Mark Twain Biography - Audio Books

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This is my Part 58 of the Mark Twain Biography, A Dream Comes True.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–XVI.

Section 3 of 3

BY MARK TWAIN.

…I found Henry stretched upon a mattress on the floor of a great building, along with thirty or forty other scalded and wounded persons, and was promptly informed, by some indiscreet person, that he had inhaled steam; that his body was badly scalded, and that he would live but a little while; also, I was told that the physicians and nurses were giving their whole attention to persons who had a chance of being saved.

They were short-handed in the matter of physicians and nurses; and Henry and such others as were considered to be fatally hurt were receiving only such attention as could be spared, from time to time, from the more urgent cases. But Dr. Peyton, a fine and large-hearted old physician of great reputation in the community, gave me his sympathy and took vigorous hold of the case, and in about a week he had brought Henry around.

Dr. Peyton never committed himself with prognostications which might not materialize, but at eleven o’clock one night he told me that Henry was out of danger, and would get well. Then he said, “At midnight these poor fellows lying here and there all over this place will begin to mourn and mutter and lament and make outcries, and if this commotion should disturb Henry it will be bad for him; therefore ask the physician on watch to give him an eighth of a grain of morphine, but this is not to be done unless Henry shall show signs that he is being disturbed.”

Oh well, never mind the rest of it. The physicians on watch were young fellows hardly out of the medical college, and they made a mistake–they had no way of measuring the eighth of a grain of morphine, so they guessed at it and gave him a vast quantity heaped on the end of a knife-blade, and the fatal effects were soon apparent. I think he died about dawn, I don’t remember as to that. He was carried to the dead-room and I went away for a while to a citizen’s house and slept off some of my accumulated fatigue–and meantime something was happening.

The coffins provided for the dead were of unpainted white pine, but in this instance some of the ladies of Memphis had made up a fund of sixty dollars and bought a metallic case, and when I came back and entered the dead-room Henry lay in that open case, and he was dressed in a suit of my clothing. He had borrowed it without my knowledge during our last sojourn in St. Louis; and I recognized instantly that my dream of several weeks before was here exactly reproduced, so far as these details went–and I think I missed one detail; but that one was immediately supplied, for just then an elderly lady entered the place with a large bouquet consisting mainly of white roses, and in the centre of it was a red rose, and she laid it on his breast.

I told the dream there in the Club that night just as I have told it here.

Rev. Dr. Burton swung his leonine head around, focussed me with his eye, and said:

“When was it that this happened?”

“In June, ‘58.”

“It is a good many years ago. Have you told it several times since?”

“Yes, I have, a good many times.”

“How many?”

“Why, I don’t know how many.”

“Well, strike an average. How many times a year do you think you have told it?”

“Well, I have told it as many as six times a year, possibly oftener.”

“Very well, then you’ve told it, we’ll say, seventy or eighty times since it happened?”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s a conservative estimate.”

“Now then, Mark, a very extraordinary thing happened to me a great many years ago, and I used to tell it a number of times–a good many times–every year, for it was so wonderful that it always astonished the hearer, and that astonishment gave me a distinct pleasure every time. I never suspected that that tale was acquiring any auxiliary advantages through repetition until one day after I had been telling it ten or fifteen years it struck me that either I was getting old, and slow in delivery, or that the tale was longer than it was when it was born.

Mark, I diligently and prayerfully examined that tale with this result: that I found that its proportions were now, as nearly as I could make oat, one part fact, straight fact, fact pure and undiluted, golden fact, and twenty-four parts embroidery. I never told that tale afterwards–I was never able to tell it again, for I had lost confidence in it, and so the pleasure of telling it was gone, and gone permanently. How much of this tale of yours is embroidery?”

“Well,” I said, “I don’t know. I don’t think any of it is embroidery. I think it is all just as I have stated it, detail by detail.”

“Very well,” he said, “then it is all right, but I wouldn’t tell it any more; because if you keep on, it will begin to collect embroidery sure. The safest thing is to stop now.”

That was a great many years ago. And to-day is the first time that I have told that dream since Dr. Burton scared me into fatal doubts about it. No, I don’t believe I can say that. I don’t believe that I ever really had any doubts whatever concerning the salient points of the dream, for those points are of such a nature that they are _pictures_, and pictures can be remembered, when they are vivid, much better than one can remember remarks and unconcreted facts.

Although it has been so many years since I have told that dream, I can see those pictures now just as clearly defined as if they were before me in this room. I have not told the entire dream. There was a good deal more of it. I mean I have not told all that happened in the dream’s fulfilment. After the incident in the death-room I may mention one detail, and that is this. When I arrived in St. Louis with the casket it was about eight o’clock in the morning, and I ran to my brother-in-law’s place of business, hoping to find him there, but I missed him, for while I was on the way to his office he was on his way from the house to the boat.

When I got back to the boat the casket was gone. He had conveyed it out to his house. I hastened thither, and when I arrived the men were just removing the casket from the vehicle to carry it up-stairs. I stopped that procedure, for I did not want my mother to see the dead face, because one side of it was drawn and distorted by the effects of the opium. When I went up-stairs, there stood the two chairs–placed to receive the coffin–just as I had seen them in my dream; and if I had arrived two or three minutes later, the casket would have been resting upon them, precisely as in my dream of several weeks before.

MARK TWAIN.

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This ends Part 58 of the “Mark Twain Biography” of Chapter XVI, Section 3 of 3.

The next article is Part 59, which is Chapter XVII.

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To GET many of the Mark Twain Collection of Audio Books,
Click on Mark Twain’s Audio Books and enjoy.

For even More Audio Books Like the Mark Twain Classics,
goto the Great Audio Books List Store for more enjoyment.

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This is my Part 57 of the Mark Twain Biography

Please remember to BOOKMARK “Mark Twain’s Biography” web site so that it will be easy to find.

Also, if you are unsure how to Bookmark, go to the top right and click on “How To Bookmark”.

Also, if you would like to know more about Mark Twain and how I came to be using this wonderful manuscript, please look at the link above right called “Mark Twain’s audios” for more info. Thanks.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–XVI.

Section 2 of 3

BY MARK TWAIN.

…”Mr. Clemens, how far is it from the front door to the upper gate?”

I said, “It is a hundred and twenty-five steps.”

He said, “Mr. Clemens, you can start at the front door and you can go plumb to the upper gate and tread on one of them cigars every time.”

It wasn’t true in detail, but in essentials it was.

The subject under discussion on the night in question was Dreams. The talk passed from mouth to mouth in the usual serene way.

I do not now remember what form my views concerning dreams took at the time. I don’t remember now what my notion about dreams was then, but I do remember telling a dream by way of illustrating some detail of my speech, and I also remember that when I had finished it Rev. Dr. Burton made that doubting remark which contained that word I have already spoken of as having been uttered by my mother, in some such connection, forty or fifty years before.

I was probably engaged in trying to make those people believe that now and then, by some accident, or otherwise, a dream which was prophetic turned up in the dreamer’s mind. The date of my memorable dream was about the beginning of May, 1858. It was a remarkable dream, and I had been telling it several times every year for more than fifteen years–and now I was telling it again, here in the club.

In 1858 I was a steersman on board the swift and popular New Orleans and St. Louis packet, “Pennsylvania,” Captain Kleinfelter. I had been lent to Mr. Brown, one of the pilots of the “Pennsylvania,” by my owner, Mr. Horace E. Bixby, and I had been steering for Brown about eighteen months, I think. Then in the early days of May, 1858, came a tragic trip–the last trip of that fleet and famous steamboat.

I have told all about it in one of my books called “Old Times on the Mississippi.” But it is not likely that I told the dream in that book. It is impossible that I can ever have published it, I think, because I never wanted my mother to know about the dream, and she lived several years after I published that volume.

I had found a place on the “Pennsylvania” for my brother Henry, who was two years my junior. It was not a place of profit, it was only a place of promise. He was “mud” clerk. Mud clerks received no salary, but they were in the line of promotion. They could become, presently, third clerk and second clerk, then chief clerk–that is to say, purser. The dream begins when Henry had been mud clerk about three months. We were lying in port at St. Louis.

Pilots and steersmen had nothing to do during the three days that the boat lay in port in St. Louis and New Orleans, but the mud clerk had to begin his labors at dawn and continue them into the night, by the light of pine-knot torches. Henry and I, moneyless and unsalaried, had billeted ourselves upon our brother-in-law, Mr. Moffet, as night lodgers while in port. We took our meals on board the boat. No, I mean _I_ lodged at the house, not Henry.

He spent the _evenings_ at the house, from nine until eleven, then went to the boat to be ready for his early duties. On the night of the dream he started away at eleven, shaking hands with the family, and said good-by according to custom. I may mention that hand-shaking as a good-by was not merely the custom of that family, but the custom of the region–the custom of Missouri, I may say. In all my life, up to that time, I had never seen one member of the Clemens family kiss another one–except once. When my father lay dying in our home in Hannibal–the 24th of March, 1847–he put his arm around my sister’s neck and drew her down and kissed her, saying “Let me die.”

I remember that, and I remember the death rattle which swiftly followed those words, which were his last. These good-bys of Henry’s were always executed in the family sitting-room on the second floor, and Henry went from that room and down-stairs without further ceremony. But this time my mother went with him to the head of the stairs and said good-by _again_. As I remember it she was moved to this by something in Henry’s manner, and she remained at the head of the stairs while he descended. When he reached the door he hesitated, and climbed the stairs and shook hands good-by once more.

In the morning, when I awoke I had been dreaming, and the dream was so vivid, so like reality, that it deceived me, and I thought it was real. In the dream I had seen Henry a corpse. He lay in a metallic burial-case. He was dressed in a suit of my clothing, and on his breast lay a great bouquet of flowers, mainly white roses, with a red rose in the centre.

The casket stood upon a couple of chairs. I dressed, and moved toward that door, thinking I would go in there and look at it, but I changed my mind. I thought I could not yet bear to meet my mother. I thought I would wait awhile and make some preparation for that ordeal.

The house was in Locust Street, a little above 13th, and I walked to 14th, and to the middle of the block beyond, before it suddenly flashed upon me that there was nothing real about this–it was only a dream. I can still feel something of the grateful upheaval of joy of that moment, and I can also still feel the remnant of doubt, the suspicion that maybe it _was_ real, after all. I returned to the house almost on a run, flew up the stairs two or three steps at a jump, and rushed into that sitting-room–and was made glad again, for there was no casket there.

We made the usual eventless trip to New Orleans–no, it was not eventless, for it was on the way down that I had the fight with Mr. Brown[8] which resulted in his requiring that I be left ashore at New Orleans. In New Orleans I always had a job. It was my privilege to watch the freight-piles from seven in the evening until seven in the morning, and get three dollars for it.

It was a three-night job and occurred every thirty-five days. Henry always joined my watch about nine in the evening, when his own duties were ended, and we often walked my rounds and chatted together until midnight. This time we were to part, and so the night before the boat sailed I gave Henry some advice. I said, “In case of disaster to the boat, don’t lose your head–leave that unwisdom to the passengers–they are competent–they’ll attend to it.

But you rush for the hurricane-deck, and astern to one of the life-boats lashed aft the wheel-house, and obey the mate’s orders–thus you will be useful. When the boat is launched, give such help as you can in getting the women and children into it, and be sure you don’t try to get into it yourself.

It is summer weather, the river is only a mile wide, as a rule, and you can swim that without any trouble.” Two or three days afterward the boat’s boilers exploded at Ship Island, below Memphis, early one morning–and what happened afterward I have already told in “Old Times on the Mississippi.” As related there, I followed the “Pennsylvania” about a day later, on another boat, and we began to get news of the disaster at every port we touched at, and so by the time we reached Memphis we knew all about it…

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This ends Part 57 of the “Mark Twain Biography” of Chapter XVI, Section 2 of 3.

The next article is Part 58, which is Chapter XVI, Section 3 of 3.

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To GET many of the Mark Twain Collection of Audio Books,
Click on Mark Twain’s Audio Books and enjoy.

For even More Audio Books Like the Mark Twain Classics,
goto the Great Audio Books List Store for more enjoyment.

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This is my Part 56 of Mark Twain’s Biography

Please remember to BOOKMARK “Mark Twain’s Biography” web site so that it will be easy to find.

Also, if you are unsure how to Bookmark, go to the top right and click on “How To Bookmark”.

Also, if you would like to know more about Mark Twain and how I came to be using this wonderful manuscript, please look at the link above right called “Mark Twain’s audios” for more info. Thanks.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–XVI.

Section 1 of 3

BY MARK TWAIN.

But I am used to having my statements discounted. My mother began it before I was seven years old. Yet all through my life my facts have had a substratum of truth, and therefore they were not without preciousness. Any person who is familiar with me knows how to strike my average, and therefore knows how to get at the jewel of any fact of mine and dig it out of its blue-clay matrix. My mother knew that art. When I was seven or eight, or ten, or twelve years old–along there–a neighbor said to her,

“Do you ever believe anything that that boy says?”

My mother said,

“He is the well-spring of truth, but you can’t bring up the whole well with one bucket”–and she added, “I know his average, therefore he never deceives me. I discount him thirty per cent. for embroidery, and what is left is perfect and priceless truth, without a flaw in it anywhere.”

Now to make a jump of forty years, without breaking the connection: that word “embroidery” was used again in my presence and concerning me, when I was fifty years old, one night at Rev. Frank Goodwin’s house in Hartford, at a meeting of the Monday Evening Club. The Monday Evening Club still exists. It was founded about forty-five years ago by that theological giant, Rev. Dr. Bushnell, and some comrades of his, men of large intellectual calibre and more or less distinction, local or national. I was admitted to membership in it in the fall of 1871 and was an active member thenceforth until I left Hartford in the summer of 1891.

The membership was restricted, in those days, to eighteen–possibly twenty. The meetings began about the 1st of October and were held in the private houses of the members every fortnight thereafter throughout the cold months until the 1st of May. Usually there were a dozen members present–sometimes as many as fifteen. There was an essay and a discussion. The essayists followed each other in alphabetical order through the season. The essayist could choose his own subject and preference. Then the discussion followed, and each member present was allowed ten minutes in which to express his views.

The wives of these people were always present. It was their privilege. It was also their privilege to keep still; they were not allowed to throw any light upon the discussion. After the discussion there was a supper, and talk, and cigars. This supper began at ten o’clock promptly, and the company broke up and went away at midnight. At least they did except upon one occasion. In my recent Birthday speech I remarked upon the fact that I have always bought cheap cigars, and that is true. I have never bought costly ones.

Well, that night at the Club meeting–as I was saying–George, our colored butler, came to me when the supper was nearly over, and I noticed that he was pale. Normally his complexion was a clear black, and very handsome, but now it had modified to old amber. He said:

“Mr. Clemens, what are we going to do? There is not a cigar in the house but those old Wheeling long nines. Can’t nobody smoke them but you. They kill at thirty yards. It is too late to telephone–we couldn’t get any cigars out from town–what can we do? Ain’t it best to say nothing, and let on that we didn’t think?”

“No,” I said, “that would not be honest. Fetch out the long nines”–which he did.

I had just come across those “long nines” a few days or a week before. I hadn’t seen a long nine for years. When I was a cub pilot on the Mississippi in the late ’50’s, I had had a great affection for them, because they were not only–to my mind–perfect, but you could get a basketful of them for a cent–or a dime, they didn’t use cents out there in those days. So when I saw them advertised in Hartford I sent for a thousand at once. They came out to me in badly battered and disreputable-looking old square pasteboard boxes, two hundred in a box.

George brought a box, which was caved in on all sides, looking the worst it could, and began to pass them around. The conversation had been brilliantly animated up to that moment–but now a frost fell upon the company. That is to say, not all of a sudden, but the frost fell upon each man as he took up a cigar and held it poised in the air–and there, in the middle, his sentence broke off. That kind of thing went on all around the table, until when George had completed his crime the whole place was full of a thick solemnity and silence.

Those men began to light the cigars. Rev. Dr. Parker was the first man to light. He took three or four heroic whiffs–then gave it up. He got up with the remark that he had to go to the bedside of a sick parishioner. He started out. Rev. Dr. Burton was the next man. He took only one whiff, and followed Parker. He furnished a pretext, and you could see by the sound of his voice that he didn’t think much of the pretext, and was vexed with Parker for getting in ahead with a fictitious ailing client.

Rev. Mr. Twichell followed, and said he had to go now because he must take the midnight train for Boston. Boston was the first place that occurred to him, I suppose.

It was only a quarter to eleven when they began to distribute pretexts. At ten minutes to eleven all those people were out of the house. When nobody was left but George and me I was cheerful–I had no compunctions of conscience, no griefs of any kind. But George was beyond speech, because he held the honor and credit of the family above his own, and he was ashamed that this smirch had been put upon it.

I told him to go to bed and try to sleep it off. I went to bed myself. At breakfast in the morning when George was passing a cup of coffee, I saw it tremble in his hand. I knew by that sign that there was something on his mind. He brought the cup to me and asked impressively…

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This ends Part 56 of the “Mark Twain Biography” of Chapter XVI, Section 1 of 3.

The next article is Part 57, which is Chapter XVI, Section 2 of 3.

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To GET many of the Mark Twain Collection of Audio Books,
Click on Mark Twain’s Audio Books and enjoy.

For even More Audio Books Like the Mark Twain Classics,
goto the Great Audio Books List Store for more enjoyment.

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This is my Part 55 of Mark Twain’s Biography

Please remember to BOOKMARK “Mark Twain’s Biography” web site so that it will be easy to find.

Also, if you are unsure how to Bookmark, go to the top right and click on “How To Bookmark”.

Also, if you would like to know more about Mark Twain and how I came to be using this wonderful manuscript, please look at the link above right called “Mark Twain’s audios” for more info. Thanks.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–XV.

BY MARK TWAIN.

Section 4 of 4.

…He made another trial and failed. Once more he was astonished; once more he was humiliated–and as for his anger, it rose to summer-heat. He arranged the balls again, grouping them carefully, and said he would win this time, or die. When a client reaches this condition, it is a good time to damage his nerve further, and this can always be done by saying some little mocking thing or other that has the outside appearance of a friendly remark–so I employed this art.

I suggested that a bet might tauten his nerves, and that I would offer one, but that as I did not want it to be an expense to him, but only a help, I would make it small–a cigar, if he were willing–a cigar that he would fail again; not an expensive one, but a cheap native one, of the Crown Jewel breed, such as is manufactured in Hartford for the clergy. It set him afire all over! I could see the blue flame issue from his eyes. He said,

“Make it a hundred!–and no Connecticut cabbage-leaf product, but Havana, $25 the box!”

I took him up, but said I was sorry to see him do this, because it did not seem to me right or fair for me to rob him under our own roof, when he had been so kind to us. He said, with energy and acrimony:

“You take care of your own pocket, if you’ll be so good, and leave me to take care of mine.”

And he plunged at the congress of balls with a vindictiveness which was infinitely contenting to me. He scored a failure–and began to undress. I knew it would come to that, for he was in the condition now that Mr. Dooley will be in at about that stage of the contest on Friday afternoon. A clothes-rack will be provided for Mr. Dooley to hang his things on as fast as he shall from time to time shed them. George raised his voice four degrees and flung out the challenge–

“Double or quits!”

“Done,” I responded, in the gentle and compassionate voice of one who is apparently getting sorrier and sorrier.

There was an hour and a half of straight disaster after that, and if it was a sin to enjoy it, it is no matter–I did enjoy it. It is half a lifetime ago, but I enjoy it yet, every time I think of it George made failure after failure. His fury increased with each failure as he scored it. With each defeat he flung off one or another rag of his raiment, and every time he started on a fresh inning he made it “double or quits” once more.

Twice he reached thirty and broke down; once he reached thirty-one and broke down. These “nears” made him frantic, and I believe I was never so happy in my life, except the time, a few years later, when the Rev. J. H. Twichell and I walked to Boston and he had the celebrated conversation with the hostler at the Inn at Ashford, Connecticut.

At last, when we were notified that Patrick was at the door to drive him to his train, George owed me five thousand cigars at twenty-five cents apiece, and I was so sorry I could have hugged him. But he shouted,

“Give me ten minutes more!” and added stormily, “it’s double or quits again, and I’ll win out free of debt or owe you ten thousand cigars, and you’ll pay the funeral expenses.”

He began on his final effort, and I believe that in all my experience among both amateurs and experts, I have never seen a cue so carefully handled in my lifetime as George handled his upon this intensely interesting occasion. He got safely up to twenty-five, and then ceased to breathe. So did I. He labored along, and added a point, another point, still another point, and finally reached thirty-one.

He stopped there, and we took a breath. By this time the balls were scattered all down the cushions, about a foot or two apart, and there wasn’t a shot in sight anywhere that any man might hope to make. In a burst of anger and confessed defeat, he sent his ball flying around the table at random, and it crotched a ball that was packed against the cushion and sprang across to a ball against the bank on the opposite side, and counted!

His luck had set him free, and he didn’t owe me anything. He had used up all his spare time, but we carried his clothes to the carriage, and he dressed on his way to the station, greatly wondered at and admired by the ladies, as he drove along–but he got his train.

I am very fond of Mr. Dooley, and shall await his coming with affectionate and pecuniary interest.

_P.S. Saturday._ He has been here. Let us not talk about it.

MARK TWAIN.

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This ends Part 55 of the “Mark Twain Biography” of Chapter XV, Section 4 of 4.

The next article is Part 56, which is Chapter XVI.

***********************************************************

To GET many of the Mark Twain Collection of Audio Books,
Click on Mark Twain’s Audio Books and enjoy.

For even More Audio Books Like the Mark Twain Classics,
goto the Great Audio Books List Store for more enjoyment.

*************************************************************

***********************

This is my Part 54 of Mark Twain’s Biography

Please remember to BOOKMARK “Mark Twain’s Biography” web site so that it will be easy to find.

Also, if you are unsure how to Bookmark, go to the top right and click on “How To Bookmark”.

Also, if you would like to know more about Mark Twain and how I came to be using this wonderful manuscript, please look at the link above right called “Mark Twain’s audios” for more info. Thanks.

*************************

CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–XV.

BY MARK TWAIN.

Section 3 of 4.

…I possess a billiard secret which can be valuable to the Dooley sept, after I shall have conferred it upon Dooley–for a consideration. It is a discovery which I made by accident, thirty-eight years ago, in my father-in-law’s house in Elmira. There was a scarred and battered and ancient billiard-table in the garret, and along with it a peck of checked and chipped balls, and a rackful of crooked and headless cues. I played solitaire up there every day with that difficult outfit.

The table was not level, but slanted sharply to the southeast; there wasn’t a ball that was round, or would complete the journey you started it on, but would always get tired and stop half-way and settle, with a jolty wabble, to a standstill on its chipped side. I tried making counts with four balls, but found it difficult and discouraging, so I added a fifth ball, then a sixth, then a seventh, and kept on adding until at last I had twelve balls on the table and a thirteenth to play with.

My game was caroms–caroms solely–caroms plain, or caroms with cushion to help–anything that could furnish a count. In the course of time I found to my astonishment that I was never able to run fifteen, under any circumstances. By huddling the balls advantageously in the beginning, I could now and then coax fourteen out of them, but I couldn’t reach fifteen by either luck or skill. Sometimes the balls would get scattered into difficult positions and defeat me in that way; sometimes if I managed to keep them together, I would freeze; and always when I froze, and had to play away from the contact, there was sure to be nothing to play at but a wide and uninhabited vacancy.

One day Mr. Dalton called on my brother-in-law, on a matter of business, and I was asked if I could entertain him awhile, until my brother-in-law should finish an engagement with another gentleman. I said I could, and took him up to the billiard-table. I had played with him many times at the club, and knew that he could play billiards tolerably well–only tolerably well–but not any better than I could.

He and I were just a match. He didn’t know our table; he didn’t know those balls; he didn’t know those warped and headless cues; he didn’t know the southeastern slant of the table, and how to allow for it. I judged it would be safe and profitable to offer him a bet on my scheme. I emptied the avalanche of thirteen balls on the table and said:

“Take a ball and begin, Mr. Dalton. How many can you run with an outlay like that?”

He said, with the half-affronted air of a mathematician who has been asked how much of the multiplication table he can recite without a break:

“I suppose a million–eight hundred thousand, anyway.”

I said “You shall hove the privilege of placing the balls to suit yourself, and I want to bet you a dollar that you can’t run fifteen.”

I will not dwell upon the sequel. At the end of an hour his face was red, and wet with perspiration; his outer garments lay scattered here and there over the place; he was the angriest man in the State, and there wasn’t a rag or remnant of an injurious adjective left in him anywhere–and I had all his small change.

When the summer was over, we went home to Hartford, and one day Mr. George Robertson arrived from Boston with two or three hours to spare between then and the return train, and as he was a young gentleman to whom we were in debt for much social pleasure, it was my duty, and a welcome duty, to make his two or three hours interesting for him.

So I took him up-stairs and set up my billiard scheme for his comfort. Mine was a good table, in perfect repair; the cues were in perfect condition; the balls were ivory, and flawless–but I knew that Mr. Robertson was my prey, just the same, for by exhaustive tests with this outfit I had found that my limit was thirty-one.

I had proved to my satisfaction that whereas I could not fairly expect to get more than six or eight or a dozen caroms out of a run, I could now and then reach twenty and twenty-five, and after a long procession of failures finally achieve a run of thirty-one; but in no case had I ever got beyond thirty-one. Robertson’s game, as I knew, was a little better than mine, so I resolved to require him to make thirty-two. I believed it would entertain him. He was one of these brisk and hearty and cheery and self-satisfied young fellows who are brimful of confidence, and who plunge with grateful eagerness into any enterprise that offers a showy test of their abilities. I emptied the balls on the table and said,

“Take a cue and a ball, George, and begin. How many caroms do you think you can make out of that layout?”

He laughed the laugh of the gay and the care-free, as became his youth and inexperience, and said,

“I can punch caroms out of that bunch a week without a break.”

I said “Place the balls to suit yourself, and begin.”

Confidence is a necessary thing in billiards, but overconfidence is bad. George went at his task with much too much lightsomeness of spirit and disrespect for the situation. On his first shot he scored three caroms; on his second shot he scored four caroms; and on his third shot he missed as simple a carom as could be devised. He was very much astonished, and said he would not have supposed that careful play could be needed with an acre of bunched balls in front of a person.

He began again, and played more carefully, but still with too much lightsomeness; he couldn’t seem to learn to take the situation seriously. He made about a dozen caroms and broke down. He was irritated with himself now, and he thought he caught me laughing. He didn’t. I do not laugh publicly at my client when this game is going on; I only do it inside–or save it for after the exhibition is over. But he thought he had caught me laughing, and it increased his irritation. Of course I knew he thought I was laughing privately- -for I was experienced; they all think that, and it has a good effect; it sharpens their annoyance and debilitates their play…

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This ends Part 54 of the “Mark Twain Biography” of Chapter XV, Section 3 of 4.

The next article is Part 55, which is Chapter XV, Section 4 of 4.

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This is my Part 53 of Mark Twain’s Biography

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–XV.

BY MARK TWAIN.

Section 2 of 4.

…In summer we poor creatures have a respite, and may clothe ourselves in white garments; loose, soft, and in some degree shapely; but in the winter–the sombre winter, the depressing winter, the cheerless winter, when white clothes and bright colors are especially needed to brighten our spirits and lift them up–we all conform to the prevailing insanity, and go about in dreary black, each man doing it because the others do it, and not because he wants to. They are really no sincerer than Sackcloth and Ashes. At bottom the Sack cloths do not care to exhibit their emotions when I am performing before them, they only do it because Ashes started it.

I would like to dress in a loose and flowing costume made all of silks and velvets, resplendent with all the stunning dyes of the rainbow, and so would every sane man I have ever known; but none of us dares to venture it. There is such a thing as carrying conspicuousness to the point of discomfort; and if I should appear on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday morning, at church-time, clothed as I would like to be clothed, the churches would be vacant, and I should have all the congregations tagging after me, to look, and secretly envy, and publicly scoff. It is the way human beings are made; they are always keeping their real feelings shut up inside, and publicly exploiting their fictitious ones.

Next after fine colors, I like plain white. One of my sorrows, when the summer ends, is that I must put off my cheery and comfortable white clothes and enter for the winter into the depressing captivity of the shapeless and degrading black ones. It is mid-October now, and the weather is growing cold up here in the New Hampshire hills, but it will not succeed in freezing me out of these white garments, for here the neighbors are few, and it is only of crowds that I am afraid.

I made a brave experiment, the other night, to see how it would feel to shock a crowd with these unseasonable clothes, and also to see how long it might take the crowd to reconcile itself to them and stop looking astonished and outraged. On a stormy evening I made a talk before a full house, in the village, clothed like a ghost, and looking as conspicuously, all solitary and alone on that platform, as any ghost could have looked; and I found, to my gratification, that it took the house less than ten minutes to forget about the ghost and give its attention to the tidings I had brought.

I am nearly seventy-one, and I recognize that my age has given me a good many privileges; valuable privileges; privileges which are not granted to younger persons. Little by little I hope to get together courage enough to wear white clothes all through the winter, in New York. It will be a great satisfaction to me to show off in this way; and perhaps the largest of all the satisfactions will be the knowledge that every scoffer, of my sex, will secretly envy me and wish he dared to follow my lead.

That mention that I have acquired new and great privileges by grace of my age, is not an uncalculated remark. When I passed the seventieth mile-stone, ten months ago, I instantly realized that I had entered a new country and a new atmosphere. To all the public I was become recognizably old, undeniably old; and from that moment everybody assumed a new attitude toward me–the reverent attitude granted by custom to age–and straightway the stream of generous new privileges began to flow in upon me and refresh my life.

Since then, I have lived an ideal existence; and I now believe what Choate said last March, and which at the time I didn’t credit: that the best of life begins at seventy; for then your work is done; you know that you have done your best, let the quality of the work be what it may; that you have earned your holiday–a holiday of peace and contentment–and that thenceforth, to the setting of your sun, nothing will break it, nothing interrupt it.

In an earlier chapter I inserted some verses beginning “Love Came at Dawn” which had been found among Susy’s papers after her death. I was not able to say that they were hers, but I judged that they might be, for the reason that she had not enclosed them in quotation marks according to her habit when storing up treasures gathered from other people.

Stedman was not able to determine the authorship for me, as the verses were new to him, but the authorship has now been traced. The verses were written by William Wilfred Campbell, a Canadian poet, and they form a part of the contents of his book called “Beyond the Hills of Dream.”

The authorship of the beautiful lines which my wife and I inscribed upon Susy’s gravestone was untraceable for a time. We had found them in a book in India, but had lost the book and with it the author’s name. But in time an application to the editor of “Notes and Queries” furnished me the author’s name, and it has been added to the verses upon the gravestone.

Last night, at a dinner-party where I was present, Mr. Peter Dunne Dooley handed to the host several dollars, in satisfaction of a lost bet. I seemed to see an opportunity to better my condition, and I invited Dooley, apparently disinterestedly, to come to my house Friday and play billiards. He accepted, and I judge that there is going to be a deficit in the Dooley treasury as a result.

In great qualities of the heart and brain, Dooley is gifted beyond all propriety. He is brilliant; he is an expert with his pen, and he easily stands at the head of all the satirists of this generation–but he is going to walk in darkness Friday afternoon. It will be a fraternal kindness to teach him that with all his light and culture, he does not know all the valuable things; and it will also be a fraternal kindness to him to complete his education for him–and I shall do this on Friday, and send him home in that perfected condition…

**********************************************************

This ends Part 53 of the “Mark Twain Biography” of Chapter XV, Section 2 of 4.

The next article is Part 54, which is Chapter XV, Section 3 of 4.

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This is my Part 52 of Mark Twain’s Biography

Please remember to BOOKMARK “Mark Twain’s Biography” web site so that it will be easy to find.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–XV.

BY MARK TWAIN.

Section 1 of 4.

_From Susy’s Biography of Me._

Papa says that if the collera comes here he will take Sour Mash to the mountains.

This remark about the cat is followed by various entries, covering a month, in which Jean, General Grant, the sculptor Gerhardt, Mrs. Candace Wheeler, Miss Dora Wheeler, Mr. Frank Stockton, Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, and the widow of General Custer appear and drift in procession across the page, then vanish forever from the Biography; then Susy drops this remark in the wake of the vanished procession:

Sour Mash is a constant source of anxiety, care, and pleasure to papa.

I did, in truth, think a great deal of that old tortoise-shell harlot; but I haven’t a doubt that in order to impress Susy I was pretending agonies of solicitude which I didn’t honestly feel. Sour Mash never gave me any real anxiety; she was always able to take care of herself, and she was ostentatiously vain of the fact; vain of it to a degree which often made me ashamed of her, much as I esteemed her.

Many persons would like to have the society of cats during the summer vacation in the country, but they deny themselves this pleasure because they think they must either take the cats along when they return to the city, where they would be a trouble and an encumbrance, or leave them in the country, houseless and homeless. These people have no ingenuity, no invention, no wisdom; or it would occur to them to do as I do: rent cats by the month for the summer and return them to their good homes at the end of it.

Early last May I rented a kitten of a farmer’s wife, by the month; then I got a discount by taking three. They have been good company for about five months now, and are still kittens–at least they have not grown much, and to all intents and purposes are still kittens, and as full of romping energy and enthusiasm as they were in the beginning. This is remarkable. I am an expert in cats, but I have not seen a kitten keep its kittenhood nearly so long before.

These are beautiful creatures–these triplets. Two of them wear the blackest and shiniest and thickest of sealskin vestments all over their bodies except the lower half of their faces and the terminations of their paws. The black masks reach down below the eyes, therefore when the eyes are closed they are not visible; the rest of the face, and the gloves and stockings, are snow white. These markings are just the same on both cats–so exactly the same that when you call one the other is likely to answer, because they cannot tell each other apart.

Since the cats are precisely alike, and can’t be told apart by any of us, they do not need two names, so they have but one between them. We call both of them Sackcloth, and we call the gray one Ashes. I believe I have never seen such intelligent cats as these before. They are full of the nicest discriminations. When I read German aloud they weep; you can see the tears run down. It shows what pathos there is in the German tongue.

I had not noticed before that all German is pathetic, no matter what the subject is nor how it is treated. It was these humble observers that brought the knowledge to me. I have tried all kinds of German on these cats; romance, poetry, philosophy, theology, market reports; and the result has always been the same–the cats sob, and let the tears run down, which shows that all German is pathetic.

French is not a familiar tongue to me, and the pronunciation is difficult, and comes out of me encumbered with a Missouri accent; but the cats like it, and when I make impassioned speeches in that language they sit in a row and put up their paws, palm to palm, and frantically give thanks. Hardly any cats are affected by music, but these are; when I sing they go reverently away, showing how deeply they feel it. Sour Mash never cared for these things. She had many noble qualities, but at bottom she was not refined, and cared little or nothing for theology and the arts.

It is a pity to say it, but these cats are not above the grade of human beings, for I know by certain signs that they are not sincere in their exhibitions of emotion, but exhibit them merely to show off and attract attention–conduct which is distinctly human, yet with a difference: they do not know enough to conceal their desire to show off, but the grown human being does. What is ambition? It is only the desire to be conspicuous. The desire for fame is only the desire to be continuously conspicuous and attract attention and be talked about.

These cats are like human beings in another way: when Ashes began to work his fictitious emotions, and show off, the other members of the firm followed suit, in order to be in the fashion. That is the way with human beings; they are afraid to be outside; whatever the fashion happens to be, they conform to it,  whether it be a pleasant fashion or the reverse, they lacking the courage to ignore it and go their own way.

All human beings would like to dress in loose and comfortable and highly colored and showy garments, and they had their desire until a century ago, when a king, or some other influential ass, introduced sombre hues and discomfort and ugly designs into masculine clothing. The meek public surrendered to the outrage, and by consequence we are in that odious captivity to-day, and are likely to remain in it for a long time to come.

Fortunately the women were not included in the disaster, and so their graces and their beauty still have the enhancing help of delicate fabrics and varied and beautiful colors. Their clothing makes a great opera audience an enchanting spectacle, a delight to the eye and the spirit, a Garden of Eden for charm and color. The men, clothed in dismal black, are scattered here and there and everywhere over the Garden, like so many charred stumps, and they damage the effect, but cannot annihilate it…

**********************************************************

This ends Part 52 of the “Mark Twain Biography” of Chapter XV, Section 1 of 4.

The next article is Part 53, which is Chapter XV, Section 2 of 4.

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To GET many of the Mark Twain Collection of Audio Books,
Click on Mark Twain’s Audio Books and enjoy.

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goto the Great Audio Books List Store for more enjoyment.

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This is my Part 51 of Mark Twain’s Biography

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Also, if you are unsure how to Bookmark, go to the top right and click on “How To Bookmark”.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–XIV.

BY MARK TWAIN.

Section 4 of 4

…If the Emperor had been at my table, he would not have suffered from my silence, he would only have suffered from the sorrows of his own solitude. If I were not too old to travel, I would go to Berlin and introduce the etiquette of my own table, which tallies with the etiquette observable at other royal tables. I would say, “Invite me again, your Majesty, and give me a chance”; then I would courteously waive rank and do all the talking myself. I thank his Majesty for his kind message, and am proud to have it and glad to express my sincere reciprocation of its sentiments.

Rev. Joseph T. Harris and I have been visiting General Sickles. Once, twenty or twenty-five years ago, just as Harris was coming out of his gate Sunday morning to walk to his church and preach, a telegram was put into his hand. He read it immediately, and then, in a manner, collapsed. It said: “General Sickles died last night at midnight.”

It wasn’t so. But no matter–it was so to Harris at the time. He walked along–walked to the church–but his mind was far away. All his affection and homage and worship of his General had come to the fore. His heart was full of these emotions. He hardly knew where he was. In his pulpit, he stood up and began the service, but with a voice over which he had almost no command.

The congregation had never seen him thus moved, before, in his pulpit. They sat there and gazed at him and wondered what was the matter; because he was now reading, in this broken voice and with occasional tears trickling down his face, what to them seemed a quite unemotional chapter–that one about Moses begat Aaron, and Aaron begat Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomy begat St. Peter, and St. Peter begat Cain, and Cain begat Abel–and he was going along with this, and half crying–his voice continually breaking.

The congregation left the church that morning without being able to account for this most extraordinary thing–as it seemed to them. That a man who had been a soldier for more than four years, and who had preached in that pulpit so many, many times on really moving subjects, without even the quiver of a lip, should break all down over the Begats, they couldn’t understand. But there it is–any one can see how such a mystery as that would arouse the curiosity of those people to the boiling-point.

Harris has had many adventures. He has more adventures in a year than anybody else has in five. One Saturday night he noticed a bottle on his uncle’s dressing-bureau. He thought the label said “Hair Restorer,” and he took it in his room and gave his head a good drenching and sousing with it and carried it back and thought no more about it. Next morning when he got up his head was a bright green! He sent around everywhere and couldn’t get a substitute preacher, so he had to go to his church himself and preach–and he did it.

He hadn’t a sermon in his barrel–as it happened–of any lightsome character, so he had to preach a very grave one–a very serious one–and it made the matter worse. The gravity of the sermon did not harmonize with the gayety of his head, and the people sat all through it with handkerchiefs stuffed in their mouths to try to keep down their joy. And Harris told me that he was sure he never had seen his congregation–the whole body of his congregation–the _entire_ body of his congregation–absorbed in interest in his sermon, from beginning to end, before.

Always there had been an aspect of indifference, here and there, or wandering, somewhere; but this time there was nothing of the kind. Those people sat there as if they thought, “Good for this day and train only: we must have all there is of this show, not waste any of it.” And he said that when he came down out of the pulpit more people waited to shake him by the hand and tell him what a good sermon it was, than ever before. And it seemed a pity that these people should do these fictions in such a place–right in the church–when it was quite plain they were not interested in the sermon at all; they only wanted to get a near view of his head.

Well, Harris said–no, Harris didn’t say, _I_ say, that as the days went on and Sunday followed Sunday, the interest in Harris’s hair grew and grew; because it didn’t stay merely and monotonously green, it took on deeper and deeper shades of green; and then it would change and become reddish, and would go from that to some other color–purplish, yellowish, bluish, and so on–but it was never a solid color.

It was always mottled. And each Sunday it was a little more interesting than it was the Sunday before–and Harris’s head became famous, and people came from New York, and Boston, and South Carolina, and Japan, and so on, to look. There wasn’t seating-capacity for all the people that came while his head was undergoing these various and fascinating mottlings. And it was a good thing in several ways, because the business had been languishing a little, and now a lot of people joined the church so that they could have the show, and it was the beginning of a prosperity for that church which has never diminished in all these years.

**********************************************************

This ends Part 51 of the “Mark Twain Biography” of Chapter XIV, Section 4 of 4.

The next article is Part 52, which is Chapter XV.

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Click on Mark Twain’s Audio Books and enjoy.

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This is my Part 50 of Mark Twain’s Biography

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–XIV.

BY MARK TWAIN.

Section 3 of 4

…”There–you wrote them! I have found it out! By God, I did not know it before, and I ask a million pardons! That one there, the ‘Old Times on the Mississippi,’ is the best book you ever wrote!”

The usual number of those curious accidents which we call coincidences have fallen to my share in this life, but for picturesqueness this one puts all the others in the shade: that a crowned head and a _portier_, the very top of an empire and the very bottom of it, should pass the very same criticism and deliver the very same verdict upon a book of mine–and almost in the same hour and the same breath–is a coincidence which out-coincidences any coincidence which I could have imagined with such powers of imagination as I have been favored with; and I have not been accustomed to regard them as being small or of an inferior quality.

It is always a satisfaction to me to remember that whereas I do not know, for sure, what any other nation thinks of any one of my twenty-three volumes, I do at least know for a certainty what one nation of fifty millions thinks of one of them, at any rate; for if the mutual verdict of the top of an empire and the bottom of it does not establish for good and all the judgment of the entire nation concerning that book, then the axiom that we can get a sure estimate of a thing by arriving at a general average of all the opinions involved, is a fallacy.

Two months ago (December 6) I was dictating a brief account of a private dinner in Berlin, where the Emperor of Germany was host and I the chief guest. Something happened day before yesterday which moves me to take up that matter again.

At the dinner his Majesty chatted briskly and entertainingly along in easy and flowing English, and now and then he interrupted himself to address a remark to me, or to some other individual of the guests. When the reply had been delivered, he resumed his talk. I noticed that the table etiquette tallied with that which was the law of my house at home when we had guests: that is to say, the guests answered when the host favored them with a remark, and then quieted down and behaved themselves until they got another chance.

If I had been in the Emperor’s chair and he in mine, I should have felt infinitely comfortable and at home, and should have done a world of talking, and done it well; but I was guest now, and consequently I felt less at home. From old experience, I was familiar with the rules of the game, and familiar with their exercise from the high place of host; but I was not familiar with the trammelled and less satisfactory position of guest, therefore I felt a little strange and out of place.

But there was no animosity–no, the Emperor was host, therefore according to my own rule he had a right to do the talking, and it was my honorable duty to intrude no interruptions or other improvements, except upon invitation; and of course it could be _my_ turn some day: some day, on some friendly visit of inspection to America, it might be my pleasure and distinction to have him as guest at my table; then I would give him a rest, and a remarkably quiet time.

In one way there was a difference between his table and mine–for instance, atmosphere; the guests stood in awe of him, and naturally they conferred that feeling upon me, for, after all, I am only human, although I regret it. When a guest answered a question he did it with deferential voice and manner; he did not put any emotion into it, and he did not spin it out, but got it out of his system as quickly as he could, and then looked relieved.

The Emperor was used to this atmosphere, and it did not chill his blood; maybe it was an inspiration to him, for he was alert, brilliant and full of animation; also he was most gracefully and felicitously complimentary to my books,–and I will remark here that the happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another.

In that other chapter I mentioned the high compliment which he paid to the book, “Old Times on the Mississippi,” but there were others; among them some gratifying praise of my description in “A Tramp Abroad” of certain striking phases of German student life. I mention these things here because I shall have occasion to hark back to them presently.

Those stars indicate the long chapter which I dictated yesterday, a chapter which is much too long for magazine purposes, and therefore must wait until this Autobiography shall appear in book form, five years hence, when I am dead: five years according to my calculation, twenty-seven years according to the rediction furnished me a week ago by the latest and most confident of all the palmists who have ever read my future in my hand.

The Emperor’s dinner, and its beer-and-anecdote appendix, covered six hours of diligent industry, and this accounts for the extraordinary length of that chapter.

A couple of days ago a gentleman called upon me with a message. He had just arrived from Berlin, where he had been acting for our Government in a matter concerning tariff revision, he being a member of the commission appointed by our Government to conduct our share of the affair. Upon the completion of the commission’s labors, the Emperor invited the members of it to an audience, and in the course of the conversation he made a reference to me; continuing, he spoke of my chapter on the German language in “A Tramp Abroad,” and characterized it by an adjective which is too complimentary for me to repeat here without bringing my modesty under suspicion.

Then he paid some compliments to “The Innocents Abroad,” and followed these with the remark that my account in one of my books of certain striking phases of German student life was the best and truest that had ever been written. By this I perceive that he remembers that dinner of sixteen years ago, for he said the same thing to me about the student-chapter at that time. Next he said he wished this gentleman to convey two messages to America from him and deliver them–one to the President, the other to me. The wording of the message to me was:

“Convey to Mr. Clemens my kindest regards. Ask him if he remembers that dinner, and ask him why he didn’t do any talking.”

Why, how could I talk when he was talking? He “held the age,” as the poker-clergy say, and two can’t talk at the same time with good effect. It reminds me of the man who was reproached by a friend, who said,

“I think it a shame that you have not spoken to your wife for fifteen years. How do you explain it? How do you justify it?”

That poor man said,

“I didn’t want to interrupt her.”…

**********************************************************

This ends Part 50 of the “Mark Twain Biography” of Chapter XIV, Section 3 of 4.

The next article is Part 51, which is Chapter XIV, Section 4 of 4.

***********************************************************

To GET many of the Mark Twain Collection of Audio Books,
Click on Mark Twain’s Audio Books and enjoy.

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This is my Part 49 of Mark Twain’s Biography

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*************************

CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–XIV.

BY MARK TWAIN.

Section 2 of 4

…The night before the Emperor’s dinner I helped Smith take his exercise, after midnight, and he was full of his project. He had sent in his resignation that day, and was trembling for the result; and naturally, because it might possibly be that the chancellor would be happy to fill his place with somebody else, in which case he could accept the resignation without comment and without offence. Smith was in a very anxious frame of mind; not that he feared that Caprivi was dissatisfied with him, for he had no such fear; it was the Emperor that he was afraid of; he did not know how he stood with the Emperor.

He said that while apparently it was Caprivi who would decide his case, it was in reality the Emperor who would perform that service; that the Emperor kept personal watch upon everything, and that no official sparrow could fall to the ground without his privity and consent; that the resignation would be laid before his Majesty, who would accept it or decline to accept it, according to his pleasure, and that then his pleasure in the matter would be communicated by Caprivi.

Smith said he would know his fate the next evening, after the imperial dinner; that when I should escort his Majesty into the large salon contiguous to the dining-room, I would find there about thirty men–Cabinet ministers, admirals, generals and other great officials of the Empire–and that these men would be standing talking together in little separate groups of two or three persons; that the Emperor would move from group to group and say a word to each, sometimes two words, sometimes ten words; and that the length of his speech, whether brief or not so brief, would indicate the exact standing in the Emperor’s regard, of the man accosted; and that by observing this thermometer an expert could tell, to half a degree, the state of the imperial weather in each case; that in Berlin, as in the imperial days of Rome, the Emperor was the sun, and that his smile or his frown meant good fortune or disaster to the man upon whom it should fall.

Smith suggested that I watch the thermometer while the Emperor went his rounds of the groups; and added that if his Majesty talked four minutes with any person there present, it meant high favor, and that the sun was in the zenith, and cloudless, for that man.

I mentally recorded that four-minute altitude, and resolved to see if any man there on that night stood in sufficient favor to achieve it.

Very well. After the dinner I watched the Emperor while he passed from group to group, and privately I timed him with a watch. Two or three times he came near to reaching the four-minute altitude, but always he fell short a little. The last man he came to was Smith. He put his hand on Smith’s shoulder and began to talk to him; and when he finished, the thermometer had scored seven minutes!

The company then moved toward the smoking-room, where cigars, beer and anecdotes would be in brisk service until midnight, and as Smith passed me he whispered,

“That settles it. The chancellor will ask me how much of a vacation I want, and I sha’n't be afraid to raise the limit. I shall call for six months.”

Smith’s dream had been to spend his three months’ vacation–in case he got a vacation instead of the other thing–in one of the great capitals of the Continent–a capital whose name I shall suppress, at present. The next day the chancellor asked him how much of a vacation he wanted, and where he desired to spend it. Smith told him. His prayer was granted, and rather more than granted.

The chancellor augmented his salary and attached him to the German Embassy of that selected capital, giving him a place of high dignity bearing an imposing title, and with nothing to do except attend banquets of an extraordinary character at the Embassy, once or twice a year. The term of his vacation was not specified; he was to continue it until requested to come back to his work in the Foreign Office. This was in 1891.

Eight years later Smith was passing through Vienna, and he called upon me. There had been no interruption of his vacation, as yet, and there was no likelihood that an interruption of it would occur while he should still be among the living.

As I have already remarked, “Old Times on the Mississippi” got the Kaiser’s best praise. It was after midnight when I reached home; I was usually out until toward midnight, and the pleasure of being out late was poisoned, every night, by the dread of what I must meet at my front door–an indignant face, a resentful face, the face of the _portier_.

The _portier_ was a tow-headed young German, twenty-two or three years old; and it had been for some time apparent to me that he did not enjoy being hammered out of his sleep, nights, to let me in. He never had a kind word for me, nor a pleasant look. I couldn’t understand it, since it was his business to be on watch and let the occupants of the several flats in at any and all hours of the night. I could not see why he so distinctly failed to get reconciled to it.

The fact is, I was ignorantly violating, every night, a custom in which he was commercially interested. I did not suspect this. No one had told me of the custom, and if I had been left to guess it, it would have taken me a very long time to make a success of it. It was a custom which was so well established and so universally recognized, that it had all the force and dignity of law. By authority of this custom, whosoever entered a Berlin house after ten at night must pay a trifling toll to the _portier_ for breaking his sleep to let him in.

This tax was either two and a half cents or five cents, I don’t remember which; but I had never paid it, and didn’t know I owed it, and as I had been residing in Berlin several weeks, I was so far in arrears that my presence in the German capital was getting to be a serious disaster to that young fellow.

I arrived from the imperial dinner sorrowful and anxious, made my presence known and prepared myself to wait in patience the tedious minute or two which the _portier_ usually allowed himself to keep me tarrying–as a punishment. But this time there was no stage-wait; the door was instantly unlocked, unbolted, unchained and flung wide; and in it appeared the strange and welcome apparition of the _portier’s_ round face all sunshine and smiles and welcome, in place of the black frowns and hostility that I was expecting.

Plainly he had not come out of his bed: he had been waiting for me, watching for me. He began to pour out upon me in the most enthusiastic and energetic way a generous stream of German welcome and homage, meanwhile dragging me excitedly to his small bedroom beside the front door; there he made me bend down over a row of German translations of my books and said…

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This ends Part 49 of the “Mark Twain Biography” of Chapter XIV, Section 2 of 4.

The next article is Part 50, which is Chapter XIV, Section 3 of 4.

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