Mark Twain Biography - Audio Books

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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