthe wonder-business with, and bring derision upon it, calmly exalted tothe grand chief place in the list of the genuine marvels our Nevada hadproduced. I was so disappointed at the curious miscarriage of my scheme, that at first I was angry, and did not like to think about it; but by andby, when the exchanges began to come in with the Petrified Man copied andguilelessly glorified, I began to feel a soothing secret satisfaction;and as my gentleman's field of travels broadened, and by the exchanges Isaw that he steadily and implacably penetrated territory after territory, state after state, and land after land, till he swept the great globe andculminated in sublime and unimpeached legitimacy in the august LondonLancet, my cup was full, and I said I was glad I had done it. I thinkthat for about eleven months, as nearly as I can remember, Mr. ----'sdaily mail-bag continued to be swollen by the addition of half a bushelof newspapers hailing from many climes with the Petrified Man in them, marked around with a prominent belt of ink. I sent them to him. I didit for spite, not for fun. 

He used to shovel them into his back yard and curse. And every dayduring all those months the miners, his constituents (for miners neverquit joking a person when they get started), would call on him and ask ifhe could tell them where they could get hold of a paper with thePetrified Man in it. He could have accommodated a continent with them. I hated-----in those days, and these things pacified me and pleased me. I could not have gotten more real comfort out of him without killing him. 

MY BLOODY MASSACRE

The other burlesque I have referred to was my fine satire upon thefinancial expedients of "cooking dividends, " a thing which becameshamefully frequent on the Pacific coast for a while. Once more, in myself-complacent simplicity I felt that the time had arrived for me torise up and be a reformer. I put this reformatory satire, in the shapeof a fearful "Massacre at Empire City. " The San Francisco papers weremaking a great outcry about the iniquity of the Daney Silver-MiningCompany, whose directors had declared a "cooked" or false dividend, forthe purpose of increasing the value of their stock, so that they couldsell out at a comfortable figure, and then scramble from under thetumbling concern. And while abusing the Daney, those papers did notforget to urge the public to get rid of all their silver stocks andinvest in, sound and safe San Francisco stocks, such as the Spring ValleyWater Company, etc. But right at this unfortunate juncture, behold theSpring Valley cooked a dividend too! And so, under the insidious mask ofan invented "bloody massacre, " I stole upon the public unawares with myscathing satire upon the dividend cooking system. In about half a columnof imaginary human carnage I told how a citizen hard murdered his wifeand nine children, and then committed suicide. And I said slyly, at thebottom, that the sudden madness of which this melancholy massacre was theresult had been brought about by his having allowed himself to bepersuaded by the California papers to sell his sound and lucrative Nevadasilver stocks, and buy into Spring Valley just in time to get cookedalong with that company's fancy dividend, and sink every cent he had inthe world. 

Ah, it was a deep, deep satire, and most ingeniously contrived. But Imade the horrible details so carefully and conscientiously interestingthat the public devoured them greedily, and wholly overlooked thefollowing distinctly stated facts, to wit: The murderer was perfectlywell known to every creature in the land as a bachelor, and consequentlyhe could not murder his wife and nine children; he murdered them "in hissplendid dressed-stone mansion just in the edge of the great pine forestbetween Empire City and Dutch Nick's, " when even the very pickled oystersthat came on our tables knew that there was not a "dressed-stone mansion"in all Nevada Territory; also that, so far from there being a "great pineforest between Empire City and Dutch Nick's, " there wasn't a solitarytree within fifteen miles of either place; and, finally, it was patentand notorious that Empire City and Dutch Nick's were one and the sameplace, and contained only six houses anyhow, and consequently there couldbe no forest between them; and on top of all these absurdities I statedthat this diabolical murderer, after inflicting a wound upon himself thatthe reader ought to have seen would kill an elephant in the twinkling ofan eye, jumped on his horse and rode four miles, waving his wife'sreeking scalp in the air, and thus performing entered Carson City withtremendous eclat, and dropped dead in front of the chief saloon, the envyand admiration of all beholders. 

Well, in all my life I never saw anything like the sensation that littlesatire created. It was the talk of the town, it was the talk of theterritory. Most of the citizens dropped gently into it at breakfast, andthey never finished their meal. There was something about those minutelyfaithful details that was a sufficing substitute for food. Few peoplethat were able to read took food that morning. Dan and I (Dan was myreportorial associate) took our seats on either side of our customarytable in the "Eagle Restaurant, " and, as I unfolded the shred they usedto call a napkin in that establishment, I saw at the next table twostalwart innocents with that sort of vegetable dandruff sprinkled abouttheir clothing which was the sign and evidence that they were in from theTruckee with a load of hay. The one facing me had the morning paperfolded to a long, narrow strip, and I knew, without any telling, thatthat strip represented the column that contained my pleasant financialsatire. From the way he was excitedly mumbling, I saw that the heedlessson of a hay-mow was skipping with all his might, in order to get to thebloody details as quickly as possible; and so he was missing theguide-boards I had set up to warn him that the whole thing was a fraud. Presently his eyes spread wide open, just as his jaws swung asunder totake in a potato approaching it on a fork; the potato halted, the facelit up redly, and the whole man was on fire with excitement. Then hebroke into a disjointed checking off of the particulars--his potatocooling in mid-air meantime, and his mouth making a reach for itoccasionally; but always bringing up suddenly against a new and stillmore direful performance of my hero. At last he looked his stunned andrigid comrade impressively in the face, and said, with an expression ofconcentrated awe:

"Jim, he b'iled his baby, and he took the old 'oman's skelp. Cuss'd if Iwant any breakfast!"

And he laid his lingering potato reverently down, and he and his frienddeparted from the restaurant empty but satisfied. 

He never got down to where the satire part of it began. Nobody ever did. They found the thrilling particulars sufficient. To drop in with a poorlittle moral at the fag-end of such a gorgeous massacre was likefollowing the expiring sun with a candle and hope to attract the world'sattention to it. 

The idea that anybody could ever take my massacre for a genuineoccurrence never once suggested itself to me, hedged about as it was byall those telltale absurdities and impossibilities concerning the "greatpine forest, " the "dressed-stone mansion, " etc. But I found out then, and never have forgotten since, that we never read the dull explanatorysurroundings of marvelously exciting things when we have no occasion tosuppose that some irresponsible scribbler is trying to defraud us; weskip all that, and hasten to revel in the blood-curdling particulars andbe happy. 

THE UNDERTAKER'S CHAT

"Now that corpse, " said the undertaker, patting the folded hands ofdeceased approvingly, was a brick-every way you took him he was a brick. He was so real accommodating, and so modest-like and simple in his lastmoments. Friends wanted metallic burial-case--nothing else would do. I couldn't get it. There warn't going to be time--anybody could seethat. 

"Corpse said never mind, shake him up some kind of a box he could stretchout in comfortable, he warn't particular 'bout the general style of it. Said he went more on room than style, anyway in a last final container. 

"Friends wanted a silver door-plate on the coffin, signifying who he wasand wher' he was from. Now you know a fellow couldn't roust out such agaily thing as that in a little country-town like this. What did corpsesay?

"Corpse said, whitewash his old canoe and dob his address and generaldestination onto it with a blacking-brush and a stencil-plate, 'long witha verse from some likely hymn or other, and pint him for the tomb, andmark him C. O. D. , and just let him flicker. He warn't distressed anymore than you be--on the contrary, just as ca, 'm and collected as ahearse-horse; said he judged that wher' he was going to a body would findit considerable better to attract attention by a picturesque moralcharacter than a natty burial-case with a swell door-plate on it. 

"Splendid man, he was. I'd druther do for a corpse like that 'n any I'vetackled in seven year. There's some satisfaction in buryin' a man likethat. You feel that what you're doing is appreciated. Lord bless you, so's he got planted before he sp'iled, he was perfectly satisfied; saidhis relations meant well, perfectly well, but all them preparations wasbound to delay the thing more or less, and he didn't wish to be keptlayin' around. You never see such a clear head as what he had--and soca, 'm and so cool. Jist a hunk of brains--that is what he was. Perfectly awful. It was a ripping distance from one end of that man'shead to t'other. Often and over again he's had brain-fever a-raging inone place, and the rest of the pile didn't know anything about it--didn'taffect it any more than an Injun Insurrection in Arizona affects theAtlantic States. 

"Well, the relations they wanted a big funeral, but corpse said he wasdown on flummery--didn, 't want any procession--fill the hearse full ofmourners, and get out a stern line and tow him behind. He was the mostdown on style of any remains I ever struck. A beautiful, simplemindedcreature it was what he was, you can depend on that. He was just set onhaving things the way he wanted them, and he took a solid comfort inlaying his little plans. He had me measure him and take a whole raft ofdirections; then he had the minister stand up behind along box with atable--cloth over it, to represent the coffin, and read his funeralsermon, saying 'Angcore, angcore!' at the good places, and making himscratch out every bit of brag about him, and all the hifalutin; and thenhe made them trot out the choir, so's he could help them pick out thetunes for the occasion, and he got them to sing 'Pop Goes the Weasel, 'because he'd always liked that tune when he was downhearted, and solemnmusic made him sad; and when they sung that with tears in their eyes(because they all loved him), and his relations grieving around, he justlaid there as happy as a bug, and trying to beat time and showing allover how much he enjoyed it; and presently he got worked up and excited, and tried to join in, for, mind you, he was pretty proud of his abilitiesin the singing line; but the first time he opened his mouth and was justgoing to spread himself his breath took a walk. 

"I never see a man snuffed out so sudden. Ah, it was a great loss--apowerful loss to this poor little one-horse town. Well, well, well, Ihain't got time to be palavering along here--got to nail on the lid andmosey along with him; and if you'll just give me a lift we'll skeet himinto the hearse and meander along. Relations bound to have it so--don'tpay no attention to dying injunctions, minute a corpse's gone; but, if Ihad my way, if I didn't respect his last wishes and tow him behind thehearse I'll be cuss'd. I consider that whatever a corpse wants done forhis comfort is little enough matter, and a man hain't got no right todeceive him or take advantage of him; and whatever a corpse trusts me todo I'm a-going to do, you know, even if it's to stuff him and paint himyaller and keep him for a keepsake--you hear me!"

He cracked his whip and went lumbering away with his ancient ruin of ahearse, and I continued my walk with a valuable lesson learned--that ahealthy and wholesome cheerfulness is not necessarily impossible to anyoccupation. The lesson is likely to be lasting, for it will take manymonths to obliterate the memory of the remarks and circumstances thatimpressed it. 

CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS

Against all chambermaids, of whatsoever age or nationality, I launch thecurse of bachelordom! Because:

They always put the pillows at the opposite end of the bed from thegas-burner, so that while you read and smoke before sleeping (as is theancient and honored custom of bachelors), you have to hold your bookaloft, in an uncomfortable position, to keep the light from dazzling youreyes. 

When they find the pillows removed to the other end of the bed in themorning, they receive not the suggestion in a friendly spirit; but, glorying in their absolute sovereignty, and unpitying your helplessness, they make the bed just as it was originally, and gloat in secret over thepang their tyranny will cause you. 

Always after that, when they find you have transposed the pillows, theyundo your work, and thus defy and seek to embitter the life that God hasgiven you. 

If they cannot get the light in an inconvenient position any other way, they move the bed. 

If you pull your trunk out six inches from the wall, so that the lid willstay up when you open it, they always shove that trunk back again. Theydo it on purpose. 

If you want the spittoon in a certain spot, where it will be handy, theydon't, and so they move it. 

They always put your other boots into inaccessible places. They chieflyenjoy depositing them as far under the bed as the wall will permit. Itis because this compels you to get down in an undignified attitude andmake wild sweeps for them in the dark with the bootjack, and swear. 

They always put the matchbox in some other place. They hunt up a newplace for it every day, and put up a bottle, or other perishable glassthing, where the box stood before. This is to cause you to break thatglass thing, groping in the dark, and get yourself into trouble. 

They are for ever and ever moving the furniture. When you come in in thenight you can calculate on finding the bureau where the wardrobe was inthe morning. And when you go out in the morning, if you leave theslop-bucket by the door and rocking-chair by the window, when you come inat midnight or thereabout, you will fall over that rocking-chair, and youwill proceed toward the window and sit down in that slop-tub. This willdisgust you. They like that. 

No matter where you put anything, they are not going to let it staythere. They will take it and move it the first chance they get. It istheir nature. And, besides, it gives them pleasure to be mean andcontrary this way. They would die if they couldn't be villains. 

They always save up all the old scraps of printed rubbish you throw onthe floor, and stack them up carefully on the table, and start the firewith your valuable manuscripts. If there is any one particular old scrapthat you are more down on than any other, and which you are graduallywearing your life out trying to get rid of, you may take all the painsyou possibly can in that direction, but it won't be of any use, becausethey will always fetch that old scrap back and put it in the same oldplace again every time. It does them good. 

And they use up more hair-oil than any six men. If charged withpurloining the same, they lie about it. What do they care about ahereafter? Absolutely nothing. 

If you leave the key in the door for convenience' sake, they will carryit down to the office and give it to the clerk. They do this under thevile pretense of trying to protect your property from thieves; butactually they do it because they want to make you tramp back down-stairsafter it when you come home tired, or put you to the trouble of sending awaiter for it, which waiter will expect you to pay him something. Inwhich case I suppose the degraded creatures divide. 

They keep always trying to make your bed before you get up, thusdestroying your rest and inflicting agony upon you; but after you get up, they don't come any more till next day. 

They do all the mean things they can think of, and they do them just outof pure cussedness, and nothing else. 

Chambermaids are dead to every human instinct. 

If I can get a bill through the legislature abolishing chambermaids, Imean to do it. 

AURELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN--[Written about 1865. ]

The facts in the following case came to me by letter from a young ladywho lives in the beautiful city of San Jose; she is perfectly unknown tome, and simply signs herself "Aurelia Maria, " which may possibly be afictitious name. But no matter, the poor girl is almost heartbroken bythe misfortunes she has undergone, and so confused by the conflictingcounsels of misguided friends and insidious enemies that she does notknow what course to pursue in order to extricate herself from the web ofdifficulties in which she seems almost hopelessly involved. In thisdilemma she turns to me for help, and supplicates for my guidance andinstruction with a moving eloquence that would touch the heart of astatue. Hear her sad story:

She says that when she was sixteen years old she met and loved, with allthe devotion of a passionate nature, a young man from New Jersey, namedWilliamson Breckinridge Caruthers, who was some six years her senior. They were engaged, with the free consent of their friends and relatives, and for a time it seemed as if their career was destined to, becharacterized by an immunity from sorrow beyond the usual lot ofhumanity. But at last the tide of fortune turned; young Caruthers becameinfect with smallpox of the most virulent type, and when he recoveredfrom his illness his face was pitted like a waffle-mold, and hiscomeliness gone forever. Aurelia thought to break off the engagement atfirst, but pity for her unfortunate lover caused her to postpone themarriage-day for a season, and give him another trial. 

The very day before the wedding was to have taken place, Breckinridge, while absorbed in watching the flight of a balloon, walked into a welland fractured one of his legs, and it had to be taken off above the knee. Again Aurelia was moved to break the engagement, but again lovetriumphed, and she set the day forward and gave him another chance toreform. 

And again misfortune overtook the unhappy youth. He lost one arm by thepremature discharge of a Fourth of July cannon, and within three monthshe got the other pulled out by a carding-machine. Aurelia's heart wasalmost crushed by these latter calamities. She could not but be deeplygrieved to see her lover passing from her by piecemeal, feeling, as shedid, that he could not last forever under this disastrous process ofreduction, yet knowing of no way to stop its dreadful career, and in hertearful despair she almost regretted, like brokers who hold on and lose, that she had not taken him at first, before he had suffered such analarming depreciation. Still, her brave soul bore her up, and sheresolved to bear with her friend's unnatural disposition yet a littlelonger. 

Again the wedding-day approached, and again disappointment overshadowedit; Caruthers fell ill with the erysipelas, and lost the use of one ofhis eyes entirely. The friends and relatives of the bride, consideringthat she had already put up with more than could reasonably be expectedof her, now came forward and insisted that the match should be brokenoff; but after wavering awhile, Aurelia, with a generous spirit which didher credit, said she had reflected calmly upon the matter, and could notdiscover that Breckinridge was to blame. 

So she extended the time once more, and he broke his other leg. 

It was a sad day for the poor girl when, she saw the surgeons reverentlybearing away the sack whose uses she had learned by previous experience, and her heart told her the bitter truth that some more of her lover wasgone. She felt that the field of her affections was growing more andmore circumscribed every day, but once more she frowned down herrelatives and renewed her betrothal. 

Shortly before the time set for the nuptials another disaster occurred. There was but one man scalped by the Owens River Indians last year. Thatman was Williamson Breckinridge Caruthers of New Jersey. He was hurryinghome with happiness in his heart, when he lost his hair forever, and inthat hour of bitterness he almost cursed the mistaken mercy that hadspared his head. 

At last Aurelia is in serious perplexity as to what she ought to do. Shestill loves her Breckinridge, she writes, with truly womanly feeling--shestill loves what is left of him but her parents are bitterly opposed tothe match, because he has no property and is disabled from working, andshe has not sufficient means to support both comfortably. "Now, whatshould she do?" she asked with painful and anxious solicitude. 

It is a delicate question; it is one which involves the lifelonghappiness of a woman, and that of nearly two-thirds of a man, and I feelthat it would be assuming too great a responsibility to do more than makea mere suggestion in the case. How would it do to build to him? IfAurelia can afford the expense, let her furnish her mutilated lover withwooden arms and wooden legs, and a glass eye and a wig, and give himanother show; give him ninety days, without grace, and if he does notbreak his neck in the mean time, marry him and take the chances. It doesnot seem to me that there is much risk, anyway, Aurelia, because if hesticks to his singular propensity for damaging himself every time he seesa good opportunity, his next experiment is bound to finish him, and thenyou are safe, married or single. If married, the wooden legs and suchother valuables as he may possess revert to the widow, and you see yousustain no actual loss save the cherished fragment of a noble but mostunfortunate husband, who honestly strove to do right, but whoseextraordinary instincts were against him. Try it, Maria. I have thoughtthe matter over carefully and well, and it is the only chance I see foryou. It would have been a happy conceit on the part of Caruthers if hehad started with his neck and broken that first; but since he has seenfit to choose a different policy and string himself out as long aspossible, I do not think we ought to upbraid him for it if he has enjoyedit. We must do the best we can under the circumstances, and try not tofeel exasperated at him. 

"AFTER" JENKINS

A grand affair of a ball--the Pioneers'--came off at the Occidental sometime ago. The following notes of the costumes worn by the belles of theoccasion may not be uninteresting to the general reader, and Jerkins mayget an idea therefrom:

Mrs. W. M. Was attired in an elegant 'pate de foie gras, ' made expresslyfor her, and was greatly admired. Miss S. Had her hair done up. She wasthe center of attraction for the envy of all the ladies. Mrs. G. W. Wastastefully dressed in a 'tout ensemble, ' and was greeted with deafeningapplause wherever she went. Mrs. C. N. Was superbly arrayed in white kidgloves. Her modest and engaging manner accorded well with theunpretending simplicity of her costume and caused her to be regarded withabsorbing interest by every one. 

The charming Miss M. M. B. Appeared in a thrilling waterfall, whoseexceeding grace and volume compelled the homage of pioneers and emigrantsalike. How beautiful she was!

The queenly Mrs. L. R. Was attractively attired in her new and beautifulfalse teeth, and the 'bon jour' effect they naturally produced washeightened by her enchanting and well-sustained smile. 

Miss R. P. , with that repugnance to ostentation in dress which is sopeculiar to her, was attired in a simple white lace collar, fastened witha neat pearl-button solitaire. The fine contrast between the sparklingvivacity of her natural optic, and the steadfast attentiveness of herplacid glass eye, was the subject of general and enthusiastic remark. 

Miss C. L. B. Had her fine nose elegantly enameled, and the easy gracewith which she blew it from time to time marked her as a cultivated andaccomplished woman of the world; its exquisitely modulated tone excitedthe admiration of all who had the happiness to hear it. 

ABOUT BARBERS

All things change except barbers, the ways of barbers, and thesurroundings of barbers. These never change. What one experiences in abarber's shop the first time he enters one is what he always experiencesin barbers' shops afterward till the end of his days. I got shaved thismorning as usual. A man approached the door from Jones Street as Iapproached it from Main--a thing that always happens. I hurried up, butit was of no use; he entered the door one little step ahead of me, and Ifollowed in on his heels and saw him take the only vacant chair, the onepresided over by the best barber. It always happens so. I sat down, hoping that I might fall heir to the chair belonging to the better of theremaining two barbers, for he had already begun combing his man's hair, while his comrade was not yet quite done rubbing up and oiling hiscustomer's locks. I watched the probabilities with strong interest. When I saw that No. 2 was gaining on No. 1 my interest grew tosolicitude. When No. 1 stopped a moment to make change on a bath ticketfor a new-comer, and lost ground in the race, my solicitude rose toanxiety. When No. 1 caught up again, and both he and his comrade werepulling the towels away and brushing the powder from their customers'cheeks, and it was about an even thing which one would say "Next!" first, my very breath stood still with the suspense. But when at theculminating moment No. 1 stopped to pass a comb a couple of times throughhis customer's eyebrows, I saw that he had lost the race by a singleinstant, and I rose indignant and quitted the shop, to keep from fallinginto the hands of No. 2; for I have none of that enviable firmness thatenables a man to look calmly into the eyes of a waiting barber and tellhim he will wait for his fellow-barber's chair. 

I stayed out fifteen minutes, and then went back, hoping for better luck. Of course all the chairs were occupied now, and four men sat waiting, silent, unsociable, distraught, and looking bored, as men always do whoare waiting their turn in a barber's shop. I sat down in one of theiron-armed compartments of an old sofa, and put in the time far a whilereading the framed advertisements of all sorts of quack nostrums fordyeing and coloring the hair. Then I read the greasy names on theprivate bayrum bottles; read the names and noted the numbers on theprivate shaving-cups in the pigeonholes; studied the stained and damagedcheap prints on the walls, of battles, early Presidents, and voluptuousrecumbent sultanas, and the tiresome and everlasting young girl puttingher grandfather's spectacles on; execrated in my heart the cheerfulcanary and the distracting parrot that few barbers' shops are without. Finally, I searched out the least dilapidated of last year's illustratedpapers that littered the foul center-table, and conned theirunjustifiable misrepresentations of old forgotten events. 

At last my turn came. A voice said "Next!" and I surrendered to--No. 2, of course. It always happens so. I said meekly that I was in a hurry, and it affected him as strongly as if he had never heard it. He shovedup my head, and put a napkin under it. He plowed his fingers into mycollar and fixed a towel there. He explored my hair with his claws andsuggested that it needed trimming. I said I did not want it trimmed. Heexplored again and said it was pretty long for the present style--betterhave a little taken off; it needed it behind especially. I said I hadhad it cut only a week before. He yearned over it reflectively a moment, and then asked with a disparaging manner, who cut it? I came back at himpromptly with a "You did!" I had him there. Then he fell to stirring uphis lather and regarding himself in the glass, stopping now and then toget close and examine his chin critically or inspect a pimple. Then helathered one side of my face thoroughly, and was about to lather theother, when a dog-fight attracted his attention, and he ran to the windowand stayed and saw it out, losing two shillings on the result in betswith the other barbers, a thing which gave me great satisfaction. Hefinished lathering, and then began to rub in the suds with his hand. 

He now began to sharpen his razor on an old suspender, and was delayed agood deal on account of a controversy about a cheap masquerade ball hehad figured at the night before, in red cambric and bogus ermine, as somekind of a king. He was so gratified with being chaffed about some damselwhom he had smitten with his charms that he used every means to continuethe controversy by pretending to be annoyed at the chaffings of hisfellows. This matter begot more surveyings of himself in the glass, andhe put down his razor and brushed his hair with elaborate care, plastering an inverted arch of it down on his forehead, accomplishing anaccurate "Part" behind, and brushing the two wings forward over his earswith nice exactness. In the mean time the lather was drying on my face, and apparently eating into my vitals. 

Now he began to shave, digging his fingers into my countenance to stretchthe skin and bundling and tumbling my head this way and that asconvenience in shaving demanded. As long as he was on the tough sides ofmy face I did not suffer; but when he began to rake, and rip, and tug atmy chin, the tears came. He now made a handle of my nose, to assist himshaving the corners of my upper lip, and it was by this bit ofcircumstantial evidence that I discovered that a part of his duties inthe shop was to clean the kerosene-lamps. I had often wondered in anindolent way whether the barbers did that, or whether it was the boss. 

About this time I was amusing myself trying to guess where he would bemost likely to cut me this time, but he got ahead of me, and sliced me onthe end of the chin before I had got my mind made up. He immediatelysharpened his razor--he might have done it before. I do not like a closeshave, and would not let him go over me a second time. I tried to gethim to put up his razor, dreading that he would make for the side of mychin, my pet tender spot, a place which a razor cannot touch twicewithout making trouble; but he said he only wanted to just smooth off onelittle roughness, and in the same moment he slipped his razor along theforbidden ground, and the dreaded pimple-signs of a close shave rose upsmarting and answered to the call. Now he soaked his towel in bay rum, and slapped it all over my face nastily; slapped it over as if a humanbeing ever yet washed his face in that way. Then he dried it by slappingwith the dry part of the towel, as if a human being ever dried his facein such a fashion; but a barber seldom rubs you like a Christian. Nexthe poked bay ruin into the cut place with his towel, then choked thewound with powdered starch, then soaked it with bay rum again, and wouldhave gone on soaking and powdering it forevermore, no doubt, if I had notrebelled and begged off. He powdered my whole face now, straightened meup, and began to plow my hair thoughtfully with his hands. Then hesuggested a shampoo, and said my hair needed it badly, very badly. I observed that I shampooed it myself very thoroughly in the bathyesterday. I "had him" again. He next recommended some of "Smith's HairGlorifier, " and offered to sell me a bottle. I declined. He praised thenew perfume, "Jones's Delight of the Toilet, " and proposed to sell mesome of that. I declined again. He tendered me a tooth-wash atrocity ofhis own invention, and when I declined offered to trade knives with me. 

He returned to business after the miscarriage of this last enterprise, sprinkled me all over, legs and all, greased my hair in defiance of myprotest against it, rubbed and scrubbed a good deal of it out by theroots, and combed and brushed the rest, parting it behind, and plasteringthe eternal inverted arch of hair down on my forehead, and then, whilecombing my scant eyebrows and defiling them with pomade, strung out anaccount of the achievements of a six-ounce black-and-tan terrier of histill I heard the whistles blow for noon, and knew I was five minutes toolate for the train. Then he snatched away the towel, brushed it lightlyabout my face, passed his comb through my eyebrows once more, and gailysang out "Next!"

This barber fell down and died of apoplexy two hours later. I am waitingover a day for my revenge--I am going to attend his funeral. 

"PARTY CRIES" IN IRELAND

Belfast is a peculiarly religious community. This may be said of thewhole of the North of Ireland. About one-half of the people areProtestants and the other half Catholics. Each party does all it can tomake its own doctrines popular and draw the affections of the irreligioustoward them. One hears constantly of the most touching instances of thiszeal. A week ago a vast concourse of Catholics assembled at Armagh todedicate a new Cathedral; and when they started home again the roadwayswere lined with groups of meek and lowly Protestants who stoned them tillall the region round about was marked with blood. I thought that onlyCatholics argued in that way, but it seems to be a mistake. 

Every man in the community is a missionary and carries a brick toadmonish the erring with. The law has tried to break this up, but notwith perfect success. It has decreed that irritating "party cries" shallnot be indulged in, and that persons uttering them shall be fined fortyshillings and costs. And so, in the police court reports every day, onesees these fines recorded. Last week a girl of twelve years old wasfined the usual forty shillings and costs for proclaiming in the publicstreets that she was "a Protestant. " The usual cry is, "To hell with thePope!" or "To hell with the Protestants!" according to the utterer'ssystem of salvation. 

One of Belfast's local jokes was very good. It referred to the uniformand inevitable fine of forty shillings and costs for uttering a partycry--and it is no economical fine for a poor man, either, by the way. They say that a policeman found a drunken man lying on the ground, up adark alley, entertaining himself with shouting, "To hell with!" "To hellwith!" The officer smelt a fine--informers get half. 

"What's that you say?"

"To hell with!"

"To hell with who? To hell with what?"

"Ah, bedad, ye can finish it yourself--it's too expansive for me!"

I think the seditious disposition, restrained by the economical instinct, is finely put in that. 

THE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT RESIGNATION

WASHINGTON, December, 1867. 

I have resigned. The government appears to go on much the same, butthere is a spoke out of its wheel, nevertheless. I was clerk of theSenate Committee on Conchology, and I have thrown up the position. I could see the plainest disposition on the part of the other members ofthe government to debar me from having any voice in the counsels of thenation, and so I could no longer hold office and retain my self-respect. If I were to detail all the outrages that were heaped upon me during thesix days that I was connected with the government in an officialcapacity, the narrative would fill a volume. They appointed me clerk ofthat Committee on Conchology and then allowed me no amanuensis to playbilliards with. I would have borne that, lonesome as it was, if I hadmet with that courtesy from the other members of the Cabinet which was mydue. But I did not. Whenever I observed that the head of a departmentwas pursuing a wrong course, I laid down everything and went and tried toset him right, as it was my duty to do; and I never was thanked for it ina single instance. I went, with the best intentions in the world, to theSecretary of the Navy, and said:

"Sir, I cannot see that Admiral Farragut is doing anything butskirmishing around there in Europe, having a sort of picnic. Now, thatmay be all very well, but it does not exhibit itself to me in that light. If there is no fighting for him to do, let him come home. There is nouse in a man having a whole fleet for a pleasure excursion. It is tooexpensive. Mind, I do not object to pleasure excursions for the navalofficers--pleasure excursions that are in reason--pleasure excursionsthat are economical. Now, they might go down the Mississippion a raft--"

You ought to have heard him storm! One would have supposed I hadcommitted a crime of some kind. But I didn't mind. I said it was cheap, and full of republican simplicity, and perfectly safe. I said that, fora tranquil pleasure excursion, there was nothing equal to a raft. 

Then the Secretary of the Navy asked me who I was; and when I told him Iwas connected with the government, he wanted to know in what capacity. Isaid that, without remarking upon the singularity of such a question, coming, as it did, from a member of that same government, I would informhim that I was clerk of the Senate Committee on Conchology. Then therewas a fine storm! He finished by ordering me to leave the premises, andgive my attention strictly to my own business in future. My firstimpulse was to get him removed. However, that would harm others besideshimself, and do me no real good, and so I let him stay. 

I went next to the Secretary of War, who was not inclined to see me atall until he learned that I was connected with the government. If I hadnot been on important business, I suppose I could not have got in. I asked him for alight (he was smoking at the time), and then I told himI had no fault to find with his defending the parole stipulations ofGeneral Lee and his comrades in arms, but that I could not approve of hismethod of fighting the Indians on the Plains. I said he fought tooscattering. He ought to get the Indians more together--get them togetherin some convenient place, where he could have provisions enough for bothparties, and then have a general massacre. I said there was nothing soconvincing to an Indian as a general massacre. If he could not approveof the massacre, I said the next surest thing for an Indian was soap andeducation. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but theyare more deadly in the long run; because a half-massacred Indian mayrecover, but if you educate him and wash him, it is bound to finish himsome time or other. It undermines his constitution; it strikes at thefoundation of his being. "Sir, " I said, "the time has come whenblood-curdling cruelty has become necessary. Inflict soap and aspelling-book on every Indian that ravages the Plains, and let them die!"

The Secretary of War asked me if I was a member of the Cabinet, and Isaid I was. He inquired what position I held, and I said I was clerk ofthe Senate Committee on Conchology. I was then ordered under arrest forcontempt of court, and restrained of my liberty for the best part of theday. 

I almost resolved to be silent thenceforward, and let the Government getalong the best way it could. But duty called, and I obeyed. I called onthe Secretary of the Treasury. He said:

"What will you have?"

The question threw me off my guard. I said, "Rum punch. "

He said: "If you have got any business here, sir, state it--and in as fewwords as possible. "

I then said that I was sorry he had seen fit to change the subject soabruptly, because such conduct was very offensive to me; but under thecircumstances I would overlook the matter and come to the point. I nowwent into an earnest expostulation with him upon the extravagant lengthof his report. I said it was expensive, unnecessary, and awkwardlyconstructed; there were no descriptive passages in it, no poetry, nosentiment no heroes, no plot, no pictures--not even wood-cuts. Nobodywould read it, that was a clear case. I urged him not to ruin hisreputation by getting out a thing like that. If he ever hoped to succeedin literature he must throw more variety into his writings. He mustbeware of dry detail. I said that the main popularity of the almanac wasderived from its poetry and conundrums, and that a few conundrumsdistributed around through his Treasury report would help the sale of itmore than all the internal revenue he could put into it. I said thesethings in the kindest spirit, and yet the Secretary of the Treasury fellinto a violent passion. He even said I was an ass. He abused me in themost vindictive manner, and said that if I came there again meddling withhis business he would throw me out of the window. I said I would take myhat and go, if I could not be treated with the respect due to my office, and I did go. It was just like a new author. They always think theyknow more than anybody else when they are getting out their first book. Nobody can tell them anything. 

During the whole time that I was connected with the government it seemedas if I could not do anything in an official capacity without gettingmyself into trouble. And yet I did nothing, attempted nothing, but whatI conceived to be for the good of my country. The sting of my wrongs mayhave driven me to unjust and harmful conclusions, but it surely seemed tome that the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, the Secretary ofthe Treasury, and others of my confreres had conspired from the verybeginning to drive me from the Administration. I never attended but oneCabinet meeting while I was connected with the government. That wassufficient for me. The servant at the White House door did not seemdisposed to make way for me until I asked if the other members of theCabinet had arrived. He said they had, and I entered. They were allthere; but nobody offered me a seat. They stared at me as if I had beenan intruder. The President said:

"Well, sir, who are you?"

I handed him my card, and he read: "The HON. MARK TWAIN, Clerk of theSenate Committee on Conchology. " Then he looked at me from head to foot, as if he had never heard of me before. The Secretary of the Treasurysaid:

"This is the meddlesome ass that came to recommend me to put poetry andconundrums in my report, as if it were an almanac. "

The Secretary of War said: "It is the same visionary that came to meyesterday with a scheme to educate a portion of the Indians to death, and massacre the balance. "

The Secretary of the Navy said: "I recognize this youth as the person whohas been interfering with my business time and again during the week. Heis distressed about Admiral Farragut's using a whole fleet for a pleasureexcursion, as he terms it. His proposition about some insane pleasureexcursion on a raft is too absurd to repeat. "

I said: "Gentlemen, I perceive here a disposition to throw discreditupon every act of my official career; I perceive, also, a disposition todebar me from all voice in the counsels of the nation. No noticewhatever was sent to me to-day. It was only by the merest chance that Ilearned that there was going to be a Cabinet meeting. But let thesethings pass. All I wish to know is, is this a Cabinet meeting or is itnot?"

The President said it was. 

"Then, " I said, "let us proceed to business at once, and not fritter awayvaluable time in unbecoming fault-findings with each other's officialconduct. "

The Secretary of State now spoke up, in his benignant way, and said, "Young man, you are laboring under a mistake. The clerks of theCongressional committees are not members of the Cabinet. Neither are thedoorkeepers of the Capitol, strange as it may seem. Therefore, much aswe could desire your more than human wisdom in our deliberations, wecannot lawfully avail ourselves of it. The counsels of the nation mustproceed without you; if disaster follows, as follow full well it may, beit balm to your sorrowing spirit that by deed and voice you did what inyou lay to avert it. You have my blessing. Farewell. "

These gentle words soothed my troubled breast, and I went away. But theservants of a nation can know no peace. I had hardly reached my den inthe Capitol, and disposed my feet on the table like a representative, when one of the Senators on the Conchological Committee came in in apassion and said:

"Where have you been all day?"

I observed that, if that was anybody's affair but my own, I had been to aCabinet meeting. 

"To a Cabinet meeting? I would like to know what business you had at aCabinet meeting?"

I said I went there to consult--allowing for the sake of argument that hewas in any wise concerned in the matter. He grew insolent then, andended by saying he had wanted me for three days past to copy a report onbomb-shells, egg-shells, clamshells, and I don't know what all, connectedwith conchology, and nobody had been able to find me. 

This was too much. This was the feather that broke the clerical camel'sback. I said, "Sir, do you suppose that I am going to work for sixdollars a day? If that is the idea, let me recommend the SenateCommittee on Conchology to hire somebody else. I am the slave of nofaction! Take back your degrading commission. Give me liberty, or giveme death!"

From that hour I was no longer connected with the government. Snubbed bythe department, snubbed by the Cabinet, snubbed at last by the chairmanof a committee I was endeavoring to adorn, I yielded to persecution, castfar from me the perils and seductions of my great office, and forsook mybleeding country in the hour of her peril. 

But I had done the state some service, and I sent in my bill:

 The United States of America in account with the Hon. Clerk of the Senate Committee on Conchology, Dr. To consultation with Secretary of War ............ $50 To consultation with Secretary of Navy ........... $50 To consultation with Secretary of the Treasury ... $50 Cabinet consultation ................... No charge. To mileage to and from Jerusalem, via Egypt, Algiers, Gibraltar, and Cadiz, 14, 000 miles, at 20c. A mile ............. $2, 800 To salary as Clerk of Senate Committee on Conchology, six days, at $6 per day ........... $36

 Total .......................... $2, 986

--[Territorial delegates charge mileage both ways, although they never goback when they get here once. Why my mileage is denied me is more than Ican understand. ]

Not an item of this bill has been paid, except that trifle of thirty-sixdollars for clerkship salary. The Secretary of the Treasury, pursuing meto the last, drew his pen through all the other items, and simply markedin the margin "Not allowed. " So, the dread alternative is embraced atlast. Repudiation has begun! The nation is lost. 

I am done with official life for the present. Let those clerks who arewilling to be imposed on remain. I know numbers of them in thedepartments who are never informed when there is to be a Cabinet meeting, whose advice is never asked about war, or finance, or commerce, by theheads of the nation, any more than if they were not connected with thegovernment, and who actually stay in their offices day after day andwork! They know their importance to the nation, and they unconsciouslyshow it in their bearing, and the way they order their sustenance at therestaurant--but they work. I know one who has to paste all sorts oflittle scraps from the newspapers into a scrapbook--sometimes as many aseight or ten scraps a day. He doesn't do it well, but he does it as wellas he can. It is very fatiguing. It is exhausting to the intellect. Yet he only gets eighteen hundred dollars a year. With a brain like his, that young man could amass thousands and thousands of dollars in someother pursuit, if he chose to do it. But no--his heart is with hiscountry, and he will serve her as long as she has got a scrapbook left. And I know clerks that don't know how to write very well, but suchknowledge as they possess they nobly lay at the feet of their country, and toil on and suffer for twenty-five hundred dollars a year. What theywrite has to be written over again by other clerks sometimes; but when aman has done his best for his country, should his country complain? Thenthere are clerks that have no clerkships, and are waiting, and waiting, and waiting for a vacancy--waiting patiently for a chance to help theircountry out--and while they, are waiting, they only get barely twothousand dollars a year for it. It is sad it is very, very sad. When amember of Congress has a friend who is gifted, but has no employmentwherein his great powers may be brought to bear, he confers him upon hiscountry, and gives him a clerkship in a department. And there that manhas to slave his life out, fighting documents for the benefit of a nationthat never thinks of him, never sympathizes with him--and all for twothousand or three thousand dollars a year. When I shall have completedmy list of all the clerks in the several departments, with my statementof what they have to do, and what they get for it, you will see thatthere are not half enough clerks, and that what there are do not get halfenough pay. 

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

The following I find in a Sandwich Island paper which some friend hassent me from that tranquil far-off retreat. The coincidence between myown experience and that here set down by the late Mr. Benton is soremarkable that I cannot forbear publishing and commenting upon theparagraph. The Sandwich Island paper says:

How touching is this tribute of the late Hon. T. H. Benton to hismother's influence:--'My mother asked me never to use tobacco; I havenever touched it from that time to the present day. She asked me not togamble, and I have never gambled. I cannot tell who is losing in gamesthat are being played. She admonished me, too, against liquor-drinking, and whatever capacity for endurance I have at present, and whateverusefulness I may have attained through life, I attribute to havingcomplied with her pious and correct wishes. When I was seven years ofage she asked me not to drink, and then I made a resolution of totalabstinence; and that I have adhered to it through all time I owe to mymother. '

I never saw anything so curious. It is almost an exact epitome of my ownmoral career--after simply substituting a grandmother for a mother. Howwell I remember my grandmother's asking me not to use tobacco, good oldsoul! She said, "You're at it again, are you, you whelp? Now don't everlet me catch you chewing tobacco before breakfast again, or I lay I'llblacksnake you within an inch of your life!" I have never touched it atthat hour of the morning from that time to the present day. 

She asked me not to gamble. She whispered and said, "Put up those wickedcards this minute!--two pair and a jack, you numskull, and the otherfellow's got a flush!"

I never have gambled from that day to this--never once--without a "colddeck" in my pocket. I cannot even tell who is going to lose in gamesthat are being played unless I deal myself. 

When I was two years of age she asked me not to drink, and then I made aresolution of total abstinence. That I have adhered to it and enjoyedthe beneficent effects of it through all time, I owe to my grandmother. I have never drunk a drop from that day to this of any kind of water. 

HONORED AS A CURIOSITY

If you get into conversation with a stranger in Honolulu, and experiencethat natural desire to know what sort of ground you are treading on byfinding out what manner of man your stranger is, strike out boldly andaddress him as "Captain. " Watch him narrowly, and if you see by hiscountenance that you are on the wrong track, ask him where he preaches. It is a safe bet that he is either a missionary or captain of a whaler. I became personally acquainted with seventy-two captains and ninety-sixmissionaries. The captains and ministers form one-half of thepopulation; the third fourth is composed of common Kanakas and mercantileforeigners and their families; and the final fourth is made up of highofficers of the Hawaiian Government. And there are just about catsenough for three apiece all around. 

A solemn stranger met me in the suburbs one day, and said:

"Good morning, your reverence. Preach in the stone church yonder, nodoubt!"

"No, I don't. I'm not a preacher. "

"Really, I beg your pardon, captain. I trust you had a good season. Howmuch oil--"

"Oil! Why, what do you take me for? I'm not a whaler. "

"Oh! I beg a thousand pardons, your Excellency. Major-General in thehousehold troops, no doubt? Minister of the Interior, likely? Secretaryof War? First Gentleman of the Bedchamber? Commissioner of the Royal--"

"Stuff, man! I'm not connected in any way with the government. "

"Bless my life! Then who the mischief are you? what the mischief areyou? and how the mischief did you get here? and where in thunder did youcome from?"

"I'm only a private personage--an unassuming stranger--lately arrivedfrom America. "

"No! Not a missionary! not a whaler! not a member of his Majesty'sgovernment! not even a Secretary of the Navy! Ah! Heaven! it is tooblissful to be true, alas! I do but dream. And yet that noble, honestcountenance--those oblique, ingenuous eyes--that massive head, incapableof--of anything; your hand; give me your hand, bright waif. Excuse thesetears. For sixteen weary years I have yearned for a moment like this, and--"

Here his feelings were too much for him, and he swooned away. I pitiedthis poor creature from the bottom of my heart. I was deeply moved. I shed a few tears on him, and kissed him for his mother. I then tookwhat small change he had, and "shoved. "

FIRST INTERVIEW WITH ARTEMUS WARD--[Written about 1870. ]

I had never seen him before. He brought letters of introduction frommutual friends in San Francisco, and by invitation I breakfasted withhim. It was almost religion, there in the silver-mines, to precede sucha meal with whisky cocktails. Artemus, with the true cosmopolitaninstinct, always deferred to the customs of the country he was in, and sohe ordered three of those abominations. Hingston was present. I said Iwould rather not drink a whisky cocktail. I said it would go right to myhead, and confuse me so that I would be in a helpless tangle in tenminutes. I did not want to act like a lunatic before strangers. ButArtemus gently insisted, and I drank the treasonable mixture underprotest, and felt all the time that I was doing a thing I might be sorryfor. In a minute or two I began to imagine that my ideas were clouded. I waited in great anxiety for the conversation to open, with a sort ofvague hope that my understanding would prove clear, after all, and mymisgivings groundless. 

Artemus dropped an unimportant remark or two, and then assumed a look ofsuperhuman earnestness, and made the following astounding speech. Hesaid:

"Now there is one thing I ought to ask you about before I forget it. Youhave been here in Silver land--here in Nevada--two or three years, and, of course, your position on the daily press has made it necessary for youto go down in the mines and examine them carefully in detail, andtherefore you know all about the silver-mining business. Now what I wantto get at is--is, well, the way the deposits of ore are made, you know. For instance. Now, as I understand it, the vein which contains thesilver is sandwiched in between casings of granite, and runs along theground, and sticks up like a curb stone. Well, take a vein forty feetthick, for example, or eighty, for that matter, or even a hundred--sayyou go down on it with a shaft, straight down, you know, or with what youcall 'incline' maybe you go down five hundred feet, or maybe you don't godown but two hundred--anyway, you go down, and all the time this veingrows narrower, when the casings come nearer or approach each other, youmay say--that is, when they do approach, which, of course, they do notalways do, particularly in cases where the nature of the formation issuch that they stand apart wider than they otherwise would, and whichgeology has failed to account for, although everything in that sciencegoes to prove that, all things being equal, it would if it did not, orwould not certainly if it did, and then, of course, they are. Do not youthink it is?"

I said to myself:

"Now I just knew how it would be--that whisky cocktail has done thebusiness for me; I don't understand any more than a clam. "

And then I said aloud:

"I--I--that is--if you don't mind, would you--would you say that overagain? I ought--"

"Oh, certainly, certainly! You see I am very unfamiliar with thesubject, and perhaps I don't present my case clearly, but I--"

"No, no-no, no-you state it plain enough, but that cocktail has muddledme a little. But I will no, I do understand for that matter; but I wouldget the hang of it all the better if you went over it again-and I'll paybetter attention this time. "

He said; "Why, what I was after was this. "

[Here he became even more fearfully impressive than ever, and emphasizedeach particular point by checking it off on his finger-ends. ]

"This vein, or lode, or ledge, or whatever you call it, runs alongbetween two layers of granite, just the same as if it were a sandwich. Very well. Now suppose you go down on that, say a thousand feet, ormaybe twelve hundred (it don't really matter) before you drift, and thenyou start your drifts, some of them across the ledge, and others alongthe length of it, where the sulphurets--I believe they call themsulphurets, though why they should, considering that, so far as I cansee, the main dependence of a miner does not so lie, as some suppose, butin which it cannot be successfully maintained, wherein the same shouldnot continue, while part and parcel of the same ore not committed toeither in the sense referred to, whereas, under different circumstances, the most inexperienced among us could not detect it if it were, or mightoverlook it if it did, or scorn the very idea of such a thing, eventhough it were palpably demonstrated as such. Am I not right?"

I said, sorrowfully: "I feel ashamed of myself, Mr. Ward. I know Iought to understand you perfectly well, but you see that treacherouswhisky cocktail has got into my head, and now I cannot understand eventhe simplest proposition. I told you how it would be. "

"Oh, don't mind it, don't mind it; the fault was my own, no doubt--thoughI did think it clear enough for--"

"Don't say a word. Clear! Why, you stated it as clear as the sun toanybody but an abject idiot; but it's that confounded cocktail that hasplayed the mischief. "

"No; now don't say that. I'll begin it all over again, and--"

"Don't now--for goodness' sake, don't do anything of the kind, because Itell you my head is in such a condition that I don't believe I couldunderstand the most trifling question a man could ask me. 

"Now don't you be afraid. I'll put it so plain this time that you can'thelp but get the hang of it. We will begin at the very beginning. "[Leaning far across the table, with determined impressiveness wroughtupon his every feature, and fingers prepared to keep tally of each pointenumerated; and I, leaning forward with painful interest, resolved tocomprehend or perish. ] "You know the vein, the ledge, the thing thatcontains the metal, whereby it constitutes the medium between all otherforces, whether of present or remote agencies, so brought to bear infavor of the former against the latter, or the latter against the formeror all, or both, or compromising the relative differences existing withinthe radius whence culminate the several degrees of similarity to which--"

I said: "Oh, hang my wooden head, it ain't any use!--it ain't any use totry--I can't understand anything. The plainer you get it the more Ican't get the hang of it. "

I heard a suspicious noise behind me, and turned in time to see Hingstondodging behind a newspaper, and quaking with a gentle ecstasy oflaughter. I looked at Ward again, and he had thrown off his dreadsolemnity and was laughing also. Then I saw that I had been sold--that Ihad been made a victim of a swindle in the way of a string of plausiblyworded sentences that didn't mean anything under the sun. Artemus Wardwas one of the best fellows in the world, and one of the mostcompanionable. It has been said that he was not fluent in conversation, but, with the above experience in my mind, I differ. 

CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS--[Written abort 1867. ]

I visited St. Louis lately, and on my way West, after changing cars atTerre Haute, Indiana, a mild, benevolent-looking gentleman of aboutforty-five, or maybe fifty, came in at one of the way-stations and satdown beside me. We talked together pleasantly on various subjects for anhour, perhaps, and I found him exceedingly intelligent and entertaining. When he learned that I was from Washington, he immediately began to askquestions about various public men, and about Congressional affairs; andI saw very shortly that I was conversing with a man who was perfectlyfamiliar with the ins and outs of political life at the Capital, even tothe ways and manners, and customs of procedure of Senators andRepresentatives in the Chambers of the national Legislature. Presentlytwo men halted near us for a single moment, and one said to the other:

"Harris, if you'll do that for me, I'll never forget you, my boy. "

My new comrade's eye lighted pleasantly. The words had touched upon ahappy memory, I thought. Then his face settled into thoughtfulness--almost into gloom. He turned to me and said, "Let me tell you a story; let me give you a secret chapter of my life--a chapter that has never been referred to by me since its eventstranspired. Listen patiently, and promise that you will not interruptme. "

I said I would not, and he related the following strange adventure, speaking sometimes with animation, sometimes with melancholy, but alwayswith feeling and earnestness. 

 THE STRANGER'S NARRATIVE

"On the 19th of December, 1853, I started from St. Louis on the eveningtrain bound for Chicago. There were only twenty-four passengers, alltold. There were no ladies and no children. We were in excellentspirits, and pleasant acquaintanceships were soon formed. The journeybade fair to be a happy one; and no individual in the party, I think, hadeven the vaguest presentiment of the horrors we were soon to undergo. 

"At 11 P. M. It began to snow hard. Shortly after leaving the smallvillage of Welden, we entered upon that tremendous prairie solitude thatstretches its leagues on leagues of houseless dreariness far away towardthe jubilee Settlements. The winds, unobstructed by trees or hills, oreven vagrant rocks, whistled fiercely across the level desert, drivingthe falling snow before it like spray from the crested waves of a stormysea. The snow was deepening fast; and we knew, by the diminished speedof the train, that the engine was plowing through it with steadilyincreasing difficulty. Indeed, it almost came to a dead halt sometimes, in the midst of great drifts that piled themselves like colossal gravesacross the track. Conversation began to flag. Cheerfulness gave placeto grave concern. The possibility of being imprisoned in the snow, onthe bleak prairie, fifty miles from any house, presented itself to everymind, and extended its depressing influence over every spirit. 

"At two o'clock in the morning I was aroused out of an uneasy slumber bythe ceasing of all motion about me. The appalling truth flashed upon meinstantly--we were captives in a snow-drift! 'All hands to the rescue!'Every man sprang to obey. Out into the wild night, the pitchy darkness, the billowy snow, the driving storm, every soul leaped, with theconsciousness that a moment lost now might bring destruction to us all. Shovels, hands, boards--anything, everything that could displace snow, was brought into instant requisition. It was a weird picture, that smallcompany of frantic men fighting the banking snows, half in the blackestshadow and half in the angry light of the locomotive's reflector. 

"One short hour sufficed to prove the utter uselessness of our efforts. The storm barricaded the track with a dozen drifts while we dug one away. And worse than this, it was discovered that the last grand charge theengine had made upon the enemy had broken the fore-and-aft shaft of thedriving-wheel! With a free track before us we should still have beenhelpless. We entered the car wearied with labor, and very sorrowful. We gathered about the stoves, and gravely canvassed our situation. Wehad no provisions whatever--in this lay our chief distress. We could notfreeze, for there was a good supply of wood in the tender. This was ouronly comfort. The discussion ended at last in accepting thedisheartening decision of the conductor, viz. , that it would be death forany man to attempt to travel fifty miles on foot through snow like that. We could not send for help, and even if we could it would not come. Wemust submit, and await, as patiently as we might, succor or starvation!I think the stoutest heart there felt a momentary chill when those wordswere uttered. 

"Within the hour conversation subsided to a low murmur here and thereabout the car, caught fitfully between the rising and falling of theblast; the lamps grew dim; and the majority of the castaways settledthemselves among the flickering shadows to think--to forget the present, if they could--to sleep, if they might. 

"The eternal night-it surely seemed eternal to us-wore its lagging hoursaway at last, and the cold gray dawn broke in the east. As the lightgrew stronger the passengers began to stir and give signs of life, oneafter another, and each in turn pushed his slouched hat up from hisforehead, stretched his stiffened limbs, and glanced out of the windowsupon the cheerless prospect. It was cheer less, indeed!-not a livingthing visible anywhere, not a human habitation; nothing but a vast whitedesert; uplifted sheets of snow drifting hither and thither before thewind--a world of eddying flakes shutting out the firmament above. 

"All day we moped about the cars, saying little, thinking much. Anotherlingering dreary night--and hunger. 

"Another dawning--another day of silence, sadness, wasting hunger, hopeless watching for succor that could not come. A night of restlessslumber, filled with dreams of feasting--wakings distressed with thegnawings of hunger. 

"The fourth day came and went--and the fifth! Five days of dreadfulimprisonment! A savage hunger looked out at every eye. There was in ita sign of awful import--the foreshadowing of a something that was vaguelyshaping itself in every heart--a something which no tongue dared yet toframe into words. 

"The sixth day passed--the seventh dawned upon as gaunt and haggard andhopeless a company of men as ever stood in the shadow of death. It mustout now! That thing which had been growing up in every heart was readyto leap from every lip at last! Nature had been taxed to the utmost--shemust yield. RICHARD H. GASTON of Minnesota, tall, cadaverous, and pale, rose up. All knew what was coming. All prepared--every emotion, everysemblance of excitement--was smothered--only a calm, thoughtfulseriousness appeared in the eyes that were lately so wild. 

"'Gentlemen: It cannot be delayed longer! The time is at hand! We mustdetermine which of us shall die to furnish food for the rest!'

"MR. JOHN J. WILLIAMS of Illinois rose and said: 'Gentlemen--I nominatethe Rev. James Sawyer of Tennessee. '

"MR. Wm. R. ADAMS of Indiana said: 'I nominate Mr. Daniel Slote of NewYork. '

"MR. CHARLES J. LANGDON: 'I nominate Mr. Samuel A. Bowen of St. Louis. '

"MR. SLOTE: 'Gentlemen--I desire to decline in favor of Mr. John A. VanNostrand, Jun. , of New Jersey. '

"MR. GASTON: 'If there be no objection, the gentleman's desire will beacceded to. '

"MR. VAN NOSTRAND objecting, the resignation of Mr. Slote was rejected. The resignations of Messrs. Sawyer and Bowen were also offered, andrefused upon the same grounds. 

"MR. A. L. BASCOM of Ohio: 'I move that the nominations now close, andthat the House proceed to an election by ballot. '

"MR. SAWYER: 'Gentlemen--I protest earnestly against these proceedings. They are, in every way, irregular and unbecoming. I must beg to movethat they be dropped at once, and that we elect a chairman of the meetingand proper officers to assist him, and then we can go on with thebusiness before us understandingly. '

"MR. BELL of Iowa: 'Gentlemen--I object. This is no time to stand uponforms and ceremonious observances. For more than seven days we have beenwithout food. Every moment we lose in idle discussion increases ourdistress. I am satisfied with the nominations that have been made--everygentleman present is, I believe--and I, for one, do not see why we shouldnot proceed at once to elect one or more of them. I wish to offer aresolution--'

"MR. GASTON: 'It would be objected to, and have to lie over one day underthe rules, thus bringing about the very delay you wish to avoid. Thegentleman from New Jersey--'

"MR. VAN NOSTRAND: 'Gentlemen--I am a stranger among you; I have notsought the distinction that has been conferred upon me, and I feel adelicacy--'

"MR. MORGAN Of Alabama (interrupting): 'I move the previous question. '

"The motion was carried, and further debate shut off, of course. Themotion to elect officers was passed, and under it Mr. Gaston was chosenchairman, Mr. Blake, secretary, Messrs. Holcomb, Dyer, and Baldwin acommittee on nominations, and Mr. R. M. Howland, purveyor, to assist thecommittee in making selections. 

"A recess of half an hour was then taken, and some little caucusingfollowed. At the sound of the gavel the meeting reassembled, and thecommittee reported in favor of Messrs. George Ferguson of Kentucky, Lucien Herrman of Louisiana, and W. Messick of Colorado as candidates. The report was accepted. 

"MR. ROGERS of Missouri: 'Mr. President The report being properly beforethe House now, I move to amend it by substituting for the name of Mr. Herrman that of Mr. Lucius Harris of St. Louis, who is well andhonorably known to us all. I do not wish to be understood as casting theleast reflection upon the high character and standing of the gentlemanfrom Louisiana far from it. I respect and esteem him as much as anygentleman here present possibly can; but none of us can be blind to thefact that he has lost more flesh during the week that we have lain herethan any among us--none of us can be blind to the fact that the committeehas been derelict in its duty, either through negligence or a graverfault, in thus offering for our suffrages a gentleman who, however purehis own motives may be, has really less nutriment in him--'

"THE CHAIR: 'The gentleman from Missouri will take his seat. The Chaircannot allow the integrity of the committee to be questioned save by theregular course, under the rules. What action will the House take uponthe gentleman's motion?'

"MR. HALLIDAY of Virginia: 'I move to further amend the report bysubstituting Mr. Harvey Davis of Oregon for Mr. Messick. It may be urgedby gentlemen that the hardships and privations of a frontier life haverendered Mr. Davis tough; but, gentlemen, is this a time to cavil attoughness? Is this a time to be fastidious concerning trifles? Is thisa time to dispute about matters of paltry significance? No, gentlemen, bulk is what we desire--substance, weight, bulk--these are the supremerequisites now--not talent, not genius, not education. I insist upon mymotion. '

"MR. MORGAN (excitedly): 'Mr. Chairman--I do most strenuously object tothis amendment. The gentleman from Oregon is old, and furthermore isbulky only in bone--not in flesh. I ask the gentleman from Virginia ifit is soup we want instead of solid sustenance? if he would delude uswith shadows? if he would mock our suffering with an Oregonian specter?I ask him if he can look upon the anxious faces around him, if he cangaze into our sad eyes, if he can listen to the beating of our expectanthearts, and still thrust this famine-stricken fraud upon us? I ask himif he can think of our desolate state, of our past sorrows, of our darkfuture, and still unpityingly foist upon us this wreck, this ruin, thistottering swindle, this gnarled and blighted and sapless vagabond fromOregon's hospitable shores? Never!' [Applause. ]

"The amendment was put to vote, after a fiery debate, and lost. Mr. Harris was substituted on the first amendment. The balloting then began. Five ballots were held without a choice. On the sixth, Mr. Harris waselected, all voting for him but himself. It was then moved that hiselection should be ratified by acclamation, which was lost, inconsequence of his again voting against himself. 

"MR. RADWAY moved that the House now take up the remaining candidates, and go into an election for breakfast. This was carried. 

"On the first ballot--there was a tie, half the members favoring onecandidate on account of his youth, and half favoring the other on accountof his superior size. The President gave the casting vote for thelatter, Mr. Messick. This decision created considerable dissatisfactionamong the friends of Mr. Ferguson, the defeated candidate, and there wassome talk of demanding a new ballot; but in the midst of it a motion toadjourn was carried, and the meeting broke up at once. 

"The preparations for supper diverted the attention of the Fergusonfaction from the discussion of their grievance for a long time, and then, when they would have taken it up again, the happy announcement that Mr. Harris was ready drove all thought of it to the winds. 

"We improvised tables by propping up the backs of car-seats, and sat downwith hearts full of gratitude to the finest supper that had blessed ourvision for seven torturing days. How changed we were from what we hadbeen a few short hours before! Hopeless, sad-eyed misery, hunger, feverish anxiety, desperation, then; thankfulness, serenity, joy too deepfor utterance now. That I know was the cheeriest hour of my eventfullife. The winds howled, and blew the snow wildly about our prison house, but they were powerless to distress us any more. I liked Harris. Hemight have been better done, perhaps, but I am free to say that no manever agreed with me better than Harris, or afforded me so large a degreeof satisfaction. Messick was very well, though rather high-flavored, but for genuine nutritiousness and delicacy of fiber, give me Harris. Messick had his good points--I will not attempt to deny it, nor do I wishto do it but he was no more fitted for breakfast than a mummy would be, sir--not a bit. Lean?--why, bless me!--and tough? Ah, he was verytough! You could not imagine it--you could never imagine anything likeit. "

"Do you mean to tell me that--"

"Do not interrupt me, please. After breakfast we elected a man by thename of Walker, from Detroit, for supper. He was very good. I wrote hiswife so afterward. He was worthy of all praise. I shall always rememberWalker. He was a little rare, but very good. And then the next morningwe had Morgan of Alabama for breakfast. He was one of the finest men Iever sat down to handsome, educated, refined, spoke several languagesfluently a perfect gentleman he was a perfect gentleman, and singularlyjuicy. For supper we had that Oregon patriarch, and he was a fraud, there is no question about it--old, scraggy, tough, nobody can picturethe reality. I finally said, gentlemen, you can do as you like, but Iwill wait for another election. And Grimes of Illinois said, 'Gentlemen, I will wait also. When you elect a man that has something to recommendhim, I shall be glad to join you again. ' It soon became evident thatthere was general dissatisfaction with Davis of Oregon, and so, topreserve the good will that had prevailed so pleasantly since we had hadHarris, an election was called, and the result of it was that Baker ofGeorgia was chosen. He was splendid! Well, well--after that we hadDoolittle, and Hawkins, and McElroy (there was some complaint aboutMcElroy, because he was uncommonly short and thin), and Penrod, and twoSmiths, and Bailey (Bailey had a wooden leg, which was clear loss, but hewas otherwise good), and an Indian boy, and an organ-grinder, and agentleman by the name of Buckminster--a poor stick of a vagabond thatwasn't any good for company and no account for breakfast. We were gladwe got him elected before relief came. "

"And so the blessed relief did come at last?"

"Yes, it came one bright, sunny morning, just after election. JohnMurphy was the choice, and there never was a better, I am willing totestify; but John Murphy came home with us, in the train that came tosuccor us, and lived to marry the widow Harris--"

"Relict of--"

"Relict of our first choice. He married her, and is happy and respectedand prosperous yet. Ah, it was like a novel, sir--it was like a romance. This is my stopping-place, sir; I must bid you goodby. Any time that youcan make it convenient to tarry a day or two with me, I shall be glad tohave you. I like you, sir; I have conceived an affection for you. I could like you as well as I liked Harris himself, sir. Good day, sir, and a pleasant journey. "

He was gone. I never felt so stunned, so distressed, so bewildered in mylife. But in my soul I was glad he was gone. With all his gentleness ofmanner and his soft voice, I shuddered whenever he turned his hungry eyeupon me; and when I heard that I had achieved his perilous affection, andthat I stood almost with the late Harris in his esteem, my heart fairlystood still!

I was bewildered beyond description. I did not doubt his word; I couldnot question a single item in a statement so stamped with the earnestnessof truth as his; but its dreadful details overpowered me, and threw mythoughts into hopeless confusion. I saw the conductor looking at me. I said, "Who is that man?"

"He was a member of Congress once, and a good one. But he got caught ina snow-drift in the cars, and like to have been starved to death. He gotso frost-bitten and frozen up generally, and used up for want ofsomething to eat, that he was sick and out of his head two or threemonths afterward. He is all right now, only he is a monomaniac, and whenhe gets on that old subject he never stops till he has eat up that wholecar-load of people he talks about. He would have finished the crowd bythis time, only he had to get out here. He has got their names as pat asA B C. When he gets them all eat up but himself, he always says: 'Thenthe hour for the usual election for breakfast having arrived; and therebeing no opposition, I was duly elected, after which, there being noobjections offered, I resigned. Thus I am here. '"

I felt inexpressibly relieved to know that I had only been listening tothe harmless vagaries of a madman instead of the genuine experiences of abloodthirsty cannibal. 

THE KILLING OF JULIUS CAESAR "LOCALIZED"--[Written about 1865. ]

Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from theRoman "Daily Evening Fasces, " of the date of that tremendous occurrence. 

Nothing in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much satisfaction asgathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious murder and writingthem up with aggravating circumstantiality. He takes a living delight inthis labor of love--for such it is to him, especially if he knows thatall the other papers have gone to press, and his will be the only onethat will contain the dreadful intelligence. A feeling of regret hasoften come over me that I was not reporting in Rome when Caesar waskilled--reporting on an evening paper, and the only one in the city, andgetting at least twelve hours ahead of the morning-paper boys with thismost magnificent "item" that ever fell to the lot of the craft. Otherevents have happened as startling as this, but none that possessed sopeculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite "item" of the presentday, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high rank, fame, andsocial and political standing of the actors in it. 

However, as I was not permitted to report Caesar's assassination in theregular way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to translatethe following able account of it from the original Latin of the RomanDaily Evening Fasces of that date--second edition:

Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild excitementyesterday by the occurrence of one of those bloody affrays which sickenthe heart and fill the soul with fear, while they inspire all thinkingmen with forebodings for the future of a city where human life is held socheaply and the gravest laws are so openly set at defiance. As theresult of that affray, it is our painful duty, as public journalists, torecord the death of one of our most esteemed citizens--a man whose nameis known wherever this paper circulates, and where fame it has been ourpleasure and our privilege to extend, and also to protect from the tongueof slander and falsehood, to the best of our poor ability. We refer toMr. J. Caesar, the Emperor-elect. 

The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could determine themfrom the conflicting statements of eye-witnesses, were about asfollows:--The affair was an election row, of course. Nine-tenths of theghastly butcheries that disgrace the city nowadays grow out of thebickerings and jealousies and animosities engendered by these accursedelections. Rome would be the gainer by it if her very constables wereelected to serve a century; for in our experience we have never even beenable to choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozenknockdowns and a general cramming of the station-house with drunkenvagabonds overnight. It is said that when the immense majority for Caesarat the polls in the market was declared the other day, and the crown wasoffered to that gentleman, even his amazing unselfishness in refusing itthree times was not sufficient to save him from the whispered insults ofsuch men as Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and other hirelings of thedisappointed candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenthand other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically andcontemptuously of Mr. Caesar's conduct upon that occasion. 

We are further informed that there are many among us who think they arejustified in believing that the assassination of Julius Caesar was aput-up thing--a cut-and-dried arrangement, hatched by Marcus Brutus and alot of his hired roughs, and carried out only too faithfully according tothe program. Whether there be good grounds for this suspicion or not, weleave to the people to judge for themselves, only asking that they willread the following account of the sad occurrence carefully anddispassionately before they render that judgment. 

The Senate was already in session, and Caesar was coming down the streettoward the capitol, conversing with some personal friends, and followed, as usual, by a large number of citizens. Just as he was passing in frontof Demosthenes and Thucydides' drug store, he was observing casually to agentleman, who, our informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Idesof March were come. The reply was, "Yes, they are come, but not goneyet. " At this moment Artemidorus stepped up and passed the time of day, and asked Caesar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the kind, which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus also saidsomething about an "humble suit" which he wanted read. Artexnidorusbegged that attention might be paid to his first, because it was ofpersonal consequence to Caesar. The latter replied that what concernedhimself should be read last, or words to that effect. Artemidorus beggedand beseeched him to read the paper instantly!--[Mark that: It is hintedby William Shakespeare, who saw the beginning and the end of theunfortunate affray, that this "schedule" was simply a note discovering toCaesar that a plot was brewing to take his life. ]--However, Caesarshook him off, and refused to read any petition in the street. He thenentered the capitol, and the crowd followed him. 

About this time the following conversation was overheard, and we considerthat, taken in connection with the events which succeeded it, it bears anappalling significance: Mr. Papilius Lena remarked to George W. Cassias(commonly known as the "Nobby Boy of the Third Ward"), a bruiser in thepay of the Opposition, that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive;and when Cassias asked "What enterprise?" he only closed his left eyetemporarily and said with simulated indifference, "Fare you well, " andsauntered toward Caesar. Marcus Brutus, who is suspected of being theringleader of the band that killed Caesar, asked what it was that Lenahad said. Cassias told him, and added in a low tone, "I fear our purposeis discovered. "

Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep an eye on Lena, and a momentafter Cassias urged that lean and hungry vagrant, Casca, whose reputationhere is none of the best, to be sudden, for he feared prevention. Hethen turned to Brutus, apparently much excited, and asked what should bedone, and swore that either he or Caesar would never turn back--he wouldkill himself first. At this time Caesar was talking to some of theback-country members about the approaching fall elections, and payinglittle attention to what was going on around him. Billy Trebonius gotinto conversation with the people's friend and Caesar's--Mark Antony--andunder some pretense or other got him away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and others of the gang of infamous desperadoesthat infest Rome at present, closed around the doomed Caesar. ThenMetellus Cimber knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalledfrom banishment, but Caesar rebuked him for his fawning conduct, andrefused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's request, firstBrutus and then Cassias begged for the return of the banished Publius;but Caesar still refused. He said he could not be moved; that he was asfixed as the North Star, and proceeded to speak in the most complimentaryterms of the firmness of that star and its steady character. Then hesaid he was like it, and he believed he was the only man in the countrythat was; therefore, since he was "constant" that Cimber should bebanished, he was also "constant" that he should stay banished, and he'dbe hanged if he didn't keep him so!

Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight, Casca sprang atCaesar and struck him with a dirk, Caesar grabbing him by the arm withhis right hand, and launching a blow straight from the shoulder with hisleft, that sent the reptile bleeding to the earth. He then backed upagainst Pompey's statue, and squared himself to receive his assailants. Cassias and Cimber and Cinna rushed, upon him with their daggers drawn, and the former succeeded in inflicting a wound upon his body; but beforehe could strike again, and before either of the others could strike atall, Caesar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as many blowsof his powerful fist. By this time the Senate was in an indescribableuproar; the throng of citizens is the lobbies had blockaded the doors intheir frantic efforts to escape from the building, the sergeant-at-armsand his assistants were struggling with the assassins, venerable senatorshad cast aside their encumbering robes, and were leaping over benches andflying down the aisles in wild confusion toward the shelter of thecommittee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting "Po-lice! Po-lice!"in discordant tones that rose above the frightful din like shriekingwinds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it all great Caesar stoodwith his back against the statue, like a lion at bay, and fought hisassailants weaponless and hand to hand, with the defiant bearing and theunwavering courage which he had shown before on many a bloody field. Billy Trebonius and Caius Legarius struck him with their daggers andfell, as their brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last, when Caesar saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a murderousknife, it is said he seemed utterly overpowered with grief and amazement, and, dropping his invincible left arm by his side, he hid his face in thefolds of his mantle and received the treacherous blow without an effortto stay the hand that gave it. He only said, "Et tu, Brute?" and felllifeless on the marble pavement. 

We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was the sameone he wore in his tent on the afternoon of the day he overcame theNervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse it was found to becut and gashed in no less than seven different places. There was nothingin the pockets. It will be exhibited at the coroner's inquest, and willbe damning proof of the fact of the killing. These latter facts may berelied on, as we get them from Mark Antony, whose position enables him tolearn every item of news connected with the one subject of absorbinginterest of-to-day. 

LATER: While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and otherfriends of the late Caesar got hold of the body, and lugged it off to theForum, and at last accounts Antony and Brutus were making speeches overit and raising such a row among the people that, as we go to press, thechief of police is satisfied there is going to be a riot, and is takingmeasures accordingly. 

THE WIDOW'S PROTEST

One of the saddest things that ever came under my notice (said thebanker's clerk) was there in Corning during the war. Dan Murphy enlistedas a private, and fought very bravely. The boys all liked him, and whena wound by and by weakened him down till carrying a musket was too heavywork for him, they clubbed together and fixed him up as a sutler. Hemade money then, and sent it always to his wife to bank for him. She wasa washer and ironer, and knew enough by hard experience to keep moneywhen she got it. She didn't waste a penny. 

On the contrary, she began to get miserly as her bank-account grew. Shegrieved to part with a cent, poor creature, for twice in her hard-workinglife she had known what it was to be hungry, cold, friendless, sick, andwithout a dollar in the world, and she had a haunting dread of sufferingso again. Well, at last Dan died; and the boys, in testimony of theiresteem and respect for him, telegraphed to Mrs. Murphy to know if shewould like to have him embalmed and sent home; when you know the usualcustom was to dump a poor devil like him into a shallow hole, and theninform his friends what had become of him. Mrs. Murphy jumped to theconclusion that it would only cost two or three dollars to embalm herdead husband, and so she telegraphed "Yes. " It was at the "wake" thatthe bill for embalming arrived and was presented to the widow. 

She uttered a wild, sad wail that pierced every heart, and said, "Sivinty-foive dollars for stooffin' Dan, blister their sowls! Did thimdivils suppose I was goin' to stairt a Museim, that I'd be dalin' in suchexpinsive curiassities!"

The banker's clerk said there was not a dry eye in the house. 

THE SCRIPTURAL PANORAMIST--[Written about 1866. ]

"There was a fellow traveling around in that country, " said Mr. Nickerson, "with a moral-religious show--a sort of scriptural panorama--and he hired a wooden-headed old slab to play the piano for him. After the first night's performance the showman says:

"'My friend, you seem to know pretty much all the tunes there are, andyou worry along first rate. But then, didn't you notice that sometimeslast night the piece you happened to be playing was a little rough on theproprieties, so to speak--didn't seem to jibe with the general gait ofthe picture that was passing at the time, as it were--was a littleforeign to the subject, you know--as if you didn't either trump or followsuit, you understand?'

"'Well, no, ' the fellow said; 'he hadn't noticed, but it might be; he hadplayed along just as it came handy. '

"So they put it up that the simple old dummy was to keep his eye on thepanorama after that, and as soon as a stunning picture was reeled out hewas to fit it to a dot with a piece of music that would help the audienceto get the idea of the subject, and warm them up like a camp-meetingrevival. That sort of thing would corral their sympathies, the showmansaid. 

"There was a big audience that night-mostly middle-aged and old peoplewho belong to the church, and took a strong interest in Bible matters, and the balance were pretty much young bucks and heifers--they alwayscome out strong on panoramas, you know, because it gives them a chance totaste one another's complexions in the dark. 

"Well, the showman began to swell himself up for his lecture, and the oldmud-Jobber tackled the piano and ran his fingers up and down once ortwice to see that she was all right, and the fellows behind the curtaincommenced to grind out the panorama. The showman balanced his weight onhis right foot, and propped his hands over his hips, and flung his eyesover his shoulder at the scenery, and said:

"'Ladies and gentlemen, the painting now before you illustrates thebeautiful and touching parable of the Prodigal Son. Observe the happyexpression just breaking over the features of the poor, suffering youth--so worn and weary with his long march; note also the ecstasy beamingfrom the uplifted countenance of the aged father, and the joy thatsparkles in the eyes of the excited group of youths and maidens, andseems ready to burst into the welcoming chorus from their lips. Thelesson, my friends, is as solemn and instructive as the story is tenderand beautiful. '

"The mud-Jobber was all ready, and when the second speech was finished, struck up:

 "Oh, we'll all get blind drunk When Johnny comes marching home!

"Some of the people giggled, and some groaned a little. The showmancouldn't say a word; he looked at the pianist sharp, but he was alllovely and serene--he didn't know there was anything out of gear. 

"The panorama moved on, and the showman drummed up his grit and startedin fresh. 

"'Ladies and gentlemen, the fine picture now unfolding itself to yourgaze exhibits one of the most notable events in Bible history--ourSaviour and His disciples upon the Sea of Galilee. How grand, howawe-inspiring are the reflections which the subject invokes! Whatsublimity of faith is revealed to us in this lesson from the sacredwritings! The Saviour rebukes the angry waves, and walks securelyupon the bosom of the deep!'

"All around the house they were whispering, 'Oh, how lovely, howbeautiful!' and the orchestra let himself out again:

 "A life on the ocean wave, And a home on the rolling deep!

"There was a good deal of honest snickering turned on this time, andconsiderable groaning, and one or two old deacons got up and went out. The showman grated his teeth, and cursed the piano man to himself; butthe fellow sat there like a knot on a log, and seemed to think he wasdoing first-rate. 

"After things got quiet the showman thought he would make one morestagger at it, anyway, though his confidence was beginning to get mightyshaky. The supes started the panorama grinding along again, and he says:

"'Ladies and gentlemen, this exquisite painting represents the raising ofLazarus from the dead by our Saviour. The subject has been handled withmarvelous skill by the artist, and such touching sweetness and tendernessof expression has he thrown into it that I have known peculiarlysensitive persons to be even affected to tears by looking at it. Observethe half-confused, half-inquiring look upon the countenance of theawakened Lazarus. Observe, also, the attitude and expression of theSaviour, who takes him gently by the sleeve of his shroud with one hand, while He points with the other toward the distant city. '

"Before anybody could get off an opinion in the case the innocent old assat the piano struck up:

 "Come rise up, William Ri-i-ley, And go along with me!

"Whe-ew! All the solemn old flats got up in a huff to go, and everybodyelse laughed till the windows rattled. 

"The showman went down and grabbed the orchestra and shook him up andsays:

"'That lets you out, you know, you chowder-headed old clam. Go to thedoorkeeper and get your money, and cut your stick--vamose the ranch!Ladies and gentlemen, circumstances over which I have no control compelme prematurely to dismiss the house. '"

CURING A COLD--[Written about 1864]

It is a good thing, perhaps, to write for the amusement of the public, but it is a far higher and nobler thing to write for their instruction, their profit, their actual and tangible benefit. The latter is the soleobject of this article. If it prove the means of restoring to health onesolitary sufferer among my race, of lighting up once more the fire ofhope and joy in his faded eyes, or bringing back to his dead heart againthe quick, generous impulses of other days, I shall be amply rewarded formy labor; my soul will be permeated with the sacred delight a Christian. Feels when he has done a good, unselfish deed. 

Having led a pure and blameless life, I am justified in believing that noman who knows me will reject the suggestions I am about to make, out offear that I am trying to deceive him. Let the public do itself the honorto read my experience in doctoring a cold, as herein set forth, and thenfollow in my footsteps. 

When the White House was burned in Virginia City, I lost my home, myhappiness, my constitution, and my trunk. The loss of the two firstnamed articles was a matter of no great consequence, since a home withouta mother, or a sister, or a distant young female relative in it, toremind you, by putting your soiled linen out of sight and taking yourboots down off the mantelpiece, that there are those who think about youand care for you, is easily obtained. And I cared nothing for the lossof my happiness, because, not being a poet, it could not be possible thatmelancholy would abide with me long. But to lose a good constitution anda better trunk were serious misfortunes. On the day of the fire myconstitution succumbed to a severe cold, caused by undue exertion ingetting ready to do something. I suffered to no purpose, too, becausethe plan I was figuring at for the extinguishing of the fire was soelaborate that I never got it completed until the middle of the followingweek. 

The first time I began to sneeze, a friend told me to go and bathe myfeet in hot water and go to bed. I did so. Shortly afterward, anotherfriend advised me to get up and take a cold shower-bath. I did thatalso. Within the hour, another friend assured me that it was policy to"feed a cold and starve a fever. " I had both. So I thought it best tofill myself up for the cold, and then keep dark and let the fever starveawhile. 

In a case of, this kind, I seldom do things by halves; I ate prettyheartily; I conferred my custom upon a stranger who had just opened hisrestaurant that morning; he waited near me in respectful silence until Ihad finished feeding my cold, when he inquired if the people aboutVirginia City were much afflicted with colds? I told him I thought theywere. He then went out and took in his sign. 

I started down toward the office, and on the way encountered anotherbosom friend, who told me that a quart of salt-water, taken warm, wouldcome as near curing a cold as anything in the world. I hardly thought Ihad room for it, but I tried it anyhow. The result was surprising. Ibelieved I had thrown up my immortal soul. 

Now, as I am giving my experience only for the benefit of those who aretroubled with the distemper I am writing about, I feel that they will seethe propriety of my cautioning them against following such portions of itas proved inefficient with me, and acting upon this conviction, I warnthem against warm salt-water. It may be a good enough remedy, but Ithink it is too severe. If I had another cold in the head, and therewere no course left me but to take either an earthquake or a quart ofwarm saltwater, I would take my chances on the earthquake. 

After the storm which had been raging in my stomach had subsided, and nomore good Samaritans happening along, I went on borrowing handkerchiefsagain and blowing them to atoms, as had been my custom in the earlystages of my cold, until I came across a lady who had just arrived fromover the plains, and who said she had lived in a part of the countrywhere doctors were scarce, and had from necessity acquired considerableskill in the treatment of simple "family complaints. " I knew she musthave had much experience, for she appeared to be a hundred and fiftyyears old. 

She mixed a decoction composed of molasses, aquafortis, turpentine, andvarious other drugs, and instructed me to take a wine-glass full of itevery fifteen minutes. I never took but one dose; that was enough; itrobbed me of all moral principle, and awoke every unworthy impulse of mynature. Under its malign influence my brain conceived miracles ofmeanness, but my hands were too feeble to execute them; at that time, hadit not been that my strength had surrendered to a succession of assaultsfrom infallible remedies for my cold, I am satisfied that I would havetried to rob the graveyard. Like most other people, I often feel mean, and act accordingly; but until I took that medicine I had never reveledin such supernatural depravity, and felt proud of it. At the end of twodays I was ready to go to doctoring again. I took a few more unfailingremedies, and finally drove my cold from my head to my lungs. 

I got to coughing incessantly, and my voice fell below zero; I conversedin a thundering bass, two octaves below my natural tone; I could onlycompass my regular nightly repose by coughing myself down to a state ofutter exhaustion, and then the moment I began to talk in my sleep, mydiscordant voice woke me up again. 

My case grew more and more serious every day. A Plain gin wasrecommended; I took it. Then gin and molasses; I took that also. Thengin and onions; I added the onions, and took all three. I detected noparticular result, however, except that I had acquired a breath like abuzzard's. 

I found I had to travel for my health. I went to Lake Bigler with myreportorial comrade, Wilson. It is gratifying to me to reflect that wetraveled in considerable style; we went in the Pioneer coach, and myfriend took all his baggage with him, consisting of two excellent silkhandkerchiefs and a daguerreotype of his grandmother. We sailed andhunted and fished and danced all day, and I doctored my cough all night. By managing in this way, I made out to improve every hour in thetwenty-four. But my disease continued to grow worse. 

A sheet-bath was recommended. I had never refused a remedy yet, and itseemed poor policy to commence then; therefore I determined to take asheet-bath, notwithstanding I had no idea what sort of arrangement itwas. It was administered at midnight, and the weather was very frosty. My breast and back were bared, and a sheet (there appeared to be athousand yards of it) soaked in ice-water, was wound around me until Iresembled a swab for a Columbiad. 

It is a cruel expedient. When the chilly rag touches one's warm flesh, it makes him start with sudden violence, and gasp for breath just as mendo in the death-agony. It froze the marrow in my bones and stopped thebeating of my heart. I thought my time had come. 

Young Wilson said the circumstance reminded him of an anecdote about anegro who was being baptized, and who slipped from the parson's grasp, and came near being drowned. He floundered around, though, and finallyrose up out of the water considerably strangled and furiously angry, andstarted ashore at once, spouting water like a whale, and remarking, withgreat asperity, that "one o' dese days some gen'l'man's nigger gwyne toget killed wid jis' such damn foolishness as dis!"

Never take a sheet-bath-never. Next to meeting a lady acquaintance who, for reasons best known to herself, don't see you when she looks at you, and don't know you when she does see you, it is the most uncomfortablething in the world. 

But, as I was saying, when the sheet-bath failed to cure my cough, a lady friend recommended the application of a mustard plaster to mybreast. I believe that would have cured me effectually, if it had notbeen for young Wilson. When I went to bed, I put my mustard plaster--which was a very gorgeous one, eighteen inches square--where I couldreach it when I was ready for it. But young Wilson got hungry in thenight, and here is food for the imagination. 

After sojourning a week at Lake Bigler, I went to Steamboat Springs, and, besides the steam-baths, I took a lot of the vilest medicines that wereever concocted. They would have cured me, but I had to go back toVirginia City, where, notwithstanding the variety of new remedies Iabsorbed every day, I managed to aggravate my disease by carelessness andundue exposure. 

I finally concluded to visit San Francisco, and the first day I gotthere a lady at the hotel told me to drink a quart of whisky everytwenty-four hours, and a friend up-town recommended precisely the samecourse. Each advised me to take a quart; that made half a gallon. I didit, and still live. 

Now, with the kindest motives in the world, I offer for the considerationof consumptive patients the variegated course of treatment I have latelygone through. Let them try it; if it don't cure, it can't more than killthem. 

A CURIOUS PLEASURE EXCURSION

--[Published at the time of the "Comet Scare" in the summer of 1874]

[We have received the following advertisement, but, inasmuch as itconcerns a matter of deep and general interest, we feel fully justifiedin inserting it in our reading-columns. We are confident that ourconduct in this regard needs only explanation, not apology. --Ed. , N. Y. Herald. ]

ADVERTISEMENT

This is to inform the public that in connection with Mr. Barnum I haveleased the comet for a term, of years; and I desire also to solicit thepublic patronage in favor of a beneficial enterprise which we have inview. 

We propose to fit up comfortable, and even luxurious, accommodations inthe comet for as many persons as will honor us with their patronage, andmake an extended excursion among the heavenly bodies. We shall prepare1, 000, 000 state-rooms in the tail of the comet (with hot and cold water, gas, looking-glass, parachute, umbrella, etc. , in each), and shallconstruct more if we meet with a sufficiently generous encouragement. We shall have billiard-rooms, card-rooms, music-rooms, bowling-alleys andmany spacious theaters and free libraries; and on the main deck wepropose to have a driving park, with upward of 100, 000 miles of roadwayin it. We shall publish daily newspapers also. 

 DEPARTURE OF THE COMET

The comet will leave New York at 10 P. M. On the 20th inst. , andtherefore it will be desirable that the passengers be on board by eightat the latest, to avoid confusion in getting under way. It is not knownwhether passports will be necessary or not, but it is deemed best thatpassengers provide them, and so guard against all contingencies. No dogswill be allowed on board. This rule has been made in deference to theexisting state of feeling regarding these animals, and will be strictlyadhered to. The safety of the passengers will in all ways be jealouslylooked to. A substantial iron railing will be put up all around thecomet, and no one will be allowed to go to the edge and look over unlessaccompanied by either my partner or myself. 

 THE POSTAL SERVICE

will be of the completest character. Of course the telegraph, and thetelegraph only, will be employed; consequently friends occupyingstate-rooms 20, 000, 000 and even 30, 000, 000 miles apart will be able tosend a message and receive a reply inside of eleven days. Night messageswill be half-rate. The whole of this vast postal system will be underthe personal superintendence of Mr. Hale of Maine. Meals served at allhours. Meals served in staterooms charged extra. 

Hostility is not apprehended from any great planet, but we have thoughtit best to err on the safe side, and therefore have provided a propernumber of mortars, siege-guns, and boarding-pikes. History shows thatsmall, isolated communities, such as the people of remote islands, areprone to be hostile to strangers, and so the same may be the case with

 THE INHABITANTS OF STARS

of the tenth or twentieth magnitude. We shall in no case wantonly offendthe people of any star, but shall treat all alike with urbanity andkindliness, never conducting ourselves toward an asteroid after a fashionwhich we could not venture to assume toward Jupiter or Saturn. I repeatthat we shall not wantonly offend any star; but at the same time we shallpromptly resent any injury that may be done us, or any insolence offeredus, by parties or governments residing in any star in the firmament. Although averse to the shedding of blood, we shall still hold this courserigidly and fearlessly, not only toward single stars, but towardconstellations. We shall hope to leave a good impression of Americabehind us in every nation we visit, from Venus to Uranus. And, at allevents, if we cannot inspire love we shall at least compel respect forour country wherever we go. We shall take with us, free of charge, A GREAT FORCE OF MISSIONARIES, and shed the true light upon all the celestial orbs which, physicallyaglow, are yet morally in darkness. Sunday-schools will be establishedwherever practicable. Compulsory education will also be introduced. 

The comet will visit Mars first, and proceed to Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Parties connected with the government of the District ofColumbia and with the former city government of New York, who may desireto inspect the rings, will be allowed time and every facility. Everystar of prominent magnitude will be visited, and time allowed forexcursions to points of interest inland. 

 THE DOG STAR

has been stricken from the program. Much time will be spent in the GreatBear, and, indeed, in every constellation of importance. So, also, withthe Sun and Moon and the Milky Pay, otherwise the Gulf Stream of theSkies. Clothing suitable for wear in the sun should be provided. Ourprogram has been so arranged that we shall seldom go more than100, 000, 000 of miles at a time without stopping at some star. This willnecessarily make the stoppages frequent and preserve the interest of thetourist. Baggage checked through to any point on the route. Partiesdesiring to make only a part of the proposed tour, and thus save expense, may stop over at any star they choose and wait for the return voyage. 

After visiting all the most celebrated stars and constellations in oursystem and personally, inspecting the remotest sparks that even the mostpowerful telescope can now detect in the firmament, we shall proceed withgood heart upon

 A STUPENDOUS VOYAGE

of discovery among the countless whirling worlds that make turmoil in themighty wastes of space that stretch their solemn solitudes, theirunimaginable vastness billions upon billions of miles away beyond thefarthest verge of telescopic vision, till by comparison the littlesparkling vault we used to gaze at on Earth shall seem like a rememberedphosphorescent flash of spangles which some tropical voyager's prowstirred into life for a single instant, and which ten thousand miles ofphosphorescent seas and tedious lapse of time had since diminished to anincident utterly trivial in his recollection. Children occupying seatsat the first table will be charged full fare. 

 FIRST-CLASS FARE

from the Earth to Uranus, including visits to the Sun and Moon and allthe principal planets on the route, will be charged at the low rate of$2 for every 50, 000, 000 miles of actual travel. A great reduction willbe made where parties wish to make the round trip. This comet is new andin thorough repair and is now on her first voyage. She is confessedlythe fastest on the line. She makes 20, 000, 000 miles a day, with herpresent facilities; but, with a picked American crew and good weather, we are confident we can get 40, 000, 000 out of her. Still, we shall neverpush her to a dangerous speed, and we shall rigidly prohibit racing withother comets. Passengers desiring to diverge at any point or return willbe transferred to other comets. We make close connections at allprincipal points with all reliable lines. Safety can be depended upon. It is not to be denied that the heavens are infested with

 OLD RAMSHACKLE COMETS

that have not been inspected or overhauled in 10, 000 years, and whichought long ago to have been destroyed or turned into hail-barges, butwith these we have no connection whatever. Steerage passengers notallowed abaft the main hatch. 

Complimentary round-trip tickets have been tendered to General Butler, Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Richardson, and other eminent gentlemen, whose publicservices have entitled them to the rest and relaxation of a voyage ofthis kind. Parties desiring to make the round trip will have extraaccommodation. The entire voyage will be completed, and the passengerslanded in New York again, on the 14th of December, 1991. This is, atleast, forty years quicker than any other comet can do it in. Nearly allthe back-pay members contemplate making the round trip with us in casetheir constituents will allow them a holiday. Every harmless amusementwill be allowed on board, but no pools permitted on the run of the comet--no gambling of any kind. All fixed stars will be respected by us, butsuch stars as seem, to need fixing we shall fix. If it makes trouble, weshall be sorry, but firm. 

Mr. Coggia having leased his comet to us, she will no longer be called byhis name, but by my partner's. N. B. --Passengers by paying double farewill be entitled to a share in all the new stars, suns, moons, comets, meteors, and magazines of thunder and lightning we may discover. Patent-medicine people will take notice that

 WE CARRY BULLETIN-BOARDS

and a paint-brush along for use in the constellations, and are open toterms. Cremationists are reminded that we are going straight to--somehot places--and are open to terms. To other parties our enterprise is apleasure excursion, but individually we mean business. We shall fly ourcomet for all it is worth. 

 FOR FURTHER PARTICULARS, or for freight or passage, apply on board, or to my partner, but not tome, since I do not take charge of the comet until she is under way. It is necessary, at a time like this, that my mind should not be burdenedwith small business details. 

 MARK TWAIN. 

RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR--[Written about 1870. ]

A few months ago I was nominated for Governor of the great state of NewYork, to run against Mr. John T. Smith and Mr. Blank J. Blank on anindependent ticket. I somehow felt that I had one prominent advantageover these gentlemen, and that was--good character. It was easy to seeby the newspapers that if ever they had known what it was to bear a goodname, that time had gone by. It was plain that in these latter yearsthey had become familiar with all manner of shameful crimes. But at thevery moment that I was exalting my advantage and joying in it in secret, there was a muddy undercurrent of discomfort "riling" the deeps of myhappiness, and that was--the having to hear my name bandied about infamiliar connection with those of such people. I grew more and moredisturbed. Finally I wrote my grandmother about it. Her answer camequick and sharp. She said:

 You have never done one single thing in all your life to be ashamed of--not one. Look at the newspapers--look at them and comprehend what sort of characters Messrs. Smith and Blank are, and then see if you are willing to lower yourself to their level and enter a public canvass with them. 

It was my very thought! I did not sleep a single moment that night. But, after all, I could not recede. 

I was fully committed, and must go on with the fight. As I was lookinglistlessly over the papers at breakfast I came across this paragraph, and I may truly say I never was so confounded before. 

 PERJURY. --Perhaps, now that Mr. Mark Twain is before the people as a candidate for Governor, he will condescend to explain how he came to be convicted of perjury by thirty-four witnesses in Wakawak, Cochin China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury being to rob a poor native widow and her helpless family of a meager plantain-patch, their only stay and support in their bereavement and desolation. Mr. Twain owes it to himself, as well as to the great people whose suffrages he asks, to clear this matter up. Will he do it?

I thought I should burst with amazement! Such a cruel, heartless charge!I never had seen Cochin China! I never had heard of Wakawak! I didn'tknow a plantain-patch from a kangaroo! I did not know what to do. I wascrazed and helpless. I let the day slip away without doing anything atall. The next morning the same paper had this--nothing more:

 SIGNIFICANT. --Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is suggestively silent about the Cochin China perjury. 

[Mem. --During the rest of the campaign this paper never referred to me inany other way than as "the infamous perjurer Twain. "]

Next came the Gazette, with this:

 WANTED TO KNOW. --Will the new candidate for Governor deign to explain to certain of his fellow-citizens (who are suffering to vote for him!) the little circumstance of his cabin-mates in Montana losing small valuables from time to time, until at last, these things having been invariably found on Mr. Twain's person or in his "trunk" (newspaper he rolled his traps in), they felt compelled to give him a friendly admonition for his own good, and so tarred and feathered him, and rode him on a rail; and then advised him to leave a permanent vacuum in the place he usually occupied in the camp. Will he do this?

Could anything be more deliberately malicious than that? For I never wasin Montana in my life. 

[After this, this journal customarily spoke of me as, "Twain, the MontanaThief. "]

I got to picking up papers apprehensively--much as one would lift adesired blanket which he had some idea might have a rattlesnake under it. One day this met my eye:

 THE LIE NAILED. --By the sworn affidavits of Michael O'Flanagan, Esq. , of the Five Points, and Mr. Snub Rafferty and Mr. Catty Mulligan, of Water Street, it is established that Mr. Mark Twain's vile statement that the lamented grandfather of our noble standard-bearer, Blank J. Blank, was hanged for highway robbery, is a brutal and gratuitous LIE, without a shadow of foundation in fact. It is disheartening to virtuous men to see such shameful means resorted to to achieve political success as the attacking of the dead in their graves, and defiling their honored names with slander. When we think of the anguish this miserable falsehood must cause the innocent relatives and friends of the deceased, we are almost driven to incite an outraged and insulted public to summary and unlawful vengeance upon the traducer. But no! let us leave him to the agony of a lacerated conscience (though if passion should get the better of the public, and in its blind fury they should do the traducer bodily injury, it is but too obvious that no jury could convict and no court punish the perpetrators of the deed). 

The ingenious closing sentence had the effect of moving me out of bedwith despatch that night, and out at the back door also, while the"outraged and insulted public" surged in the front way, breakingfurniture and windows in their righteous indignation as they came, and taking off such property as they could carry when they went. And yet I can lay my hand upon the Book and say that I never slanderedMr. Blank's grandfather. More: I had never even heard of him ormentioned him up to that day and date. 

[I will state, in passing, that the journal above quoted from alwaysreferred to me afterward as "Twain, the Body-Snatcher. "]

The next newspaper article that attracted my attention was the following:

 A SWEET CANDIDATE. --Mr. Mark Twain, who was to make such a blighting speech at the mass-meeting of the Independents last night, didn't come to time! A telegram from his physician stated that he had been knocked down by a runaway team, and his leg broken in two places--sufferer lying in great agony, and so forth, and so forth, and a lot more bosh of the same sort. And the Independents tried hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge, and pretend that they did not know what was the real reason of the absence of the abandoned creature whom they denominate their standard-bearer. A certain man was seen to reel into Mr. Twain's hotel last night in a state of beastly intoxication. It is the imperative duty of the Independents to prove that this besotted brute was not Mark Twain himself. We have them at last! This is a case that admits of no shirking. The voice of the people demands in thunder tones, "WHO WAS THAT MAN?"

It was incredible, absolutely incredible, for a moment, that it wasreally my name that was coupled with this disgraceful suspicion. Threelong years had passed over my head since I had tasted ale, beer, wine orliquor or any kind. 

[It shows what effect the times were having on me when I say that I sawmyself, confidently dubbed "Mr. Delirium Tremens Twain" in the next issueof that journal without a pang--notwithstanding I knew that withmonotonous fidelity the paper would go on calling me so to the very end. ]

By this time anonymous letters were getting to be an important part of mymail matter. This form was common:

 How about that old woman you kiked of your premises which was beging. POL. PRY. 

And this:

 There is things which you Have done which is unbeknowens to anybody but me. You better trot out a few dots, to yours truly, or you'll hear through the papers from HANDY ANDY. 

This is about the idea. I could continue them till the reader wassurfeited, if desirable. 

Shortly the principal Republican journal "convicted" me of wholesalebribery, and the leading Democratic paper "nailed" an aggravated case ofblackmailing to me. 

[In this way I acquired two additional names: "Twain the FilthyCorruptionist" and "Twain the Loathsome Embracer. "]

By this time there had grown to be such a clamor for an "answer" to allthe dreadful charges that were laid to me that the editors and leaders ofmy party said it would be political ruin for me to remain silent anylonger. As if to make their appeal the more imperative, the followingappeared in one of the papers the very next day:

 BEHOLD THE MAN!--The independent candidate still maintains silence. Because he dare not speak. Every accusation against him has been amply proved, and they have been indorsed and reindorsed by his own eloquent silence, till at this day he stands forever convicted. Look upon your candidate, Independents! Look upon the Infamous Perjurer! the Montana Thief! the Body-Snatcher! Contemplate your incarnate Delirium Tremens! your Filthy Corruptionist! your Loathsome Embracer! Gaze upon him--ponder him well--and then say if you can give your honest votes to a creature who has earned this dismal array of titles by his hideous crimes, and dares not open his mouth in denial of any one of them!

There was no possible way of getting out of it, and so, in deephumiliation, I set about preparing to "answer" a mass of baseless chargesand mean and wicked falsehoods. But I never finished the task, for thevery next morning a paper came out with a new horror, a fresh malignity, and seriously charged me with burning a lunatic asylum with all itsinmates, because it obstructed the view from my house. This threw meinto a sort of panic. Then came the charge of poisoning my uncle to gethis property, with an imperative demand that the grave should be opened. This drove me to the verge of distraction. On top of this I was accusedof employing toothless and incompetent old relatives to prepare the foodfor the foundling' hospital when I warden. I was wavering--wavering. And at last, as a due and fitting climax to the shameless persecutionthat party rancor had inflicted upon me, nine little toddling children, of all shades of color and degrees of raggedness, were taught to rushonto the platform at a public meeting, and clasp me around the legs andcall me PA!

I gave it up. I hauled down my colors and surrendered. I was not equalto the requirements of a Gubernatorial campaign in the state of New York, and so I sent in my withdrawal from the candidacy, and in bitterness ofspirit signed it, "Truly yours, once a decent man, but now

 "MARK TWAIN, LP. , M. T. , B. S. , D. T. , F. C. , and L. E. "

A MYSTERIOUS VISIT

The first notice that was taken of me when I "settled down" recently wasby a gentleman who said he was an assessor, and connected with the U. S. Internal Revenue Department. I said I had never heard of his branch ofbusiness before, but I was very glad to see him all the same. Would hesit down? He sat down. I did not know anything particular to say, andyet I felt that people who have arrived at the dignity of keeping housemust be conversational, must be easy and sociable in company. So, indefault of anything else to say, I asked him if he was opening his shopin our neighborhood. 

He said he was. [I did not wish to appear ignorant, but I had hoped hewould mention what he had for sale. ]

I ventured to ask him "How was trade?" And he said "So-so. "

I then said we would drop in, and if we liked his house as well as anyother, we would give him our custom. 

He said he thought we would like his establishment well enough to confineourselves to it--said he never saw anybody who would go off and hunt upanother man in his line after trading with him once. 

That sounded pretty complacent, but barring that natural expression ofvillainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough. 

I do not know how it came about exactly, but gradually we appeared tomelt down and run together, conversationally speaking, and theneverything went along as comfortably as clockwork. 

We talked, and talked, and talked--at least I did; and we laughed, andlaughed, and laughed--at least he did. But all the time I had mypresence of mind about me--I had my native shrewdness turned on "fullhead, " as the engineers say. I was determined to find out all about hisbusiness in spite of his obscure answers--and I was determined I wouldhave it out of him without his suspecting what I was at. I meant to traphim with a deep, deep ruse. I would tell him all about my own business, and he would naturally so warm to me during this seductive burst ofconfidence that he would forget himself, and tell me all about hisaffairs before he suspected what I was about. I thought to myself, Myson, you little know what an old fox you are dealing with. I said:

"Now you never would guess what I made lecturing this winter and lastspring?"

"No--don't believe I could, to save me. Let me see--let me see. Abouttwo thousand dollars, maybe? But no; no, sir, I know you couldn't havemade that much. Say seventeen hundred, maybe?"

"Ha! ha! I knew you couldn't. My lecturing receipts for last spring andthis winter were fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. Whatdo you think of that?"

"Why, it is amazing-perfectly amazing. I will make a note of it. Andyou say even this wasn't all?"

"All! Why bless you, there was my income from the Daily Warwhoop forfour months--about--about--well, what should you say to about eightthousand dollars, for instance?"

"Say! Why, I should say I should like to see myself rolling in just suchanother ocean of affluence. Eight thousand! I'll make a note of it. Why man!--and on top of all this am I to understand that you had stillmore income?"

"Ha! ha! ha! Why, you're only in the suburbs of it, so to speak. There's my book, The Innocents Abroad price $3. 50 to $5, according to thebinding. Listen to me. Look me in the eye. During the last four monthsand a half, saying nothing of sales before that, but just simply duringthe four months and a half, we've sold ninety-five thousand copies ofthat book. Ninety-five thousand! Think of it. Average four dollars acopy, say. It's nearly four hundred thousand dollars, my son. I gethalf. "

"The suffering Moses! I'll set that down. Fourteen-seven-fifty--eight--two hundred. Total, say--well, upon my word, the grand total isabout two hundred and thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars! Is thatpossible?"

"Possible! If there's any mistake it's the other way. Two hundred andfourteen thousand, cash, is my income for this year if I know how tocipher. "

Then the gentleman got up to go. It came over me most uncomfortably thatmaybe I had made my revelations for nothing, besides being flattered intostretching them considerably by the stranger's astonished exclamations. But no; at the last moment the gentleman handed me a large envelope, andsaid it contained his advertisement; and that I would find out all abouthis business in it; and that he would be happy to have my custom-would, in fact, be proud to have the custom of a man of such prodigious income;and that he used to think there were several wealthy men in the city, butwhen they came to trade with him he discovered that they barely hadenough to live on; and that, in truth, it had been such a weary, wearyage since he had seen a rich man face to face, and talked to him, andtouched him with his hands, that he could hardly refrain from embracingme--in fact, would esteem it a great favor if I would let him embrace me. 

This so pleased me that I did not try to resist, but allowed thissimple-hearted stranger to throw his arms about me and weep a fewtranquilizing tears down the back of my neck. Then he went his way. 

As soon as he was gone I opened his advertisement. I studied itattentively for four minutes. I then called up the cook, and said:

"Hold me while I faint! Let Marie turn the griddle-cakes. "

By and by, when I came to, I sent down to the rum-mill on the corner andhired an artist by the week to sit up nights and curse that stranger, andgive me a lift occasionally in the daytime when I came to a hard place. 

Ah, what a miscreant he was! His "advertisement" was nothing in theworld but a wicked tax-return--a string of impertinent questions aboutmy private affairs, occupying the best part of four fools-cap pages offine print-questions, I may remark, gotten up with such marvelousingenuity that the oldest man in the world couldn't understand what themost of them were driving at--questions, too, that were calculated tomake a man report about four times his actual income to keep fromswearing to a falsehood. I looked for a loophole, but there did notappear to be any. Inquiry No. 1 covered my case as generously and asamply as an umbrella could cover an ant-hill:

 What were your profits, during the past year, from any trade, business, or vocation, wherever carried on?

And that inquiry was backed up by thirteen others of an equally searchingnature, the most modest of which required information as to whether I hadcommitted any burglary or highway robbery, or, by any arson or othersecret source of emolument had acquired property which was not enumeratedin my statement of income as set opposite to inquiry No. 1. 

It was plain that that stranger had enabled me to make a goose of myself. It was very, very plain; and so I went out and hired another artist. By working on my vanity, the stranger had seduced me into declaring anincome of two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. By law, onethousand dollars of this was exempt from income tax--the only relief Icould see, and it was only a drop in the ocean. At the legal five percent. , I must pay to the government the sum of ten thousand six hundredand fifty dollars, income tax!

[I may remark, in this place, that I did not do it. ]

I am acquainted with a very opulent man, whose house is a palace, whosetable is regal, whose outlays are enormous, yet a man who has no income, as I have often noticed by the revenue returns; and to him I went foradvice in my distress. He took my dreadful exhibition of receipts, heput on his glasses, he took his pen, and presto!--I was a pauper! It wasthe neatest thing that ever was. He did it simply by deftly manipulatingthe bill of "DEDUCTIONS. " He set down my "State, national, and municipaltaxes" at so much; my "losses by shipwreck; fire, etc. , " at so much; my"losses on sales of real estate"--on "live stock sold"--on "payments forrent of homestead"--on "repairs, improvements, interest"--on "previouslytaxed salary as an officer of the United States army, navy, revenueservice, " and other things. He got astonishing "deductions" out of eachand every one of these matters--each and every one of them. And when hewas done he handed me the paper, and I saw at a glance that during theyear my income, in the way of profits, had been one thousand two hundredand fifty dollars and forty cents. 

"Now, " said he, "the thousand dollars is exempt by law. What you want todo is to go and swear this document in and pay tax on the two hundred andfifty dollars. "

[While he was making this speech his little boy Willie lifted atwo-dollar greenback out of his vest pocket and vanished with it, and Iwould wager; anything that if my stranger were to call on that little boyto-morrow he would make a false return of his income. ]

"Do you, " said I, "do you always work up the 'deductions' after thisfashion in your own case, sir?"

"Well, I should say so! If it weren't for those eleven saving clausesunder the head of 'Deductions' I should be beggared every year to supportthis hateful and wicked, this extortionate and tyrannical government. "

This gentleman stands away up among the very best of the solid men of thecity--the men of moral weight, of commercial integrity, of unimpeachable, social spotlessness--and so I bowed to his example. I went down to therevenue office, and under the accusing eyes of my old visitor I stood upand swore to lie after lie, fraud after fraud, villainy after villainy, till my soul was coated inches and inches thick with perjury, and myself-respect gone for ever and ever. 

But what of it? It is nothing more than thousands of the richest andproudest, and most respected, honored, and courted men in America doevery year. And so I don't care. I am not ashamed. I shall simply, for the present, talk little and eschew fire-proof gloves, lest I fallinto certain dreadful habits irrevocably.