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Carnival of Crime in Ct. .....................................................................................................................................1

Mark Twain ..............................................................................................................................................1

I was feeling blithe, almost jocund. I put a match to my cigar, and just then the morning's mail was handed in.

The first superscription I glanced at was in a handwriting that sent a thrill of pleasure through and through

me. It was Aunt Mary's; and she was the person I loved and honored most in all the world, outside of my own

household. She had been my boyhood's idol; maturity, which is fatal to so many enchantments, had not been

able to dislodge her from her pedestal; no, it had only justified her right to be there, and placed her

dethronement permanently among the impossibilities. To show how strong her influence over me was, I will

observe that long after everybody else's "dostopsmoking" had ceased to affect me in the slightest degree,

Aunt Mary could still stir my torpid conscience into faint signs of life when she touched upon the matter. But

all things have their limit in this world. A happy day came at last, when even Aunt Mary's words could no

longer move me. I was not merely glad to see that day arrive; I was more than gladI was grateful; for when

its sun had set, the one alloy that was able to mar my enjoyment of my aunt's society was gone. The

remainder of her stay with us that winter was in every way a delight. Of course she pleaded with me just as

earnestly as ever, after that blessed day, to quit my pernicious habit, but to no purpose whatever; the moment

she opened the subject I at once became calmly, peacefully, contentedly indifferentabsolutely,

adamantinely indifferent. Consequently the closing weeks of that memorable visit melted away as pleasantly

as a dream, they were so freighted for me with tranquil satisfaction. I could not have enjoyed my pet vice

more if my gentle tormentor had been a smoker herself, and an advocate of the practice. Well, the sight of her

handwriting reminded me that I way getting very hungry to see her again. I easily guessed what I should find

in her letter. I opened it. Good! just as I expected; she was coming! Coming this very day, too, and by the

I said to myself, "I am thoroughly happy and content now. If my most pitiless enemy could appear before me

Straightway the door opened, and a shriveled, shabby dwarf entered. He was not more than two feet high. He

seemed to be about forty years old. Every feature and every inch of him was a trifle out of shape; and so,

while one could not put his finger upon any particular part and say, "This is a conspicuous deformity," the

spectator perceived that this little person was a deformity as a wholea vague, general, evenly blended,

nicely adjusted deformity. There was a foxlike cunning in the face and the sharp little eyes, and also

alertness and malice. And yet, this vile bit of human rubbish seemed to bear a sort of remote and illdefined

resemblance to me! It was dully perceptible in the mean form, the countenance, and even the clothes,

gestures, manner, and attitudes of the creature. He was a farfetched, dim suggestion of a burlesque upon me, a

caricature of me in little. One thing about him struck me forcibly and most unpleasantly: he was covered all

over with a fuzzy, greenish mold, such as one sometimes sees upon mildewed bread. The sight of it was

He stepped along with a chipper air, and flung himself into a doll's chair in a very freeandeasy way,

without waiting to be asked. He tossed his hat into the wastebasket. He picked up my old chalk pipe from

the floor, gave the stem a wipe or two on his knee, filled the bowl from the tobaccobox at his side, and said

I blushed to the roots of my hair; partly with indignation, but mainly because it somehow seemed to me that

this whole performance was very like an exaggeration of conduct which I myself had sometimes been guilty

of in my intercourse with familiar friendsbut never, never with strangers, I observed to myself. I wanted to

kick the pygmy into the fire, but some incomprehensible sense of being legally and legitimately under his

authority forced me to obey his order. He applied the match to the pipe, took a contemplative whiff or two,

I flushed again, and in anger and humiliation as before; for the language was hardly an exaggeration of some

that I have uttered in my day, and moreover was delivered in a tone of voice and with an exasperating drawl

that had the seeming of a deliberate travesty of my style. Now there is nothing I am quite so sensitive about

as a mocking imitation of my drawling infirmity of speech. I spoke up sharply and said:

"Look here, you miserable ashcat! you will have to give a little more attention to your manners, or I will

The manikin smiled a smile of malicious content and security, puffed a whiff of smoke contemptuously

This cool snub rasped me all over, but it seemed to subjugate me, too, for a moment. The pygmy

contemplated me awhile with his weasel eyes, and then said, in a peculiarly sneering way:

I felt a guilty pangin truth, I had felt it forty times before that tramp had traveled a block from my

"Therewait. You were about to lie again. I know what you said to him. You said the cook was gone

downtown and there was nothing left from breakfast. Two lies. You knew the cook was behind the door,

This astonishing accuracy silenced me; and it filled me with wondering speculations, too, as to how this cub

could have got his information. Of course he could have culled the conversation from the tramp, but by what

sort of magic had he contrived to find out about the concealed cook? Now the dwarf spoke again:

"It was rather pitiful, rather small, in you to refuse to read that poor young woman's manuscript the other day,

and give her an opinion as to its literary value; and she had come so far, too, and so hopefully. Now wasn't

I felt like a cur! And I had felt so every time the thing had recurred to my mind, I may as well confess. I

"Look here, have you nothing better to do than prowl around prying into other people's business? Did that girl

"Never mind whether she did or not. The main thing is, you did that contemptible thing. And you felt

"I told that girl, in the kindest, gentlest way, that I could not consent to deliver judgment upon any one's

manuscript, because an individual's verdict was worthless. It might underrate a work of high merit and lose it

to the world, or it might overrate a trashy production and so open the way for its infliction upon the world: I

said that the great public was the only tribunal competent to sit in judgment upon a literary effort, and

therefore it must be best to lay it before that tribunal in the outset, since in the end it must stand or fall by that

"Yes, you said all that. So you did, you juggling, smallsouled shuffler! And yet when the happy hopefulness

faded out of that poor girl's face, when you saw her furtively slip beneath her shawl the scroll she had so

patiently and honestly scribbled atso ashamed of her darling now, so proud of it beforewhen you saw

the gladness go out of her eyes and the tears come there, when she crept away so humbly who had come

"Oh, peace! peace! peace! Blister your merciless tongue, haven't all these thoughts tortured me enough

Remorse! remorse! It seemed to me that it would eat the very heart out of me! And yet that small fiend only

sat there leering at me with joy and contempt, and placidly chuckling. Presently he began to speak again.

Every sentence was an accusation, and every accusation a truth. Every clause was freighted with sarcasm and

derision, every slowdropping word burned like vitriol. The dwarf reminded me of times when I had flown at

my children in anger and punished them for faults which a little inquiry would have taught me that others,

and not they, had committed. He reminded me of how I had disloyally allowed old friends to be traduced in

my hearing, and been too craven to utter a word in their defense. He reminded me of many dishonest things

which I had done; of many which I had procured to be done by children and other irresponsible persons; of

some which I had planned, thought upon, and longed to do, and been kept from the performance by fear of

consequences only. With exquisite cruelty he recalled to my mind, item by item, wrongs and unkindnesses I

had inflicted and humiliations I had put upon friends since dead, "who died thinking of those injuries, maybe,

"For instance," said he, "take the case of your younger brother, when you two were boys together, many a

long year ago. He always lovingly trusted in you with a fidelity that your manifold treacheries were not able

to shake. He followed you about like a dog, content to suffer wrong and abuse if he might only be with you;

patient under these injuries so long as it was your hand that inflicted them. The latest picture you have of him

in health and strength must be such a comfort to you! You pledged your honor that if he would let you

blindfold him no harm should come to him; and then, giggling and choking over the rare fun of the joke, you

led him to a brook thinly glazed with ice, and pushed him in; and how you did laugh! Man, you will never

forget the gentle, reproachful look he gave you as he struggled shivering out, if you live a thousand years!

"Beast, I have seen it a million times, and shall see it a million more! and may you rot away piecemeal, and

The dwarf chuckled contentedly, and went on with his accusing history of my career. I dropped into a moody,

vengeful state, and suffered in silence under the merciless lash. At last this remark of his gave me a sudden

"Two months ago, on a Tuesday, you woke up, away in the night, and fell to thinking, with shame, about a

peculiarly mean and pitiful act of yours toward a poor ignorant Indian in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains in

"Stop a moment, devil! Stop! Do you mean to tell me that even my very thoughts are not hidden from you?"

"It seems to look like that. Didn't you think the thoughts I have just mentioned?"

"If I didn't, I wish I may never breathe again! Look here, friendlook me in the eye. Who are you?"

In an instant I was in a blaze of joy and exultation. I sprang at the creature, roaring:

"Curse you, I have wished a hundred million times that you were tangible, and that I could get my hands on

Folly! Lightning does not move more quickly than my Conscience did! He darted aloft so suddenly that in the

moment my fingers clutched the empty air he was already perched on the top of the high bookcase, with his

thumb at his nose in token of derision. I flung the poker at him, and missed. I fired the bootjack. In a blind

rage I flew from place to place, and snatched and hurled any missile that came handy; the storm of books,

inkstands, and chunks of coal gloomed the air and beat about the manikin's perch relentlessly, but all to no

purpose; the nimble figure dodged every shot; and not only that, but burst into a cackle of sarcastic and

triumphant laughter as I sat down exhausted. While I puffed and gasped with fatigue and excitement, my

"My good slave, you are curiously witlessno, I mean characteristically so. In truth, you are always

consistent, always yourself, always an ass. Other wise it must have occurred to you that if you attempted this

murder with a sad heart and a heavy conscience, I would droop under the burdening in influence instantly.

Fool, I should have weighed a ton, and could not have budged from the floor; but instead, you are so

cheerfully anxious to kill me that your conscience is as light as a feather; hence I am away up here out of

I would have given anything, then, to be heavyhearted, so that I could get this person down from there and

take his life, but I could no more be heavyhearted over such a desire than I could have sorrowed over its

accomplishment. So I could only look longingly up at my master, and rave at the ill luck that denied me a

heavy conscience the one only time that I had ever wanted such a thing in my life. By and by I got to musing

over the hour's strange adventure, and of course my human curiosity began to work. I set myself to framing in

my mind some questions for this fiend to answer. Just then one of my boys entered, leaving the door open

"Out of this! Hurry! jump! Fly! Shut the door! Quick, or my Conscience will get away!"

The door slammed to, and I locked it. I glanced up and was grateful, to the bottom of my heart, to see that my

"Hang you, I might have lost you! Children are the heedlessest creatures. But look here, friend, the boy did

I made a mental note of that piece of information with a good deal of satisfaction. I could kill this miscreant

now, if I got a chance, and no one would know it. But this very reflection made me so lighthearted that my

Conscience could hardly keep his seat, but was like to float aloft toward the ceiling like a toy balloon. I said,

"Come, my Conscience, let us be friendly. Let us fly a flag of truce for a while. I am suffering to ask you

"Because you never asked to see me before; that is, you never asked in the right spirit and the proper form

before. You were just in the right spirit this time, and when you called for your most pitiless enemy I was that

"No. It only made me visible to you. I am unsubstantial, just as other spirits are."

If he was unsubstantial, how was I going to kill him? But I dissembled, and said persuasively:

"Conscience, it isn't sociable of you to keep at such a distance. Come down and take another smoke."

This was answered with a look that was full of derision, and with this observation added:

"Come where you can get at me and kill me? The invitation is declined with thanks."

"All right," said I to myself; "so it seems a spirit can be killed, after all; there will be one spirit lacking in this

"There; wait a bit. I am not your friend. I am your enemy; I am not your equal, I am your master, Call me 'my

"We will have no argument about this. Just obey, that is all. Go on with your chatter."

"Very well, my lordsince nothing but my lord will suit youI was going to ask you how long you will be

I broke out with strong indignation: "This is simply an outrage. That is what I think of it! You have dogged,

and dogged, and dogged me, all the days of my life, invisible. That was misery enough, now to have such a

looking thing as you tagging after me like another shadow all the rest of my day is an intolerable prospect.

"My lad, there was never so pleased a conscience in this world as I was when you made me visible. It gives

me an inconceivable advantage. Now I can look you straight in the eye, and call you names, and leer at you,

jeer at you, sneer at you; and you know what eloquence there is in visible gesture and expression, more

especially when the effect is heightened by audible speech. I shall always address you henceforth in your

"Ah, I forgot that. I will try to be civil; and you try it, too, for a novelty. The idea of a civil conscience! It is a

good joke; an excellent joke. All the consciences I have ever heard of were nagging, badgering, faultfinding,

execrable savages! Yes; and always in a sweat about some poor little insignificant trifle or otherdestruction

catch the lot of them, I say! I would trade mine for the smallpox and seven kinds of consumption, and be glad

of the chance. Now tell me, why is it that a conscience can't haul a man over the coals once, for an offense,

and then let him alone? Why is it that it wants to keep on pegging at him, day and night and night and day,

week in and week out, forever and ever, about the same old thing? There is no sense in that, and no reason in

it. I think a conscience that will act like that is meaner than the very dirt itself."

"No, sir. Excuse me. We do it simply because it is 'business.' It is our trade. The purpose of it is to improve

the man, but we are merely disinterested agents. We are appointed by authority, and haven't anything to say

in the matter. We obey orders and leave the consequences where they belong. But I am willing to admit this

much: we do crowd the orders a trifle when we get a chance, which is most of the time. We enjoy it. We are

instructed to remind a man a few times of an error; and I don't mind acknowledging that we try to give pretty

good measure. And when we get hold of a man of a peculiarly sensitive nature, oh, but we do haze him! I

have consciences to come all the way from China and Russia to see a person of that kind put through his

paces, on a special occasion. Why, I knew a man of that sort who had accidentally crippled a mulatto baby;

the news went abroad, and I wish you may never commit another sin if the consciences didn't flock from all

over the earth to enjoy the fun and help his master exorcise him. That man walked the floor in torture for

fortyeight hours, without eating or sleeping, and then blew his brains out. The child was perfectly well again

"Well, you are a precious crew, not to put it too strong. I think I begin to see now why you have always been

a trifle inconsistent with me. In your anxiety to get all the juice you can out of a sin, you make a man repent

of it in three or four different ways. For instance, you found fault with me for lying to that tramp, and I

suffered over that. But it was only yesterday that I told a tramp the square truth, to wit, that, it being regarded

as bad citizenship to encourage vagrancy, I would give him nothing. What did you do then: Why, you made

me say to myself, 'Ah, it would have been so much kinder and more blameless to ease him off with a little

white lie, and send him away feeling that if he could not have bread, the gentle treatment was at least

something to be grateful for!' Well, I suffered all day about that. Three days before I had fed a tramp, and fed

him freely, supposing it a virtuous act. Straight off you said, 'Oh, false citizen, to have fed a tramp!' and I

suffered as usual. I gave a tramp work; you objected to itafter the contract was made, of course; you never

speak up beforehand. Next, I refused a tramp work; you objected to that. Next, I proposed to kill a tramp; you

kept me awake all night, oozing remorse at every pore. Sure I was going to be right this time, I sent the next

tramp away with my benediction; and I wish you may live as long as I do, if you didn't make me smart all

night again because I didn't kill him. Is there any way of satisfying that malignant invention which is called a

"Well, none that I propose to tell you, my son. Ass! I don't care what act you may turn your hand to, I can

straightway whisper a word in your ear and make you think you have committed a dreadful meanness. It is

my businessand my joyto make you repent of everything you do. If I have fooled away any

opportunities it was not intentional; I beg to assure you it was not intentional!"

"Don't worry; you haven't missed a trick that I know of. I never did a thing in all my life, virtuous or

otherwise, that I didn't repent of in twentyfour hours. In church last Sunday I listened to a charity sermon.

My first impulse was to give three hundred and fifty dollars; I repented of that and reduced it a hundred;

repented of that and reduced it another hundred; repented of that and reduced it another hundred; repented of

that and reduced the remaining fifty to twentyfive; repented of that and came down to fifteen; repented of

that and dropped to two dollars and a half; when the plate came around at last, I repented once more and

contributed ten cents. Well, when I got home, I did wish to goodness I had that ten cents back again! You

never did let me get through a charity sermon without having something to sweat about."

"I think so. Many and many's the restless night I've wanted to take you by the neck. If I could only get hold of

"Yes, no doubt. But I am not an ass; I am only the saddle of an ass. But go on, go on. You entertain me more

I am glad of that. (You will not mind my lying a little, to keep in practice.) Look here; not to be too personal,

I think you are about the shabbiest and most contemptible little shriveledup reptile that can be imagined. I

am grateful enough that you are invisible to other people, for I should die with shame to be seen with such a

mildewed monkey of a conscience as you are. Now if you were five or six feet high, and"

"I don't care, you had a good deal to do with it, nevertheless. When you were eight or nine years old, I was

"Some of us grow one way and some the other. You had a large conscience once; if you've a small

conscience now I reckon there are reasons for it. However, both of us are to blame, you and I. You see, you

used to be conscientious about a great many things; morbidly so, I may say. It was a great many years ago.

You probably do not remember it now. Well, I took a great interest in my work, and I so enjoyed the anguish

which certain pet sins of yours afflicted you with that I kept pelting at you until I rather overdid the matter.

You began to rebel. Of course I began to lose ground, then, and shrivel a littlediminish in stature, get

moldy, and grow deformed. The more I weakened, the more stubbornly you fastened on to those particular

sins; till at last the places on my person that represent those vices became as callous as sharkskin. Take

smoking, for instance. I played that card a little too long, and I lost. When people plead with you at this late

day to quit that vice, that old callous place seems to enlarge and cover me all over like a shirt of mail. It

exerts a mysterious, smothering effect; and presently I, your faithful hater, your devoted Conscience, go

sound asleep! Sound? It is no name for it. I couldn't hear it thunder at such a time. You have some few other

"Other consciences. Whenever a person whose conscience I am acquainted with tries to plead with you about

the vices you are callous to, I get my friend to give his client a pang concerning some villainy of his own, and

that shuts off his meddling and starts him off to hunt personal consolation. My field of usefulness is about

trimmed down to tramps, budding authoresses, and that line of goods now; but don't you worry I'll harry

"I think I can. But if you had only been good enough to mention these facts some thirty years ago, I should

have turned my particular attention to sin, and I think that by this time I should not only have had you pretty

permanently asleep on the entire list of human vices, but reduced to the size of a homeopathic pill, at that.

That is about the style of conscience I am pining for. If I only had you shrunk you down to a homeopathic

pill, and could get my hands on you, would I put you in a glass case for a keepsake? No, sir. I would give you

to a yellow dog! That is where you ought to beyou and all your tribe. You are not fit to be in society, in my

opinion. Now another question. Do you know a good many consciences in this section?"

"I would give anything to see some of them! Could you bring them here? And would they be visible to me?"

"I suppose I ought to have known that without asking. But no matter, you can describe them. Tell me about

"Very well. I know him intimately; have known him many years. I knew him when he was eleven feet high

and of a faultless figure. But he is very pasty and tough and misshapen now, and hardly ever interests himself

"Likely enough. There are few smaller, meaner men in this region than Hugh Thompson. Do you know

"Yes. He is a shade under four and a half feet high; used to be a blond; is a brunette now, but still shapely and

"I have known him from childhood. He was thirteen inches high, and rather sluggish, when he was two years

oldas nearly all of us are at that age. He is thirtyseven feet high now, and the stateliest figure in America.

His legs are still racked with growingpains, but he has a good time, nevertheless. Never sleeps. He is the

most active and energetic member of the New England Conscience Club; is president of it. Night and day you

can find him pegging away at Smith, panting with his labor, sleeves rolled up, countenance all alive with

enjoyment. He has got his victim splendidly dragooned now. He can make poor Smith imagine that the most

innocent little thing he does is an odious sin; and then he sets to work and almost tortures the soul out of him

"Smith is the noblest man in all this section, and the purest; and yet is always breaking his heart because he

cannot be good! Only a conscience could find pleasure in heaping agony upon a spirit like that. Do you know

"I have seen her at a distance, but am not acquainted with her. She lives in the open air altogether, because no

"I can believe that. Let me see. Do you know the conscience of that publisher who once stole some sketches

of mine for a 'series' of his, and then left me to pay the law expenses I had to incur in order to choke him

"Yes. He has a wide fame. He was exhibited, a month ago, with some other antiquities, for the benefit of a

recent Member of the Cabinet's conscience that was starving in exile. Tickets and fares were high, but I

traveled for nothing by pretending to be the conscience of an editor, and got in for halfprice by representing

myself to be the conscience of a clergyman. However, the publisher's conscience, which was to have been the

main feature of the entertainment, was a failureas an exhibition. He was there, but what of that? The

management had provided a microscope with a magnifying power of only thirty thousand diameters, and so

nobody got to see him, after all. There was great and general dissatisfaction, of course, but"

Just here there was an eager footstep on the stair; I opened the door, and my aunt Mary burst into the room. It

was a joyful meeting and a cheery bombardment of questions and answers concerning family matters ensued.

"But I am going to abuse you a little now. You promised me, the day I saw you last, that you would look after

the needs of the poor family around the corner as faithfully as I had done it myself. Well, I found out by

In simple truth, I never had thought of that family a second time! And now such a splintering pang of guilt

shot through me! I glanced up at my Conscience. Plainly, my heavy heart was affecting him. His body was

"And think how you have neglected my poor protege at the almshouse, you dear, hardhearted

promisebreaker!" I blushed scarlet, and my tongue was tied. As the sense of my guilty negligence waxed

sharper and stronger, my Conscience began to sway heavily back and forth; and when my aunt, after a little

pause, said in a grieved tone, "Since you never once went to see her, maybe it will not distress you now to

know that that poor child died, months ago, utterly friendless and forsaken!" My Conscience could no longer

bear up under the weight of my sufferings, but tumbled headlong from his high perch and struck the floor

with a dull, leaden thump. He lay there writhing with pain and quaking with apprehension, but straining every

muscle in frantic efforts to get up. In a fever of expectancy I sprang to the door, locked it, placed my back

against it, and bent a watchful gaze upon my struggling master. Already my fingers were itching to begin

"Oh, what can be the matter!" exclaimed by aunt, shrinking from me, and following with her frightened eyes

the direction of mine. My breath was coming in short, quick gasps now, and my excitement was almost

"Oh, do not look so! You appal me! Oh, what can the matter be? What is it you see? Why do you stare so?

"Peace, woman!" I said, in a hoarse whisper. "Look elsewhere; pay no attention to me; it is

nothingnothing. I am often this way. It will pass in a moment. It comes from smoking too much."

My injured lord was up, wildeyed with terror, and trying to hobble toward the door. I could hardly breathe, I

"Oh, I knew how it would be; I knew it would come to this at last! Oh, I implore you to crush out that fatal

habit while it may yet be time! You must not, you shall not be deaf to my supplications longer!" My

struggling Conscience showed sudden signs of weariness! "Oh, promise me you will throw off this hateful

slavery of tobacco!" My Conscience began to reel drowsily, and grope with his handsenchanting spectacle!

"I beg you, I beseech you, I implore you! Your reason is deserting you! There is madness in your eye! It

flames with frenzy! Oh, hear me, hear me, and be saved! See, I plead with you on my very knees!" As she

sank before me my Conscience reeled again, and then drooped languidly to the floor, blinking toward me a

last supplication for mercy, with heavy eyes. "Oh, promise, or you are lost! Promise, and be redeemed!

Promise! Promise and live!" With a longdrawn sigh my conquered Conscience closed his eyes and fell fast

With an exultant shout I sprang past my aunt, and in an instant I had my lifelong foe by the throat. After so

many years of waiting and longing, he was mine at last. I tore him to shreds and fragments. I rent the

fragments to bits. I cast the bleeding rubbish into the fire, and drew into my nostrils the grateful incense of

I was a free man! I turned upon my poor aunt, who was almost petrified with terror, and shouted:

"Out of this with your paupers, your charities, your reforms, your pestilent morals! You behold before you a

man whose lifeconflict is done, whose soul is at peace; a man whose heart is dead to sorrow, dead to

suffering, dead to remorse; a man WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE! In my joy I spare you, though I could

She fled. Since that day my life is all bliss. Bliss, unalloyed bliss. Nothing in all the world could persuade me

to have a conscience again. I settled all my old outstanding scores, and began the world anew. I killed

thirtyeight persons during the first two weeksall of them on account of ancient grudges. I burned a

dwelling that interrupted my view. I swindled a widow and some orphans out of their last cow, which is a

very good one, though not thoroughbred, I believe. I have also committed scores of crimes, of various kinds,

and have enjoyed my work exceedingly, whereas it would formerly have broken my heart and turned my hair

In conclusion, I wish to state, by way of advertisement, that medical colleges desiring assorted tramps for

scientific purposes, either by the gross, by cord measurement, or per ton, will do well to examine the lot in

my cellar before purchasing elsewhere, as these were all selected and prepared by myself, and can be had at a

low rate, because I wish to clear, out my stock and get ready for the spring trade.