Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories...........................................................................................................................1

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

THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON ..............................1

ON THE DECAY OF THE ART OF LYING .......................................................................................15

ABOUT MAGNANIMOUSINCIDENT LITERATURE...................................................................18

THE GRATEFUL POODLE................................................................................................................18

THE BENEVOLENT AUTHOR ..........................................................................................................19

THE GRATEFUL HUSBAND .............................................................................................................19

PUNCH, BROTHERS, PUNCH...........................................................................................................21

THE GREAT REVOLUTION IN PITCAIRN ......................................................................................24

THE CANVASSER'S TALE .................................................................................................................31

AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER ..................................................................................34

PARIS NOTES......................................................................................................................................38

LEGEND OF SAGENFELD, IN GERMANY ......................................................................................39

SPEECH ON THE BABIES ..................................................................................................................42

SPEECH ON THE WEATHER .............................................................................................................44

CONCERNING THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE ...............................................................................45

ROGERS ................................................................................................................................................47

It was well along in the forenoon of a bitter winter's day. The town of Eastport, in the state of Maine, lay

buried under a deep snow that was newly fallen. The customary bustle in the streets was wanting. One could

look long distances down them and see nothing but a deadwhite emptiness, with silence to match. Of course

I do not mean that you could see the silenceno, you could only hear it. The sidewalks were merely long,

deep ditches, with steep snow walls on either side. Here and there you might hear the faint, far scrape of a

wooden shovel, and if you were quick enough you might catch a glimpse of a distant black figure stooping

and disappearing in one of those ditches, and reappearing the next moment with a motion which you would

know meant the heaving out of a shovelful of snow. But you needed to be quick, for that black figure would

not linger, but would soar drop that shovel and scud for the house, thrashing itself with its arms to warm

them. Yes, it was too venomously cold for snowshovelers or anybody else to stay out long.

Presently the sky darkened; then the wind rose and began to blow in fitful, vigorous gusts, which sent clouds

of powdery snow aloft, and straight ahead, and everywhere. Under the impulse of one of these gusts, great

white drifts banked themselves like graves across the streets; a moment later another gust shifted them around

the other way, driving a fine spray of snow from their sharp crests, as the gale drives the spume flakes from

wavecrests at sea; a third gust swept that place as clean as your hand, if it saw fit. This was fooling, this was

play; but each and all of the gusts dumped some snow into the sidewalk ditches, for that was business.

Alonzo Fitz Clarence was sitting in his snug and elegant little parlor, in a lovely blue silk dressinggown,

with cuffs and facings of crimson satin, elaborately quilted. The remains of his breakfast were before him,

and the dainty and costly little table service added a harmonious charm to the grace, beauty, and richness of

A furious gust of wind shook the windows, and a great wave of snow washed against them with a drenching

"That means, no going out today. Well, I am content. But what to do for company? Mother is well enough,

Aunt Susan is well enough; but these, like the poor, I have with me always. On so grim a day as this, one

needs a new interest, a fresh element, to whet the dull edge of captivity. That was very neatly said, but it

doesn't mean anything. One doesn't want the edge of captivity sharpened up, you know, but just the reverse."

"That clock's wrong again. That clock hardly ever knows what time it is; and when it does know, it lies about

Alonzo touched an electric bell button in the wall. He waited a moment, then touched it again; waited a few

"Battery out of order, no doubt. But now that I have started, I will find out what time it is." He stepped to a

speakingtube in the wall, blew its whistle, and called, "Mother!" and repeated it twice.

"Well, that's no use. Mother's battery is out of order, too. Can't raise anybody downstairsthat is plain."

He sat down at a rosewood desk, leaned his chin on the lefthand edge of it and spoke, as if to the floor:

"Yes. I'm too lazy and comfortable to go downstairs; I am in extremity, and I can't seem to scare up any

"Thanks. It wouldn't have impoverished me, aunty, nor so enriched you that you could live without other

He got up, murmuring, "Just five minutes after nine," and faced his clock. "Ah," said he, "you are doing

better than usual. You are only thirtyfour minutes wrong. Let me see . . , let me see. . . . Thirtythree and

twentyone are fiftyfour; four times fiftyfour are two hundred and thirtysix. One off, leaves two hundred

He turned the hands of his clock forward till they marked twentyfive minutes to one, and said, "Now see if

"But what? Oh, don't stop there! You know you can trust me, Alonzoyou know, you can."

"I feel it, aunt, but this is very serious. It affects me deeplyme, and all the familyeven the whole

"Oh, please go on! I love you, and feel for you. Tell me all. Confide in me. What is it?"

"Plague take the weather! I don't see how you can have the heart to serve me so, Lon."

"There, there, aunty dear, I'm sorry; I am, on my honor. I won't do it again. Do you forgive me?"

"Yes, since you seem so sincere about it, though I know I oughtn't to. You will fool me again as soon as I

"No, I won't, honor bright. But such weather, oh, such weather! You've got to keep your spirits up artificially.

It is snowy, and blowy, and gusty, and bitter cold! How is the weather with you?"

"Warm and rainy and melancholy. The mourners go about the streets with their umbrellas running streams

from the end of every whalebone. There's an elevated double pavement of umbrellas, stretching down the

sides of the streets as far as I can see. I've got a fire for cheerfulness, and the windows open to keep cool. But

it is vain, it is useless: nothing comes in but the balmy breath of December, with its burden of mocking odors

from the flowers that possess the realm outside, and rejoice in their lawless profusion whilst the spirit of man

is low, and flaunt their gaudy splendors in his face while his soul is clothed in sackcloth and ashes and his

Alonzo opened his lips to say, "You ought to print that, and get it framed," but checked himself, for he heard

his aunt speaking to some one else. He went and stood at the window and looked out upon the wintry

prospect. The storm was driving the snow before it more furiously than ever; windowshutters were

slamming and banging; a forlorn dog, with bowed head and tail withdrawn from service, was pressing his

quaking body against a windward wall for shelter and protection; a young girl was plowing kneedeep

through the drifts, with her face turned from the blast, and the cape of her waterproof blowing straight

rearward over her head. Alonzo shuddered, and said with a sigh, "Better the slop, and the sultry rain, and

He turned from the window, moved a step, and stopped in a listening attitude. The faint, sweet notes of a

familiar song caught his ear. He remained there, with his head unconsciously bent forward, drinking in the

melody, stirring neither hand nor foot, hardly breathing. There was a blemish in the execution of the song, but

to Alonzo it seemed an added charm instead of a defect. This blemish consisted of a marked flatting of the

third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh notes of the refrain or chorus of the piece. When the music ended,

Alonzo drew a deep breath, and said, "Ah, I never have heard 'In the Sweet Byandby' sung like that

He stepped quickly to the desk, listened a moment, and said in a guarded, confidential voice, "Aunty, who is

"She is the company I was expecting. Stays with me a month or two. I will introduce you. Miss"

"For goodness' sake, wait a moment, Aunt Susan! You never stop to think what you are about!"

He flew to his bedchamber, and returned in a moment perceptibly changed in his outward appearance, and

"Hang it, she would have introduced me to this angel in that skyblue dressinggown with redhot lapels!

He hastened and stood by the desk, and said eagerly, "Now, Aunty, I am ready," and fell to smiling and

"Very well. Miss Rosannah Ethelton, let me introduce to you my favorite nephew, Mr. Alonzo Fitz Clarence.

There! You are both good people, and I like you; so I am going to trust you together while I attend to a few

household affairs. Sit down, Rosannah; sit down, Alonzo. Goodby; I sha'n't be gone long."

Alonzo had been bowing and smiling all the while, and motioning imaginary young ladies to sit down in

imaginary chairs, but now he took a seat himself, mentally saying, "Oh, this is luck! Let the winds blow now,

While these young people chat themselves into an acquaintanceship, let us take the liberty of inspecting the

sweeter and fairer of the two. She sat alone, at her graceful ease, in a richly furnished apartment which was

manifestly the private parlor of a refined and sensible lady, if signs and symbols may go for anything. For

instance, by a low, comfortable chair stood a dainty, topheavy workstand, whose summit was a fancifully

embroidered shallow basket, with varicolored crewels, and other strings and odds, and ends protruding from

under the gaping lid and hanging down in negligent profusion. On the floor lay bright shreds of Turkey red,

Prussian blue, and kindred fabrics, bits of ribbon, a spool or two, a pair of scissors, and a roll or so of tinted

silken stuffs. On a luxurious sofa, upholstered with some sort of soft Indian goods wrought in black and gold

threads interwebbed with other threads not so pronounced in color, lay a great square of coarse white stuff,

upon whose surface a rich bouquet of flowers was growing, under the deft cultivation of the crochetneedle.

The household cat was asleep on this work of art. In a baywindow stood an easel with an unfinished picture

on it, and a palette and brushes on a chair beside it. There were books everywhere: Robertson's Sermons,

Tennyson, Moody and Sankey, Hawthorne, Rab and His Friends, cookbooks, prayerbooks,

patternbooksand books about all kinds of odious and exasperating pottery, of course. There was a piano,

with a deckload of music, and more in a tender. There was a great plenty of pictures on the walls, on the

shelves of the mantelpiece, and around generally; where coigns of vantage offered were statuettes, and quaint

and pretty gimcracks, and rare and costly specimens of peculiarly devilish china. The baywindow gave upon

a garden that was ablaze with foreign and domestic flowers and flowering shrubs.

But the sweet young girl was the daintiest thing these premises, within or without, could offer for

contemplation: delicately chiseled features, of Grecian cast; her complexion the pure snow of a japonica that

is receiving a faint reflected enrichment from some scarlet neighbor of the garden; great, soft blue eyes

fringed with long, curving lashes; an expression made up of the trustfulness of a child and the gentleness of a

fawn; a beautiful head crowned with its own prodigal gold; a lithe and rounded figure, whose every attitude

Her dress and adornment were marked by that exquisite harmony that can come only of a fine natural taste

perfected by culture. Her gown was of a simple magenta tulle, cut bias, traversed by three rows of lightblue

flounces, with the selvage edges turned up with ashesofroses chenille; overdress of dark bay tarlatan with

scarlet satin lambrequins; corn colored polonaise, en zanier, looped with motherofpearl buttons and silver

cord, and hauled aft and made fast by buff velvet lashings; basque of lavender reps, picked out with

valenciennes; low neck, short sleeves; maroon velvet necktie edged with delicate pink silk; inside

handkerchief of some simple threeply ingrain fabric of a soft saffron tint; coral bracelets and locketchain;

This was all; yet even in this subdued attire she was divinely beautiful. Then what must she have been when

All this time she had been busily chatting with Alonzo, unconscious of our inspection. The minutes still sped,

and still she talked. But by and by she happened to look up, and saw the clock. A crimson blush sent its rich

She sprang from her chair with such haste that she hardly heard the young man's answering goodby. She

stood radiant, graceful, beautiful, and gazed, wondering, upon the accusing clock. Presently her pouting lips

"Five minutes after eleven! Nearly two hours, and it did not seem twenty minutes! Oh, dear, what will he

"Twentyfive minutes to three! Nearly two hours, and I didn't believe it was two minutes! Is it possible that

this clock is humbugging again? Miss Ethelton! Just one moment, please. Are you there yet?"

The girl blushed again, murmured to herself, "It's right down cruel of him to ask me!" and then spoke up and

"Well, Iwell, nothing in particular. It's very lonesome here. It's asking a great deal, I know, but would you

mind talking with me again by and bythat is, if it will not trouble you too much?"

"Oh, thanks! Miss Ethelton! . . . Ah, me, she's gone, and here are the black clouds and the whirling snow and

the raging winds come again! But she said goodby. She didn't say good morning, she said goodby!.... The

He sat down, and gazed dreamily into his fire for a while, then heaved a sigh and said:

"How wonderful it is! Two little hours ago I was a free man, and now my heart's in San Francisco!"

About that time Rosannah Ethelton, propped in the windowseat of her bedchamber, book in hand, was

gazing vacantly out over the rainy seas that washed the Golden Gate, and whispering to herself, "How

different he is from poor Burley, with his empty head and his single little antic talent of mimicry!"

Four weeks later Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley was entertaining a gay luncheon company, in a sumptuous

drawingroom on Telegraph Hill, with some capital imitations of the voices and gestures of certain popular

actors and San Franciscan literary people and Bonanza grandees. He was elegantly upholstered, and was a

handsome fellow, barring a trifling cast in his eye. He seemed very jovial, but nevertheless he kept his eye on

the door with an expectant and uneasy watchfulness. By and by a nobby. lackey appeared, and delivered a

message to the mistress, who nodded her head understandingly. That seemed to settle the thing for Mr.

Burley; his vivacity decreased little by little, and a dejected look began to creep into one of his eyes and a

The rest of the company departed in due time, leaving him with the mistress, to whom he said:

"There is no longer any question about it. She avoids me. She continually excuses herself. If I could see her,

"Perhaps her seeming avoidance is mere accident, Mr. Burley. Go to the small drawingroom upstairs and

amuse yourself a moment. I will despatch a household order that is on my mind, and then I will go to her

Mr. Burley went upstairs, intending to go to the small drawingroom, but as he was passing "Aunt Susan's"

private parlor, the door of which stood slightly ajar, he heard a joyous laugh which he recognized; so without

knock or announcement he stepped confidently in. But before he could make his presence known he heard

words that harrowed up his soul and chilled his young blood, die heard a voice say:

He saw her bowed form bend lower; he heard her kiss somethingnot merely once, but again and again! His

"Rosannah, I knew you must be beautiful, but this is dazzling, this is blinding, this is intoxicating!"

"Alonzo, it is such happiness to hear you say it. I know it is not true, but I am so grateful to have you think it

is, nevertheless! I knew you must have a noble face, but the grace and majesty of the reality beggar the poor

"Thank you, my Rosannah! The photograph flatters me, but you must not allow yourself to think of that.

"Oh, Alonzo, none that have gone before me knew what love was, none that come after me will ever know

what happiness is. I float in a gorgeous cloud land, a boundless firmament of enchanted and bewildering

"Wholly, oh, wholly yours, Alonzo, now and forever! All the day long, and all through my nightly dreams,

one song sings itself, and its sweet burden is, 'Alonzo Fitz Clarence, Alonzo Fitz Clarence, Eastport, state of

"Curse him, I've got his address, anyway!" roared Burley, inwardly, and rushed from the place.

Just behind the unconscious Alonzo stood his mother, a picture of astonishment. She was so muffled from

head to heel in furs that nothing of herself was visible but her eyes and nose. She was a good allegory of

Behind the unconscious Rosannah stood "Aunt' Susan," another picture of astonishment. She was a good

allegory of summer, for she was lightly clad, and was vigorously cooling the perspiration on her face with a

"Soho!" exclaimed Mrs. Fitz Clarence, "this explains why nobody has been able to drag you out of your room

"So ho!" exclaimed Aunt Susan, "this explains why you have been a hermit for the past six weeks,

The young couple were on their feet in an instant, abashed, and standing like detected dealers in stolen goods

"Bless you, my son! I am happy in your happiness. Come to your mother's arms, Alonzo!"

Then was there a mingling of hearts and of tears of rejoicing on Telegraph Hill and in Eastport Square.

Servants were called by the elders, in both places. Unto one was given the order, "Pile this fire high, with

Unto the other was given the order, "Put out this, fire, and bring me two palmleaf fans and a pitcher of

Then the young people were dismissed, and the elders sat down to talk the sweet surprise over and make the

Some minutes before this Mr. Burley rushed from the mansion on Telegraph Hill without meeting or taking

formal leave of anybody. He hissed through his teeth, in unconscious imitation of a popular favorite in

melodrama, "Him shall she never wed! I have sworn it! Ere great Nature shall have doffed her winter's

Two weeks later. Every few hours, during same three or four days, a very prim and devoutlooking

Episcopal clergyman, with a cast in his eye, had visited Alonzo. According to his card, he was the Rev.

Melton Hargrave, of Cincinnati. He said he had retired from the ministry on account of his health. If he had

said on account of illhealth, he would probably have erred, to judge by his wholesome looks and firm build.

He was the inventor of an improvement in telephones, and hoped to make his bread by selling the privilege of

using it. "At present," he continued, "a man may go and tap a telegraph wire which is conveying a song or a

concert from one state to another, and he can attach his private telephone and steal a hearing of that music as

"Well," answered Alonzo, "if the owner of the music could not miss what was stolen, why should he care?"

"Suppose," replied the Reverend, "suppose that, instead of music that was passing along and being stolen, the

burden of the wire was loving endearments of the most private and sacred nature?"

Alonzo shuddered from head to heel. "Sir, it is a priceless invention," said he; "I must have it at any cost."

But the invention was delayed somewhere on the road from Cincinnati, most unaccountably. The impatient

Alonzo could hardly wait. The thought of Rosannah's sweet words being shared with him by some ribald

thief was galling to him. The Reverend came frequently and lamented the delay, and told of measures he had

One forenoon the Reverend ascended the stairs and knocked at Alonzo's door. There was no response. He

entered, glanced eagerly around,. closed the door softly, then ran to the telephone. The exquisitely soft and

remote strains of the "Sweet Byandby" came floating through the instrument. The singer was flatting, as

usual, the five notes that follow the first two in the chorus, when the Reverend interrupted her with this word,

in a voice which was an exact imitation of Alonzo's, with just the faintest flavor of impatience added:

The agile step that goes with a happy heart was heard on the stairs, and the Reverend, smiling diabolically,

sought sudden refuge behind the heavy folds of the velvet windowcurtains. Alonzo entered and flew to the

"I suppose it becomes me as much as your very polite speech became you, Mr. Fitz Clarence."

"Oh, indeed! Of course, then, I misunderstood you, and I most humbly beg your pardon, hahaha! No doubt

"A second rudeness! That is sufficient, sir. I will never forgive you. All is over between us."

"Oh, Rosannah, unsay those words! There is some dreadful mystery here, some hideous mistake. I am utterly

earnest and sincere when I say I never said anything about any song. I would not hurt you for the whole

There was a pause; then Alonzo heard the girl's sobbings retreating, and knew she had gone from the

telephone. He rose with a heavy sigh, and hastened from the room, saying to himself, "I will ransack the

charity missions and the haunts of the poor for my mother. She will persuade her that I never meant to wound

A minute later the Reverend was crouching over the telephone like a cat that knoweth the ways of the prey.

He had not very many minutes to wait. A soft, repentant voice, tremulous with tears, said:

"Alonzo, dear, I have been wrong. You could not have said so cruel a thing. It must have been some one who

"You have said all was over between us. So let it be. I spurn your proffered repentance, and despise it!"

Then he departed, radiant with fiendish triumph, to return no more with his imaginary telephonic invention

Four hours afterward Alonzo arrived with his mother from her favorite haunts of poverty and vice. They

summoned the San Francisco household; but there was no reply. They waited, and continued to wait, upon

At length, when it was sunset in San Francisco, and three hours and a half after dark in Eastport, an answer to

The watchers waited two minutesfive minutesten minutes. Then came these fatal words, in a frightened

"She is gone, and her baggage with her. To visit another friend, she told the servants. But I found this note on

the table in her room. Listen: 'I am gone; seek not to trace me out; my heart is broken; you will never see me

more. Tell him I shall always think of him when I sing my poor "Sweet Byandby," but never of the unkind

words he said about it.' That is her note. Alonzo, Alonzo, what does it mean? What has happened?"

But Alonzo sat white and cold as the dead. His mother threw back the velvet curtains and opened a window.

The cold air refreshed the sufferer, and he told his aunt his dismal story. Meantime his mother was inspecting

a card which had disclosed itself upon the floor when she cast the curtains back. It read, "Mr. Sidney

"The miscreant!" shouted Alonzo, and rushed forth to seek the false Reverend and destroy him; for the card

explained everything, since in the course of the lovers' mutual confessions they had told each other all about

all the sweethearts they had ever had, and thrown no end of mud at their failings and foibles for lovers always

During the next two months many things happened. It had early transpired that Rosannah, poor suffering

orphan, had neither returned to her grandmother in Portland, Oregon, nor sent any word to her save a

duplicate of the woeful note she had left in the mansion on Telegraph Hill. Whosoever was sheltering herif

she was still alivehad been persuaded not to betray her whereabouts, without doubt; for all efforts to find

Did Alonzo give her up? Not he. He said to himself, "She will sing that sweet song when she is sad; I shall

find her." So he took his carpet sack and a portable telephone, and shook the snow of his native city from

his arctics, and went forth into the world. He wandered far and wide and in many states. Time and again,

strangers were astounded to see a wasted, pale, and woeworn man laboriously climb a telegraphpole in

wintry and lonely places, perch sadly there an hour, with his ear at a little box, then come sighing down, and

wander wearily away. Sometimes they shot at him, as peasants do at aeronauts, thinking him mad and

dangerous. Thus his clothes were much shredded by bullets and his person grievously lacerated. But he bore

In the beginning of his pilgrimage he used often to say, "Ah, if I could but hear the 'Sweet Byandby'!" But

toward the end of it he used to shed tears of anguish and say, "Ah, if I could but hear something else!"

Thus a month and three weeks drifted by, and at last some humane people seized him and confined him in a

private madhouse in New York. He made no moan, for his strength was all gone, and with it all heart and all

hope. The superintendent, in pity, gave up his own comfortable parlor and bedchamber to him and nursed

At the end of a week the patient was able to leave his bed for the first time. He was lying, comfortably

pillowed, on a sofa, listening to the plaintive Miserere of the bleak March winds and the muffled sound of

tramping feet in the street below for it was about six in the evening, and New York was going home from

work. He had a bright fire and the added cheer of a couple of studentlamps. So it was warm and snug

within, though bleak and raw without; it was light and bright within, though outside it was as dark and dreary

as if the world had been lit with Hartford gas. Alonzo smiled feebly to think how his loving vagaries had

made him a maniac in the eyes of the world, and was proceeding to pursue his line of thought further, when a

faint, sweet strain, the very ghost of sound, so remote and attenuated it seemed, struck upon his ear. His

pulses stood still; he listened with parted lips and bated breath. The song flowed on he waiting, listening,

rising slowly and unconsciously from his recumbent position. At last he exclaimed:

He dragged himself eagerly to the corner whence the sounds proceeded, tore aside a curtain, and discovered a

telephone. He bent over, and as the last note died away he burst forthwith the exclamation:

"Oh, thank Heaven, found at last! Speak tome, Rosannah, dearest! The cruel mystery has been unraveled; it

was the villain Burley who mimicked my voice and wounded you with insolent speech!"

There was a breathless pause, a waiting age to Alonzo; then a faint sound came, framing itself into language:

"They are the truth, the veritable truth, my Rosannah, and you shall have the proof, ample and abundant

"Oh; Alonzo, stay by me! Leave me not for a moment! Let me feel that you are near me! Tell me we shall

never be parted more! Oh, this happy hour, this blessed hour, this memorable hour!"

"We will make record of it, my Rosannah; every year, as this dear hour chimes from the clock, we will

"In Honolulu, Sandwich Islands. And where are you? Stay by me; do not leave me for a moment. I cannot

An agonizing shriek came buzzing to Alonzo's ear, like the sharp buzzing of a hurt gnat; it lost power in

"Calmyourself, my child. It is nothing. Already I am getting well under the sweet healing of your presence.

There was a little pause. Then a diffident small voice replied, "I blushbut it is with pleasure, it is with

"This very night, Rosannah ! Oh, let us risk no more delays. Let it be now!this very night, this very

"Oh, you impatient creature! I have nobody here but my good old uncle, a missionary for a generation, and

now retired from servicenobody but him and his wife. I would so dearly like it if your mother and your

"Yes, our mother and our Aunt SusanI am content to word it so if it pleases you; I would so like to have

"So would I. Suppose you telegraph Aunt Susan. How long would it take her to come?"

"The steamer leaves San Francisco day after tomorrow. The passage is eight days. She would be here the 31st

"So we be the happiest ones that that day's suit looks down upon in the whole broad expanse of the globe,

There was a feeble but frantic sound for some little time, as if woolupped, disembodied spirits were

exchanging kisses; then Rosannah said, "Excuse me just a moment, dear; I have an appointment, and am

The young girl sought a large parlor and took her place at a window which looked out upon a beautiful scene.

To the left one could view the charming Nuuana Valley, fringed with its ruddy flush of tropical flowers and

its plumed and graceful cocoa palms; its rising foothills clothed in the shining green of lemon, citron, and

orange groves; its storied precipice beyond, where the first Kamehameha drove his defeated foes over to their

destruction, a spot that had forgotten its grim history, no doubt, for now it was smiling, as almost always at

noonday, under the glowing arches of a succession of rainbows. In front of the window one could see the

quaint town, and here and there a picturesque group of dusky natives, enjoying the blistering weather; and far

Rosannah stood there, in her filmy white raiment, fanning her flushed and heated face, waiting. A Kanaka

boy, clothed in a damaged blue necktie and part of a silk hat, thrust his head in at the door, and announced,

"Show him in," said the girl, straightening herself up and assuming a meaning dignity. Mr. Sidney Algernon

Burley entered, clad from head to heel in dazzling snowthat is to say, in the lightest and whitest of Irish

linen. He moved eagerly forward, but the girl made a gesture and gave him a look which checked him

suddenly. She said, coldly, "I am here, as I promised. I believed your assertions, I yielded to your importune

lies, and said I would name the day. I name the 1st of April eight in the morning. NOW GO!"

"Not a word. Spare me all sight of you, all communication with you, until that hour. Nono supplications; I

When he was gone, she sank exhausted in a chair, for the long siege of troubles she had undergone had

wasted her strength. Presently she said, "What a narrow escape! If the hour appointed had been an hour

earlier Oh, horror, what an escape I have made! And to think I had come to imagine I was loving this

beguiling, this truthless, this treacherous monster! Oh, he shall repent his villainy!"

Let us now draw this history to a close, for little more needs to be told. On the 2d of the ensuing April, the

Toward the close of that memorable day Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Fitz Clarence were buried in sweet converse

concerning the pleasures of their several bridal tours, when suddenly the young wife exclaimed: "Oh, Lonny,

"Indeed, I did. I made him the April fool! And I told him so, too! Ah, it was a charming surprise! There he

stood, sweltering in a black dresssuit, with the mercury leaking out of the top of the thermometer, waiting to

be married. You should have seen the look he gave when I whispered it in his ear. Ah, his wickedness cost

me many a heartache and many a tear, but the score was all squared up, then. So the vengeful feeling went

right out of my heart, and I begged him to stay, and said I forgave him everything. But he wouldn't. He said

he would live to be avenged; said he would make our lives a curse to us. But he can't, can he, dear?"

Aunt Susan, the Oregonian grandmother, and the young couple and their Eastport parents, are all happy at

this writing, and likely to remain so. Aunt Susan brought the bride from the islands, accompanied her across

our continent, and had the happiness of witnessing the rapturous meeting between an adoring husband and

A word about the wretched Burley, whose wicked machinations came so near wrecking the hearts and lives

of our poor young friends, will be sufficient. In a murderous attempt to seize a crippled and helpless artisan

who he fancied had done him some small offense, he fell into a caldron of boiling oil and expired before he

Observe, I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay or interruptionno, for

the Lie, as a Virtue, a Principle, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the

fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth

while this Club remains. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No highminded man,

no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving

to see a noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter upon this scheme with diffidence; it

is like an old maid trying to teach nursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become me to

criticize you, gentlemen, who are nearly all my eldersand my superiors, in this thing and so, if I should

here and there seem to do it, I trust it will in most cases be more in a spirit of admiration than of

faultfinding; indeed, if this finest of the fine arts had everywhere received the attention, encouragement, and

conscientious practice and development which this Club has devoted to it I should not need to utter this

lament or shed a single tear. I do not say this to flatter: I say it in a spirit of just and appreciative recognition.

[It had been my intention, at this point, to mention names and give illustrative specimens, but indications

observable about me admonished me to beware of particulars and confine myself to generalities.]

No fact is more firmly established than that lying is a necessity of our circumstancesthe deduction that it is

then a Virtue goes without saying. No virtue can reach its highest usefulness without careful and diligent

cultivationtherefore, it goes without saying that this one ought to be taught in the public schoolsat the

firesideeven in the newspapers. What chance has the ignorant, uncultivated liar against the educated

expert? What chance have I against Mr. Per against a lawyer? Judicious lying is what the world needs. I

sometimes think it were even better and safer not to lie at all than to lie injudiciously. An awkward,

Now let us see what the philosophers say. Note that venerable proverb: Children and fools always speak the

truth. The deduction is plain adults and wise persons never speak it. Parkman, the historian, says, "The

principle of truth may itself be carried into an absurdity." In another place in the same chapter he says, "The

saying is old that truth should not be spoken at all times; and those whom a sick conscience worries into

habitual violation of the maxim are imbeciles and nuisances." It is strong language, but true. None of us could

live with an habitual truthteller; but, thank goodness, none of us has to. An habitual truthteller is simply an

impossible creature; he does not exist; he never has existed. Of course there are people who think they never

lie, but it is not soand this ignorance is one of the very things that shame our socalled civilization.

Everybody liesevery day; every hour; awake; asleep; in his dreams; in his joy; in his mourning; if he keeps

his tongue still, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude, will convey deceptionand purposely. Even in

In a far country where I once lived the ladies used to go around paying calls, under the humane and kindly

pretense of wanting to see each other; and when they returned home, they would cry out with a glad voice,

saying, "We made sixteen calls and found fourteen of them out"not meaning that they found out anything

against the fourteenno, that was only a colloquial phrase to signify that they were not at homeand their

manner of saying itexpressed their lively satisfaction in that fact. Now, their pretense of wanting to see the

fourteenand the other two whom they had been less lucky withwas that commonest and mildest form of

lying which is sufficiently described as a deflection from the truth. Is it justifiable? Most certainly. It is

beautiful, it is noble; for its object is, not to reap profit, but to convey a pleasure to the sixteen. The

ironsouled truthmonger would plainly manifest, or even utter the fact, that he didn't want to see those

peopleand he would be an ass, and inflict a totally unnecessary pain. And next, those ladies in that far

countrybut never mind, they had a thousand pleasant ways of lying, that grew out of gentle impulses, and

were a credit to their intelligence and at honor to their hearts. Let the particulars go.

The men in that far country were liars; every one. Their mere howdydo was a lie, because they didn't care

how you did, except they were undertakers. To the ordinary inquirer you lied in return; for you made no

conscientious diagnosis of your case, but answered at random, and usually missed it considerably. You lied to

the undertaker, and said your health was failinga wholly commendable lie, since it cost you nothing and

pleased the other man. If a stranger called and interrupted you, you said with your hearty tongue, "I'm glad to

see you," and said with your heartier soul, "I wish you were with the cannibals and it was dinnertime."

When he went, you said regretfully, "Must you go?" and followed it with a "Call again"; but you did no harm,

for you did not deceive anybody nor inflict any hurt, whereas the truth would have made you both unhappy.

I think that all this courteous lying is a sweet and loving art, and should be cultivated, The highest perfection

of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of graceful and gilded forms of

What I bemoan is the growing prevalence of the brutal truth. Let us do what we can to eradicate it. An

injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an

injurious truth, lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly

worth saving. The man who tells a lie to help a poor devil out of trouble is one of whom the angels doubtless

say, "Lo, here is an heroic soul who casts his own welfare into jeopardy to succor his neighbor's; let us exalt

An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the same degree, is an injurious trutha

Among other common lies, we have the silent lie the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still

and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truthmongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they

speak no lie, they lie not at all. In that far country where I once lived, there was a lovely spirit, a lady whose

impulses were always high and pure, and whose character answered to them. One day I was there at dinner,

and remarked, in a general way, that we are all liars. She was amazed, and said, "Not all!" It was before

"Pinafore's" time so I did not make the response which would naturally follow in our day, but frankly said,

"Yes, allwe are all liars; there are no exceptions." She looked almost offended, and said, "Why, do you

include me?" "Certainly," I said, "I think you even rank as an expert." She said, "'Sh!'sh! the children!"

So the subject was changed in deference to the children's presence, and we went on talking about other

things. But as soon as the young people were out of the way, the lady came warmly back to the matter and

said, "I have made it the rule of my life to never tell a lie; and I have never departed from it in a single

instance." I said, "I don't mean the least harm or disrespect, but really you have been lying like smoke ever

since I've been sitting here. It has caused me a good deal of pain, because I am not used to it." She required of

"Well, here is the unfilled duplicate of the blank which the Oakland hospital people sent to you by the hand

of the sicknurse when she came here to nurse your little nephew through his dangerous illness. This blank

asks all manner of questions as to the conduct of that sicknurse: 'Did she ever sleep on her watch? Did she

ever forget to give the medicine?' and so forth and so on. You are warned to be very careful and explicit in

your answers, for the welfare of the service requires that the nurses be promptly fined or otherwise punished

for derelictions. You told me you were perfectly delighted with that nursethat she had a thousand

perfections and only one fault: you found you never could depend on her wrapping Johnny up half

sufficiently while he waited in a chilly chair for her to rearrange the warm bed. You filled up the duplicate of

this paper, and sent it back to the hospital by the hand of the nurse. How did you answer this question'Was

the nurse at any time guilty of a negligence which was likely to result in the patient's taking cold?'

Comeeverything is decided by a bet here in California: ten dollars to ten cents you lied when you answered

that question." She said, "I didn't; I left it blank!" "Just soyou have told a silent lie; you have left it to be

inferred that you had no fault to find in that matter." She said, "Oh, was that a lie? And how could I mention

her one single fault, and she so ,good?it would have been cruel." I said, "One ought always to lie when one

can do good by it; your impulse was right, but, your judgment was crude; this comes of unintelligent practice.

Now observe the result of this inexpert deflection of yours. You know Mr. Jones's Willie is lying very low

with scarlet fever; well, your recommendation was so enthusiastic that that girl is there nursing him, and the

wornout family have all been trustingly sound asleep for the last fourteen hours, leaving their darling with

full confidence in those fatal hands, because you, like young George Washington, have a reputa However,

if you are not going to have anything to do, I will come around tomorrow and we'll attend the funeral

together, for, of course, you'll naturally feel a peculiar interest in Willie's caseas personal a one, in fact, as

But that was all lost. Before I was halfway through she was in a carriage and making thirty miles an hour

toward the Jones mansion to save what was left of Willie and tell all she knew about the deadly nurse. All of

which was unnecessary, as Willie wasn't sick; I had been lying myself. But that same day, all the same, she

sent a line to the hospital which filled up the neglected blank, and stated the facts, too, in the squarest

Now, you see, this lady's fault was not in lying, but only in lying injudiciously. She should have told the,

truth, there, and made it up to the nurse with a fraudulent compliment further along in the paper. She could

have said, "In one respect the sicknurse is perfectionwhen she is on watch, she never snores." Almost any

little pleasant lie would have taken the sting out of that troublesome but necessary expression of the truth.

Lying is universal we all do it; we all must do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train

ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others'

advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie

gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not

haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling. Then shall we be rid of

the rank and pestilent truth that is rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and worthy

dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies, except when she promises execrable weather.

Then But I am but a new and feeble student in this gracious art; I can not instruct this Club.

Joking aside, I think there is much need of wise examination into what sorts of lies are best and wholesomest

to be indulged, seeing we must all lie and do all lie, and what sorts it may be best to avoidand this is a

thing which I feel I can confidently put into the hands of this experienced Cluba ripe body, who may be

All my life, from boyhood up, I have had the habit of reading a certain set of anecdotes, written in the quaint

vein of The World's ingenious Fabulist, for the lesson they taught me and the pleasure they gave me. They

lay always convenient to my hand, and whenever I thought meanly of my kind I turned to them, and they

banished that sentiment; whenever I felt myself to be selfish, sordid, and ignoble I turned to them, and they

told me what to do to win back my selfrespect. Many times I wished that the charming anecdotes had not

stopped with their happy climaxes, but had continued the pleasing history of the several benefactors and

beneficiaries. This wish rose in my breast so persistently that at last I determined to satisfy it by seeking out

the sequels of those anecdotes myself. So I set about it, and after great labor and tedious research

accomplished my task. I will lay the result before you, giving you each anecdote in its turn, and following it

One day a benevolent physician (who had read the books) having found a stray poodle suffering from a

broken leg, conveyed the poor creature to his home, and after setting and bandaging the injured limb gave the

little outcast its liberty again, and thought no more about the matter. But how great was his surprise, upon

opening his door one morning, some days later, to find the grateful poodle patiently waiting there, and in its

company another stray dog, one of whose legs, by some accident, had been broken. The kind physician at

once relieved the distressed animal, nor did he forget to admire the inscrutable goodness and mercy of God,

who had been willing to use so humble an instrument as the poor outcast poodle for the inculcating of, etc.,

The next morning the benevolent physician found the two dogs, beaming with gratitude, waiting at his door,

and with them two other dogscripples. The cripples were speedily healed, and the four went their way,

leaving the benevolent physician more overcome by pious wonder than ever. The day passed, the morning

came. There at the door sat now the four reconstructed dogs, and with them four others requiring

reconstruction. This day also passed, and another morning came; and now sixteen dogs, eight of them newly

crippled, occupied the sidewalk, and the people were going around. By noon the broken legs were all set, but

the pious wonder in the good physician's breast was beginning to get mixed with involuntary profanity. The

sun rose once more, and exhibited thirtytwo dogs, sixteen of them with broken legs, occupying the sidewalk

and half of the street; the human spectators took up the rest of the room. The cries of the wounded, the songs

of the healed brutes, and the comments of the onlooking citizens made great and inspiring cheer, but traffic

was interrupted in that street. The good physician hired a couple of assistant surgeons and got through his

benevolent work before dark, first taking the precaution to cancel his churchmembership, so that he might

But some things have their limits. When once more the morning dawned, and the good physician looked out

upon a massed and farreaching multitude of clamorous and beseeching dogs, he said, "I might as well

acknowledge it, I have been fooled by the books; they only tell the pretty part of the story, and then stop.

He issued forth with his weapon, and chanced to step upon the tail of the original poodle, who promptly bit

him in the leg. Now the great and good work which this poodle had been engaged in had engendered in him

such a mighty and augmenting enthusiasm as to turn his weak head at last and drive him mad. A month later,

when the benevolent physician lay in the deaththroes of hydrophobia, he called his weeping friends about

"Beware of the books. They tell but half of the story. Whenever a poor wretch asks you for help, and you feel

a doubt as to what result may flow from your benevolence, give yourself the benefit of the doubt and kill the

A poor and young literary beginner had tried in vain to get his manuscripts accepted. At last, when the

horrors of starvation were staring him in the face, he laid his sad case before a celebrated author, beseeching

his counsel and assistance. This generous man immediately put aside his own matters and proceeded to

peruse one of the despised manuscripts. Having completed his kindly task, he shook the poor young man

cordially by the hand, saying, "I perceive merit in this; come again to me on Monday." At the time specified,

the celebrated author, with a sweet smile, but saying nothing, spread open a magazine which was damp from

the press. What was the poor young man's astonishment to discover upon the printed page his own article.

"How can I ever," said he, falling upon his knees and bursting into tears, "testify my gratitude for this noble

The celebrated author was the renowned Snodgrass; the poor young beginner thus rescued from obscurity and

starvation was the afterward equally renowned Snagsby. Let this pleasing incident admonish us to turn a

The next week Snagsby was back with five rejected manuscripts. The celebrated author was a little surprised,

because in the books the young struggler had needed but one lift, apparently. However, he plowed through

these papers, removing unnecessary flowers and digging up some acres of adjective stumps, and then

A week or so drifted by, and the grateful Snagsby arrived with another cargo. The celebrated author had felt a

mighty glow of satisfaction within himself the first time he had successfully befriended the poor young

struggler, and had compared himself with the generous people in the books with high gratification; but he

was beginning to suspect now that he had struck upon something fresh in the nobleepisode line. His

enthusiasm took a chill. Still, he could not bear to repulse this struggling young author, who clung to him

Well, the upshot of it all was that the celebrated author presently found himself permanently freighted with

the poor young beginner. All his mild efforts to unload this cargo went for nothing. He had to give daily

counsel, daily encouragement; he had to keep on procuring magazine acceptances, and then revamping the

manuscripts to make them presentable. When the young aspirant got a start at last, he rode into sudden fame

by describing the celebrated author's private life with such a caustic humor and such minuteness of blistering

detail that the book sold a prodigious edition, and broke the celebrated author's heart with mortification. With

his latest gasp he said, "Alas, the books deceived me; they do not tell the whole story. Beware of the

struggling young author, my friends. Whom God sees fit to starve, let not man presumptuously rescue to his

One day a lady was driving through the principal street of a great city with her little boy, when the horses

took fright and dashed madly away, hurling the coachman from his box and leaving the occupants of the

carnage paralyzed with terror. But a brave youth who was driving a grocerywagon threw himself before the

plunging animals, and succeeded in arresting their flight at the peril of his own. [This is probably a

misprint.M. T.] The grateful lady took his number, and upon arriving at her home she related the heroic

act to her husband (who had read the books), who listened with streaming eyes to the moving recital, and

who, after returning thanks, in conjunction with his restored loved ones, to Him who suffereth not even a

sparrow to fall to the ground unnoticed, sent for the brave young person, and, placing a check for five

hundred dollars in his hand, said, "Take this as a reward for your noble act, William Ferguson, and if ever

you shall need a, friend, remember that Thompson McSpadden has a grateful heart." Let us learn from this

William Ferguson called the next week and asked Mr. McSpadden to use his influence to get him a higher

employment, he feeling capable of better things than driving a grocer's wagon. Mr. McSpadden got him an

Presently William Ferguson's mother fell sick, and William Well, to cut the story short, Mr. McSpadden

consented to take her into his house. Before long she yearned for the society of her younger children; so Mary

and Julia were admitted also, and little Jimmy, their brother. Jimmy had a pocket knife, and he wandered into

the drawingroom with it one day, alone, and reduced ten thousand dollars' worth of furniture to an

indeterminable value in rather less than threequarters of an hour. A day or two later he fell downstairs and

broke his neck, and seventeen of his family's relatives came to the house to attend the funeral. This made

them acquainted, and they kept the kitchen occupied after that, and likewise kept the McSpaddens busy

huntingup situations of various sorts for them, and hunting up more when they wore these out. The old

woman drank a good deal and swore a good deal; but the grateful McSpaddens knew it was their duty to

reform her, considering what her son had done for them, so they clave nobly to their generous task. William

came often and got decreasing sums of money, and asked for higher and more lucrative

employmentswhich the grateful McSpadden more or less promptly procured for him. McSpadden

consented also, after some demur, to fit William for college; but when the first vacation came and the hero

requested to be sent to Europe for his health, the persecuted McSpadden rose against the tyrant and revolted.

He plainly and squarely refused. William Ferguson's mother was so astounded that she let her ginbottle

drop, and her profane lips refused to do their office. When she recovered she said in a halfgasp, "Is this your

William said, "Is this your gratitude? Did I save your wife's life or not? Tell me that!"

Seven relations swarmed in from the kitchen and each said, "And this is his gratitude!"

William's sisters stared, bewildered, and said, "And this is his grat" but were interrupted by their mother,

"To think that my sainted little Jimmy threw away his life in the service of such a reptile!"

Then the pluck of the revolutionary McSpadden rose to the occasion, and he replied with fervor, "Out of my

house, the whole beggarly tribe of you! I was beguiled by the books, but shall never be beguiled again

once is sufficient for me." And turning to William he shouted, "Yes, you did save my, wife's life, and the

Not being a clergyman, I place my text at the end of my sermon instead of at the beginning. Here it is, from

I will observe, in conclusion, that the William Ferguson incident occurred, and within my personal

knowledgethough I have changed the nature of the details, to keep William from recognizing himself in it.

All the readers of this article have in some sweet and gushing hour of their lives played the role of

MagnanimousIncident hero. I wish I knew how many there are among them who are willing to talk about

Will the reader please to cast his eye over the following lines, and see if he can discover anything harmful in

I came across these jingling rhymes in a newspaper, a little while ago, and read them a couple of times. They

took instant and entire possession of me. All through breakfast they went waltzing through my brain; and

when, at last, I rolled up my napkin, I could not tell whether I had eaten anything or not. I had carefully laid

out my day's work the day beforethrilling tragedy in the novel which I am writing. I went to my den to

begin my deed of blood. I took up my pen, but all I could get it to say was, "Punch in the presence of the

passenjare." I fought hard for an hour, but it was useless. My head kept humming, "A blue trip slip for an

eightcent fare, a buff trip slip for a sixcent fare," and so on and so on, without peace or respite. The day's

work was ruinedI could see that plainly enough. I gave up and drifted downtown, and presently

discovered that my feet were keeping time to that relentless jingle. When I could stand it no longer I altered

my step. But it did no good; those rhymes accommodated themselves to the new step and went on harassing

me just as before. I returned home, and suffered all the afternoon; suffered all through an unconscious and

unrefreshing dinner; suffered, and cried, and jingled all through the evening; went to bed and rolled, tossed,

and jingled right along, the same as ever; got up at midnight frantic, and tried to read; but there was nothing

visible upon the whirling page except "Punch! punch in the presence of the passenjare." By sunrise I was out

of my mind, and everybody marveled and was distressed at the idiotic burden of my ravings"'Punch! oh,

Two days later, on Saturday morning, I arose, a tottering wreck, and went forth to fulfil an engagement with a

valued friend, the Rev. Mr., to walk to the Talcott Tower, ten miles distant. He stared at me, but

asked no questions. We started. Mr.talked, talked, talked as is his wont. I said nothing; I heard

nothing. At the end of a mile, Mr. said "Mark, are you sick? I never saw a man look so haggard and

Drearily, without enthusiasm, I said: "Punch brothers, punch with care! Punch in the presence o the

"I do not think I get your drift, Mark. Then does not seem to be any relevancy in what you have said,

certainly nothing sad; and yetmaybe it was the way you said the wordsI never heard anything that

But I heard no more. I was already far away with my pitiless, heartbreaking "blue trip slip for an eightcent

fare, buff trip slip for a sixcent fare, pink trip slip for a threecent fare; punch in the presence of the

passenjare." I do not know what occurred during the other nine miles. However, all of a sudden Mr.

"Oh, wake up! wake up! wake up! Don't sleep all day! Here we are at the Tower, man! I have talked myself

deaf and dumb and blind, and never got a response. Just look at this magnificent autumn landscape! Look at

it! look at it! Feast your eye on it! You have traveled; you have seen boaster landscapes elsewhere. Come,

"A buff trip slip for a sixcent fare, a pink trip slip for a threecent fare, punch in the presence of th

Rev. Mr. stood there, very grave, full of concern, apparently, and looked long at me; then he said:

"Mark, there is something about this that I cannot understand. Those are about the same words you said

before; there does not seem to be anything in them, and yet they nearly break my heart when you say them.

"Why, what a captivating jingle it is! It is almost music. It flows along so nicely. I have nearly caught the

I said them over. Then Mr. said them. He made one little mistake, which I corrected. The next time

and the next he got them right. Now a great burden seemed to tumble from my shoulders. That torturing

jingle departed out of my brain, and a grateful sense of rest and peace descended upon me. I was

lighthearted enough to sing; and I did sing for half an hour, straight along, as we went jogging homeward.

Then my freed tongue found blessed speech again, and the pent talk of many a weary hour began to gush and

flow. It flowed on and on, joyously, jubilantly, until the fountain was empty and dry. As I wrung my friend's

"Haven't we had a royal good time! But now I remember, you haven't said a word for two hours. Come,

The Rev. Mr. turned a lackluster eye upon me, drew a deep sigh, and said, without animation,

A pang shot through me as I said to myself, "Poor fellow, poor fellow! he has got it, now."

I did not see Mr. for two or three days after that. Then, on Tuesday evening, he staggered into my

presence and sank dejectedly into a seat. He was pale, worn; he was a wreck. He lifted his faded eyes to my

"Ah, Mark, it was a ruinous investment that I made in those heartless rhymes. They have ridden me like a

nightmare, day and night, hour after hour, to this very moment. Since I saw you I have suffered the torments

of the lost. Saturday evening I had a sudden call, by telegraph, and took the night train for Boston. The

occasion was the death of a valued old friend who had requested that I should preach his funeral sermon. I

took my seat in the cars and set myself to framing the discourse. But I never got beyond the opening

paragraph; for then the train started and the carwheels began their 'clack, clackclackclackclack!

clackclack! clackclackclack!' and right away those odious rhymes fitted themselves to that

accompaniment. For an hour I sat there and set a syllable of those rhymes to every separate and distinct clack

the carwheels made. Why, I was as fagged out, then, as if I had been chopping wood all day. My skull was

splitting with headache. It seemed to me that I must go mad if I sat there any longer; so I undressed and went

to bed. I stretched myself out in my berth, andwell, you know what the result was. The thing went right

along, just the same. 'Clackclack clack, a blue trip slip, clackclackclack, for an eight cent fare;

clackclackclack, a buff trip slip, clack clackclack, for a sixcent fare, and so on, and so on, and so on

punch in the presence of the passenjare!' Sleep? Not a single wink! I was almost a lunatic when I got to

Boston. Don't ask me about the funeral. I did the best I could, but every solemn individual sentence was

meshed and tangled and woven in and out with 'Punch, brothers, punch with care, punch in the presence of

the passenjare.' And the most distressing thing was that my delivery dropped into the undulating rhythm of

those pulsing rhymes, and I could actually catch absentminded people nodding time to the swing of it with

their stupid heads. And, Mark, you may believe it or not, but before I got through the entire assemblage were

placidly bobbing their heads in solemn unison, mourners, undertaker, and all. The moment I had finished, I

fled to the anteroom in a state bordering on frenzy. Of course it would be my luck to find a sorrowing and

aged maiden aunt of the deceased there, who had arrived from Springfield too late to get into the church. She

"'Yes!' I said, 'he is gone, he is gone, he is goneoh, will this suffering never cease!'

"'Ohhim! Yesoh, yes, yes. Certainlycertainly. Punchpunchoh, this misery will kill me!'

"'Bless you! bless you, sir, for these sweet words! I, too, suffer in this dear loss. Were you present during his

"'Yes! Oh, yesyesyes! I suppose so, I think so, I don't know! Oh, certainlyI was there I was there!'

"'Oh, what a privilege! what a precious privilege! And his last words oh, tell me, tell me his last words!

"'He saidhe saidoh, my head, my head, my head! He saidhe saidhe never said anything but Punch,

punch, punch in the presence of the passenjare! Oh, leave me, madam! In the name of all that is generous,

leave me to my madness, my misery, my despair! a buff trip slip for a sixcent fare, a pink trip slip for a

threecent fareendurance can no further go!PUNCH in the presence of the passenjare!"

My friend's hopeless eyes rested upon mine a pregnant minute, and then he said impressively:

"Mark, you do not say anything. You do not offer me any hope. But, ah me, it is just as wellit is just as

well. You could not do me any good. The time has long gone by when words could comfort me. Something

tells me that my tongue is doomed to wag forever to the jigger of that remorseless jingle, Therethere it is

coming on me again: a blue trip slip for an eightcent fare, a buff trip slip for a"

Thus murmuring faint and fainter, my friend sank into a peaceful trance and forgot his sufferings in a blessed

How did I finally save him from an asylum? I took him to a neighboring university and made him discharge

the burden of his persecuting rhymes into the eager ears of the poor, unthinking students. How is it with

them, now? The result is too sad to tell. Why did I write this article? It was for a worthy, even a noble,

purpose. It was to warn you, reader, if you should came across those merciless rhymes, to avoid themavoid

Let me refresh the reader's memory a little. Nearly a hundred years ago the crew of the British ship bounty

mutinied, set the captain and his officers adrift upon the open sea, took possession of the ship, and sailed

southward. They procured wives for themselves among the natives of Tahiti, then proceeded to a lonely little

rock in midPacific, called Pitcairn's Island, wrecked the vessel, stripped her of everything that might be

useful to a new colony, and established themselves on shore. Pitcairn's is so far removed from the track of

commerce that it was many years before another vessel touched there. It had always been considered an

uninhabited island; so when a ship did at last drop its anchor there, in 1808, the captain was greatly surprised

to find the place peopled. Although the mutineers had fought among themselves, and gradually killed each

other off until only two or three of the original stock remained, these tragedies had not occurred before a

number of children had been born; so in 1808 the island had a population of twentyseven persons. John

Adams, the chief mutineer, still survived, and was to live many years yet, as governor and patriarch of the

flock. From being mutineer and homicide, he had turned Christian and teacher, and his nation of

twentyseven persons was now the purest and devoutest in Christendom. Adams had long ago hoisted the

Today the population numbers ninety personssixteen men, nineteen women, twentyfive boys, and thirty

girlsall descendants of the mutineers, all bearing the family names of those mutineers, and all speaking

English, and English only. The island stands high up out of the sea, and has precipitous walls. It is about

threequarters of a mile long, and in places is as much as half a mile wide. Such arable land as it affords is

held by the several families, according to a division made many years ago. There is some live stockgoats,

pigs, chickens, and cats; but no dogs, and no large animals. There is one churchbuilding used also as a

capitol, a schoolhouse, and a public library. The title of the governor has been, for a generation or two,

"Magistrate and Chief Ruler, in subordination to her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain." It was his province

to make the laws, as well as execute them. His office was elective; everybody over seventeen years old had a

The sole occupations of the people were farming and fishing; their sole recreation, religious services. There

has never been a shop in the island, nor any money. The habits and dress of the people have always been

primitive, and their laws simple to puerility. They have lived in a deep Sabbath tranquillity, far from the

world and its ambitions and vexations, and neither knowing nor caring what was going on in the mighty

empires that lie beyond their limitless ocean solitudes. Once in three or four years a ship touched there,

moved them with aged news of bloody battles, devastating epidemics, fallen thrones, and ruined dynasties,

then traded them some soap and flannel for some yams and breadfruit, and sailed away, leaving them to retire

On the 8th of last September, Admiral de Horsey, commanderinchief of the British fleet in the Pacific,

visited Pitcairn's Island, and speaks as follows in his official report to the admiralty:

Now I come to a sentence in the admiral's report which he dropped carelessly from his pen, no doubt, and

never gave the matter a second thought. He little imagined what a freight of tragic prophecy it bore! This is

A doubtful acquisition, indeed! Captain Ormsby, in the American ship Hornet, touched at Pitcairn's nearly

four months after the admiral's visit, and from the facts which he gathered there we now know all about that

American. Let us put these facts together in historical form. The American's name was Butterworth Stavely.

As soon as he had become well acquainted with all the peopleand this took but a few days, of course he

began to ingratiate himself with them by all the arts he could command. He became exceedingly popular, and

much looked up to; for one of the first things he did was to forsake his worldly way of life, and throw all his

energies into religion. He was always reading his Bible, or praying, or singing hymns, or asking blessings. In

At last, when he considered the time to be ripe, he began secretly to sow the seeds of discontent among the

people. It was his deliberate purpose, from the beginning, to subvert the government, but of course he kept

that to himself for a time. He used different arts with different individuals. He awakened dissatisfaction in

one quarter by calling attention to the shortness of the Sunday services; he argued that there should be three

threehour services on Sunday instead of only two. Many had secretly held this opinion before; they now

privately banded themselves into a party to work for it. He showed certain of the women that they were not

allowed sufficient voice in the prayermeetings; thus another party was formed. No weapon was beneath his

notice; he even descended to the children, and awoke discontent in their breasts becauseas he discovered

Now, as the chief of these parties, he found himself the strongest power in the community. So he proceeded

to his next movea no less important one than the impeachment of the chief magistrate, James Russell

Nickoy; a man of character and ability, and possessed of great wealth, he being the owner of a house with a

parlor to it, three acres and a half of yam land, and the only boat in Pitcairn's, a whaleboat; and, most

unfortunately, a pretext for this impeachment offered itself at just the right time.

One of the earliest and most precious laws of the island was the law against trespass. It was held in great

reverence, and was regarded as the palladium of the people's liberties. About thirty years ago an important

case came before the courts under this law, in this wise: a chicken belonging to Elizabeth Young (aged, at

that time, fiftyeight, a daughter of John Mills, one of the mutineers of the Bounty) trespassed upon the

grounds of Thursday October Christian (aged twentynine, a grandson of Fletcher Christian, one of the

mutineers). Christian killed the chicken. According to the law, Christian could keep the chicken; or, if he

preferred, he could restore its remains to the owner and receive damages in "produce" to an amount

equivalent to the waste and injury wrought by the trespasser. The court records set forth that "the said

Christian aforesaid did deliver the aforesaid remains to the said Eliza beth Young, and did demand one bushel

of yams in satisfaction of the damage done." But Elizabeth Young considered the demand exorbitant; the

parties could not agree; therefore Christian brought suit in the courts. He lost his case in the justice's court; at

least, he was awarded only a halfpeck of yams, which he considered insufficient, and in the nature of a

defeat. He appealed. The case lingered several years in an ascending grade of courts, and always resulted in

decrees sustaining the original verdict; and finally the thing got into the supreme court, and there it stuck for

twenty years. But last summer, even the supreme court managed to arrive at a decision at last. Once more the

original verdict was sustained. Christian then said he was satisfied; but Stavely was present, and whispered to

him and to his lawyer, suggesting, "as a mere form," that the original law be exhibited, in order to make sure

that it still existed. It seemed an odd idea, but an ingenious one. So the demand was made. A messenger was

sent to the magistrate's house; he presently returned with the tidings that it had disappeared from among the

The court now pronounced its late decision void, since it had been made under a law which had no actual

Great excitement ensued immediately. The news swept abroad over the whole island that the palladium of the

public liberties was lostmaybe treasonably destroyed. Within thirty minutes almost the entire nation were

in the courtroomthat is to say, the church. The impeachment of the chief magistrate followed, upon

Stavely's motion. The accused met his misfortune with the dignity which became his great office. He did not

plead, or even argue; he offered the simple defense that he had not meddled with the missing law; that he had

kept the state archives in the same candlebox that had been used as their depository from the beginning; and

But nothing could save him; he was found guilty of misprision of treason, and degraded from his office, and

The lamest part of the whole shameful matter was the reason suggested by his enemies for his destruction of

the law, to wit: that he did it to favor Christian, because Christian was his cousin! Whereas Stavely was the

only individual in the entire nation who was not his cousin. The reader must remember that all these people

are the descendants of half a dozen men; that the first children intermarried together and bore grandchildren

to the mutineers; that these grandchildren intermarried; after them, great and greatgreatgrandchildren

intermarried; so that to day everybody is blood kin to everybody. Moreover, the relationships are

wonderfully, even astoundingly, mixed up and complicated. A stranger, for instance, says to an islander:

"You speak of that young woman as your cousin; a while ago you called her your aunt."

"Well, she is my aunt, and my cousin, too. And also my stepsister, my niece, my fourth cousin, my

thirtythird cousin, my fortysecond cousin, my greataunt, my grandmother, my widowed

So the charge of nepotism against the chief magistrate was weak. But no matter; weak or strong, it suited

Stavely. Stavely was immediately elected to the vacant magistracy, and, oozing reform from every pore, he

went vigorously to work. In no long time religious services raged everywhere and unceasingly. By command,

the second prayer of the Sunday morning service, which had customarily endured some thirtyfive or forty

minutes, and had pleaded for the world, first by continent and then by national and tribal detail, was extended

to an hour and a half, and made to include supplications in behalf of the possible peoples in the several

planets. Everybody was pleased with this; everybody said, "Now this is something like." By command, the

usual threehour sermons were doubled in length. The nation came in a body to testify their gratitude to the

new magistrate. The old law forbidding cooking on the Sabbath was extended to the prohibition of eating,

also. By command, Sundayschool was privileged to spread over into the week. The joy of all classes was

The time was ripe for this man's next move. He began, cautiously at first, to poison the public mind against

England. He took the chief citizens aside, one by one, and conversed with them on this topic. Presently he

grew bolder, and spoke out. He said the nation owed it to itself, to its honor, to its great traditions, to rise in

"We had not noticed that it galled. How does it gall? England sends a ship once in three or four years to give

us soap and clothing, and things which we sorely need and gratefully receive; but she never troubles us; she

"She lets you go your own way! So slaves have felt and spoken in all the ages! This speech shows how fallen

you are, how base, how brutalized you have become, under this grinding tyranny! What! has all manly pride

forsaken you? Is liberty nothing? Are you content to be a mere appendage to a foreign and hateful

sovereignty, when you might rise up and take your rightful place in the august family of nations, great, free,

enlightened, independent, the minion of no sceptered master, but the arbiter of your own destiny, and a voice

and a power in decreeing the destinies of your sistersovereignties of the world?"

Speeches like this produced an effect by and by. Citizens began to feel the English yoke; they did not know

exactly how or whereabouts they felt it, but they were perfectly certain they did feel it. They got to grumbling

a good deal, and chafing under their chains, and longing for relief and release. They presently fell to hating

the English flag, that sign and symbol of their nation's degradation; they ceased to glance up at it as they

passed the capitol, but averted their eyes and grated their teeth; and one morning, when it was found trampled

into the mud at the foot of the staff, they left it there, and no man put his hand to it to hoist it again. A certain

thing which was sure to happen sooner or later happened now. Some of the chief citizens went to the

"A coup d'etat. It is like this: everything is got ready, and at the appointed moment I, as the official head of

the nation, publicly and solemnly proclaim its independence, and absolve it from allegiance to any and all

"That sounds simple and easy. We can do that right away. Then what will be the next thing to do?"

"Seize all the defenses and public properties of all kinds, establish martial law, put the army and navy on a

"What you need, my friends, is unification. Look at Germany; look at Italy. They are unified. Unification is

the thing. It makes living dear. That constitutes progress. We must have a standing army and a navy. Taxes

follow, as a matter of course. All these things summed up make grandeur. With unification and grandeur,

So on the 8th day of December Pitcairn's Island was proclaimed a free and independent nation; and on the

same day the solemn coronation of Butterworth I, Emperor of Pitcairn's Island, took place, amid great

rejoicings and festivities. The entire nation, with the exception of fourteen persons, mainly little children,

marched past the throne in single file, with banners and music, the procession being upward of ninety feet

long; and some said it was as much as threequarters of a minute passing a given point. Nothing like it had

ever been seen in the history of the island before. Public enthusiasm was measureless.

Now straightway imperial reforms began. Orders of nobility were instituted. A minister of the navy was

appointed, and the whaleboat put in commission. A minister of war was created, and ordered to proceed at

once with the formation of a standing army. A first lord of the treasury was named, and commanded to get up

a taxation scheme, and also open negotiations for treaties, offensive, defensive, and commercial, with foreign

powers. Some generals and admirals were appointed; also some chamberlains, some equerries in waiting, and

At this point all the material was used up. The Grand Duke of Galilee, minister of war, complained that all

the sixteen grown men in the empire had been given great offices, and consequently would not consent to

serve in the ranks; wherefore his standing army was at a standstill. The Marquis of Ararat, minister of the

navy, made a similar complaint. He said he was willing to steer the whaleboat himself, but he must have

The emperor did the best he could in the circumstances: he took all the boys above the age of ten years away

from their mothers, and pressed them into the army, thus constructing a corps of seventeen privates, officered

by one lieutenantgeneral and two majorgenerals. This pleased the minister of war, but procured the enmity

of all the mothers in the land; for they said their precious ones must now find bloody graves in the fields of

war, and he would be answerable for it. Some of the more heartbroken and unappeasable among them lay

constantly wait for the emperor and threw yams at him, unmindful of the bodyguard.

On account of the extreme scarcity of material, it was found necessary to require the Duke of Bethany

postmastergeneral, to pull strokeoar in the navy and thus sit in the rear of a noble of lower degree namely,

Viscount Canaan, lord justice of the common pleas. This turned the Duke of Bethany into tolerably open

malcontent and a secret conspiratora thing which the emperor foresaw, but could not help.

Things went from bad to worse. The emperor raised Nancy Peters to the peerage on one day, and married her

the next, notwithstanding, for reasons of state, the cabinet had strenuously advised him to marry Emmeline,

eldest daughter of the Archbishop of Bethlehem. This caused trouble in a powerful quarterthe church. The

new empress secured the support and friendship of twothirds of the thirtysix grown women in the nation

by absorbing them into her court as maids of honor; but this made deadly enemies of the remaining twelve.

The families of the maids of honor soon began to rebel, because there was nobody at home to keep house.

The twelve snubbed women refused to enter the imperial kitchen as servants; so the empress had to require

the Countess of Jericho and other great court dames to fetch water, sweep the palace, and perform other

menial and equally distasteful services. This made bad blood in that department.

Everybody fell to complaining that the taxes levied for the support of the army, the navy, and the rest of the

imperial establishment were intolerably burdensome, and were reducing the nation to beggary. The emperor's

reply"LookLook at Germany; look at Italy. Are you better than they? and haven't you

unification?"did not satisfy them. They said, "People can't eat unification, and we are starving.

Agriculture has ceased. Everybody is in the army, everybody is in the navy, everybody is in the public

service, standing around in a uniform, with nothing whatever to do, nothing to eat, and nobody to till the

"Look at Germany; look at Italy. It is the same there. Such is unification, and there's no other way to get

Now right on top of this the cabinet reported a national debt amounting to upward of fortyfive dollarshalf

a dollar to every individual in the nation. And they proposed to fund something. They had heard that this was

always done in such emergencies. They proposed duties on exports; also on imports. And they wanted to

issue bonds; also paper money, redeemable in yams and cabbages in fifty years. They said the pay of the

army and of the navy and of the whole governmental machine was far in arrears, and unless something was

done, and done immediately, national bankruptcy must ensue, and possibly insurrection and revolution. The

emperor at once resolved upon a highhanded measure, and one of a nature never before heard of in

Pitcairn's Island. He went in state to the church on Sunday morning, with the army at his back, and

That was the feather that broke the camel's back. First one citizen, and then another, rose and refused to

submit to this unheardof outrage and each refusal was followed by the immediate confiscation of the

malcontent's property. This vigor soon stopped the refusals, and the collection proceeded amid a sullen and

ominous silence. As the emperor withdrew with the troops, he said, "I will teach you who is master here."

Several persons shouted, "Down with unification!" They were at once arrested and torn from the arms of their

But in the mean time, as any prophet might have foreseen, a Social Democrat had been developed. As the

emperor stepped into the gilded imperial wheelbarrow at the church door, the social democrat stabbed at him

fifteen or sixteen times with a harpoon, but fortunately with such a peculiarly social democratic unprecision

That very night the convulsion came. The nation rose as one manthough fortynine of the revolutionists

were of the other sex. The infantry threw down their pitchforks; the artillery cast aside their cocoanuts; the

navy revolted; the emperor was seized, and bound hand and foot in his palace. He was very much depressed.

"I freed you from a grinding tyranny; I lifted yon up out of your degradation, and made you a nation among

nations; I gave you a strong, compact, centralized government; and, more than all, I gave you the blessing of

blessingsunification. I have done all this, and my reward is hatred, insult, and these bonds. Take me; do

with me as you will. I here resign my crown and all my dignities, and gladly do I release myself from their

too heavy burden. For your sake I took them up; for your sake I lay them down. The imperial jewel is no

By a unanimous voice the people condemned the exemperor and the social democrat to perpetual

banishment from church services, or to perpetual labor as galleyslaves in the whaleboatwhichever they

might prefer. The next day the nation assembled again, and rehoisted the British flag, reinstated the British

tyranny, reduced the nobility to the condition of commoners again, and then straightway turned their diligent

attention to the weeding of the ruined and neglected yam patches, and the rehabilitaLion of the old useful

industries and the old healing and solacing pieties. The exemperor restored the lost trespass law, and

explained that he had stolen it not to injure any one, but to further his political projects. Therefore the nation

gave the late chief magistrate his office again, and also his alienated Property.

Upon reflection, the exemperor and the social democrat chose perpetual banishment from religious services

in preference to perpetual labor as galley slaves "with perpetual religious services," as they phrased it;

wherefore the people believed that the poor fellows' troubles had unseated their reason, and so they judged it

Poor, sadeyed stranger! There was that about his humble mien, his tired look, his decayedgentility clothes,

that almost reached the mustard, seed of charity that still remained, remote and lonely, in the empty vastness

of my heart, notwithstanding I observed a portfolio under his arm, and said to myself, Behold, Providence

Well, these people always get one interested. Before I well knew how it came about, this one was telling me

his history, and I was all attention and sympathy. He told it something like this:

My parents died, alas, when I was a little, sinless child. My uncle Ithuriel took me to his heart and reared me

as his own. He was my only relative in the wide world; but he was good and rich and generous. He reared me

In the fullness of time I was graduated, and went with two of my servantsmy chamberlain and my

valetto travel in foreign countries. During four years I flitted upon careless wing amid the beauteous

gardens of the distant strand, if you will permit this form of speech in one whose tongue was ever attuned to

poesy; and indeed I so speak with confidence, as one unto his kind, for I perceive by your eyes that you too,

sir, are gifted with the divine inflation. In those far lands I reveled in the ambrosial food that fructifies the

soul, the mind, the heart. But of all things, that which most appealed to my inborn esthetic taste was the

prevailing custom there, among the rich, of making collections of elegant and costly rarities, dainty objets de

vertu, and in an evil hour I tried to uplift my uncle Ithuriel to a plane of sympathy with this exquisite

I wrote and told him of one gentleman's vast collection of shells; another's noble collection of meerschaum

pipes; another's elevating and refining collection of undecipherable autographs; another's priceless collection

of old china; another's enchanting collection of postage stampsand so forth and so on. Soon my letters

yielded fruit. My uncle began to look about for something to make a collection of. You may know, perhaps,

how fleetly a taste like this dilates. His soon became a raging fever, though I knew it not. He began to neglect

his great pork business; presently he wholly retired and turned an elegant leisure into a rabid search for

curious things. His wealth was vast, and he spared it not. First he tried cowbells. He made a collection

which filled five large salons, and comprehended all the different sorts of cowbells that ever had been

contrived, save one. That onean antique, and the only specimen extantwas possessed by another

collector. My uncle offered enormous sums for it, but the gentleman would not sell. Doubtless you know

what necessarily resulted. A true collector attaches no value to a collection that is not complete. His great

heart breaks, he sells his hoard, he turns his mind to some field that seems unoccupied.

Thus did my uncle. He next tried brickbats. After piling up a vast and intensely interesting collection, the

former difficulty supervened; his great heart broke again; he sold out his soul's idol to the retired brewer who

possessed the missing brick. Then he tried flint hatchets and other implements of Primeval Man, but by and

by discovered that the factory where they were made was supplying other collectors as well as himself. He

tried Aztec inscriptions and stuffed whalesanother failure, after incredible labor and expense. When his

collection seemed at last perfect, a stuffed whale arrived from Greenland and an Aztec inscription from the

Cundurango regions of Central America that made all former specimens insignificant. My uncle hastened to

secure these noble gems. He got the stuffed whale, but another collector got the inscription. A real

Cundurango, as possibly you know, is a possession of such supreme value that, when once a collector gets it,

he will rather part with his family than with it. So my uncle sold out, and saw his darlings go forth, never

Now he waited, and thought. He knew another disappointment might kill him. He was resolved that he would

choose things next time that no other man was collecting. He carefully made up his mind, and once more

Echoes, sir. His first purchase was an echo in Georgia that repeated four times; his next was a sixrepeater in

Maryland; his next was a thirteenrepeater in Maine; his next was a ninerepeater in Kansas; his next was a

twelverepeater in Tennessee, which he got cheap, so to speak, because it was out of repair, a portion of the

crag which reflected it having tumbled down. He believed he could repair it at a cost of a few thousand

dollars, and, by increasing the elevation with masonry, treble the repeating capacity; but the architect who

undertook the job had never built an echo before, and so he utterly spoiled this one. Before he meddled with

it, it used to talk back like a motherinlaw, but now it was only fit for the deafanddumb asylum. Well,

next he bought a lot of cheap little doublebarreled echoes, scattered around over various states and

territories; he got them at twenty per cent. off by taking the lot. Next he bought a perfect Gatlinggun of an

echo in Oregon, and it cost a fortune, I can tell you. You may know, sir, that in the echo market the scale of

prices is cumulative, like the caratscale in diamonds; in fact, the same phraseology is used. A singlecarat

echo is worth but ten dollars over and above the value of the land it is on; a twocarat or doublebarreled

echo is worth thirty dollars; a fivecarat is worth nine hundred and fifty; a tencarat is worth thirteen

thousand. My uncle's Oregonecho, which he called the Great Pitt Echo, was a twentytwo carat gem, and

cost two hundred and sixteen thousand dollarsthey threw the land in, for it was four hundred miles from a

Well, in the mean time my path was a path of roses. I was the accepted suitor of the only and lovely daughter

of an English earl, and was beloved to distraction. In that dear presence I swam in seas of bliss. The family

were content, for it was known that I was sole heir to an uncle held to be worth five millions of dollars.

However, none of us knew that my uncle had become a collector, at least in anything more than a small way,

Now gathered the clouds above my unconscious head. That divine echo, since known throughout the world as

the Great Kohinoor, or Mountain of Repetitions, was discovered. It was a sixtyfive carat gem. You could

utter a word and it would talk back at you for fifteen minutes, when the day was otherwise quiet. But behold,

another fact came to light at the same time: another echocollector was in the field. The two rushed to make

the peerless purchase. The property consisted of a couple of small hills with a shallow swale between, out

yonder among the back settlements of New York State. Both men arrived on the ground at the same time, and

neither knew the other was there. The echo was not all owned by one man; a person by the name of

Williamson Bolivar Jarvis owned the east hill, and a person by the name of Harbison J. Bledso owned the

west hill; the swale between was the dividingline. So while my uncle was buying Jarvis's hill for three

million two hundred and eightyfive thousand dollars, the other party was buying Bledso's hill for a shade

Now, do you perceive the natural result? Why, the noblest collection of echoes on earth was forever and ever

incomplete, since it possessed but the onehalf of the king echo of the universe. Neither man was content

with this divided ownership, yet neither would sell to the other. There were jawings, bickerings,

heartburnings. And at last that other collector, with a malignity which only a collector can ever feel toward a

You see, as long as he could not have the echo, he was resolved that nobody should have it. He would

remove his hill, and then there would be nothing to reflect my uncle's echo. My uncle remonstrated with him,

but the man said, "I own one end of this echo; I choose to kill my end; you must take care of your own end

Well, my uncle got an injunction put an him. The other man appealed and fought it in a higher court. They

carried it on up, clear to the Supreme Court of the United States. It made no end of trouble there. Two of the

judges believed that an echo was personal property, because it was impalpable to sight and touch, and yet was

purchasable, salable, and consequently taxable; two others believed that an echo was real estate, because it

was manifestly attached to the land, and was not removable from place to place; other of the judges

It was finally decided that the echo was property; that the hills were property; that the two men were separate

and independent owners of the two hills, but tenants in common in the echo; therefore defendant was at full

liberty to cut down his hill, since it belonged solely to him, but must give bonds in three million dollars as

indemnity for damages which might result to my uncle's half of the echo. This decision also debarred my

uncle from using defendant's hill to reflect his part of the echo, without defendant's consent; he must use only

his own hill; if his part of the echo would not go, under these circumstances, it was sad, of course, but the

court could find no remedy. The court also debarred defendant from using my uncle's hill to reflect his end of

the echo, without consent. You see the grand result! Neither man would give consent, and so that astonishing

and most noble echo had to cease from its great powers; and since that day that magnificent property is tied

A week before my weddingday, while I was still swimming in bliss and the nobility were gathering from far

and near to honor our espousals, came news of my uncle's death, and also a copy of his will, making me his

sole heir. He was gone; alas, my dear benefactor was no more. The thought surcharges my heart even at this

remote day. I handed the will to the earl; I could not read it for the blinding tears. The earl read it; then he

sternly said, "Sir, do you call this wealth?but doubtless you do in your inflated country. Sir, you are left

sole heir to a vast collection of echoesif a thing can be called a collection that is scattered far and wide

over the huge length and breadth of the American continent; sir, this is not all; you are head and ears in debt;

there is not an echo in the lot but has a mortgage on it; sir, I am not a hard man, but I must look to my child's

interest; if you had but one echo which you could honestly call your own, if you had but one echo which was

free from incumbrance, so that you could retire to it with my child, and by humble, painstaking industry

cultivate and improve it, and thus wrest from it a maintenance, I would not say you nay; but I cannot marry

my child to a beggar. Leave his side, my darling; go, sir, take your mortgageridden echoes and quit my sight

My noble Celestine clung to me in tears, with loving arms, and swore she would willingly, nay gladly, marry

me, though I had not an echo in the world. But it could not be. We were torn asunder, she to pine and die

within the twelvemonth, I to toil life's long journey sad and alone, praying daily, hourly, for that release

which shall join us together again in that dear realm where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are

at rest. Now, sir, if you will be so kind as to look at these maps and plans in my portfolio, I am sure I can sell

you an echo for less money than any man in the trade. Now this one, which cost my uncle ten dollars, thirty

"Let me interrupt you," I said. "My friend, I have not had a moment's respite from canvassers this day. I have

bought a sewingmachine which I did not want; I have bought a map which is mistaken in all its details; I

have bought a clock which will not go; I have bought a moth poison which the moths prefer to any other

beverage; I have bought no end of useless inventions, and now I have had enough of this foolishness. I would

not have one of your echoes if you were even to give it to me. I would not let it stay on the place. I always

hate a man that tries to sell me echoes. You see this gun? Now take your collection and move on; let us not

But he only smiled a sad, sweet smile, and got out some more diagrams. You know the result perfectly well,

because you know that when you have once opened the door to a canvasser, the trouble is done and you have

I compromised with this man at the end of an intolerable hour. I bought two doublebarreled echoes in good

condition, and he threw in another, which he said was not salable because it only spoke German. He said,

The nervous, dapper, "peart" young man took the chair I offered him, and said he was connected with the

I was not feeling bright that morning. Indeed, my powers seemed a bit under a cloud. However, I went to the

bookcase, and when I had been looking six or seven minutes I found I was obliged to refer to the young man.

"Well, this is astonishing, I must say. I can tell you what it means, if youif you"

"Well, IIhardly know. I had the Unabridged, and I was ciphering around in the back end, hoping I might

"Why, my friend, they wouldn't have a picture of it in even the latest e My dear sir, I beg your pardon, I

mean no harm in the world, but you do not look asasintelligent as I had expected you would. No

"Oh, don't mention it! It has often been said, and by people who would not flatter and who could have no

inducement to flatter, that I am quite remarkable in that way. Yesyes; they always speak of it with

"I can easily imagine it. But about this interview. You know it is the custom, now, to interview any man who

"Indeed, I had not heard of it before. It must be very interesting. What do you do it with?"

"Ah, wellwellwellthis is disheartening. It ought to be done with a club in some cases; but customarily

it consists in the interviewer asking questions and the interviewed answering them. It is all the rage now. Will

you let me ask you certain questions calculated to bring out the salient points of your public and private

"Oh, with pleasurewith pleasure. I have a very bad memory, but I hope you will not mind that. That is to

say, it is an irregular memory singularly irregular. Sometimes it goes in a gallop, and then again it will be

Q. Well, it was only a suggestion; nothing more. How did you happen to meet Burr?

A. Well, I happened to be at his funeral one day, and he asked me to make less noise, and

Q. But, good heavens! if you were at his funeral, he must have been dead, and if he was dead how could he

Q. Still, I don't understand it at all, You say he spoke to you, and that he was dead.

Q. Did you However, we can never get this matter straight. Let me ask about something else. What was

Q. What! Impossible! That would make you a hundred and eighty years old. How do you account for that?

Q. But you said at first you were only nineteen, and now you make yourself out to be one hundred and eighty.

A. Why, have you noticed that? (Shaking hands.) Many a time it has seemed to me like a discrepancy, but

Q. Thank you for the compliment, as far as it goes. Had you, or have you, any brothers or sisters?

Q. How could I think otherwise? Why, look here! Who is this a picture of on the wall? Isn't that a brother of

A. Oh, yes, yes, yes! Now you remind me of it; that was a brother of mine. That's WilliamBill we called

A. Ah! well, I suppose so. We never could tell. There was a great mystery about it.

Q. Well, I confess that I can't understand this. If you buried him, and you knew he was dead

Q. Well, I never heard anything like this. Somebody was dead. Somebody was buried. Now, where was the

A. Ah! that's just it! That's it exactly. You see, we were twins defunctand Iand we got mixed in the

bathtub when we were only two weeks old, and one of us was drowned. But we didn't know which. Some

A. Goodness knows! I would give whole worlds to know. This solemn, this awful mystery has cast a gloom

over my whole life. But I will tell you a secret now, which I never have revealed to any creature before. One

of us had a peculiar marka large mole on the back of his left hand; that was me. That child was the one that

A. You don't? Well, I do. Anyway, I don't see how they could ever have been such a blundering lot as to go

and bury the wrong child. But, 'sh! don't mention it where the family can hear of it. Heaven knows they

Q. Well, I believe I have got material enough for the present, and I am very much obliged to you for the pains

you have taken. But I was a good deal interested in that account of Aaron Burr's funeral. Would you mind

telling me what particular circumstance it was that made you think Burr was such a remarkable man?

A. Oh! it was a mere trifle! Not one man in fifty would have noticed it at all. When the sermon was over, and

the procession all ready to start for the cemetery, and the body all arranged nice in the hearse, he said he

wanted to take a last look at the scenery, and so he got up and rode with the driver.

Then the young man reverently withdrew. He was very pleasant company, and I was sorry to see him go.

The Parisian travels but little, he knows no language but his own, reads no literature but his own, and

consequently he is pretty narrow and pretty selfsufficient. However, let us not be too sweeping; there are

Frenchmen who know languages not their own: these are the waiters. Among the rest, they know English;

that is, they know it on the European plan which is to say, they can speak it, but can't understand it. They

easily make themselves understood, but it is next to impossible to word an English sentence in such away as

to enable them to comprehend it. They think they comprehend it; they pretend they do; but they don't. Here is

a conversation which I had with one of these beings; I wrote it down at the time, in order to have it exactly

I. No, do not bring any more; I only want to know where they are from where they are raised.

That young man could have become a good English scholar by taking the right sort of pains, but he was

French, and wouldn't do that. How different is the case with our people; they utilize every means that offers.

There are some alleged French Protestants in Paris, and they built a nice little church on one of the great

avenues that lead away from the Arch of Triumph, and proposed to listen to the correct thing, preached in the

correct way, there, in their precious French tongue, and be happy. But their little game does not succeed. Our

people are always there ahead of them Sundays, and take up all the room. When the minister gets up to

preach, he finds his house full of devout foreigners, each ready and waiting, with his little book in his hand

a moroccobound Testament, apparently. But only apparently; it is Mr. Bellows's admirable and

exhaustive little FrenchEnglish dictionary, which in look and binding and size is just like a Testament and

those, people are there to study French. The building has been nicknamed "The Church of the Gratis French

These students probably acquire more language than general information, for I am told that a French sermon

is like a French speechit never names a historical event, but only the date of it; if you are not up in dates,

It may be well enough to explain, though in the case of many of my readers this will hardly be necessary. The

man of the 13th January is Adam; the crime of that date was the eating of the apple; the sorrowful spectacle

of the 30th November was the expulsion from Eden; the grisly deed of the 16th June was the murder of Abel;

the act of the 3d September was the beginning of the journey to the land of Nod; the 12th day of October, the

last mountaintops disappeared under the flood. When you go to church in France, you want to take your

More than a thousand years ago this small district was a kingdom a little bit of a kingdom, a sort of dainty

little toy kingdom, as one might say. It was far removed from the jealousies, strifes, and turmoils of that old

warlike day, and so its life was a simple life, its people a gentle and guileless race; it lay always in a deep

dream of peace, a soft Sabbath tranquillity; there was no malice, there was no envy, there was no ambition,

In the course of time the old king died and his little son Hubert came to the throne. The people's love for him

grew daily; he was so good and so pure and so noble, that by and by his love became a passion, almost a

worship. Now at his birth the soothsayers had diligently studied the stars and found something written in that

All through the king's thirteenth year but one thing was talked of by the soothsayers, the statesmen, the little

parliament, and the general people. That one thing was this: How is the last sentence of the prophecy to be

understood? What goes before seems to mean that the saving animal will choose itself at the proper time; but

the closing sentence seems to mean that the king must choose beforehand, and say what singer among the

animals pleases him best, and that if he choose wisely the chosen animal will save his life, his dynasty, his

By the end of the year there were as many opinions about this matter as there had been in the beginning; but a

majority of the wise and the simple were agreed that the safest plan would be for the little king to make

choice beforehand, and the earlier the better. So an edict was sent forth commanding all persons who owned

singing creatures to bring them to the great hall of the palace in the morning of the first day of the new year.

This command was obeyed. When everything was in readiness for the trial, the king made his solemn entry

with the great officers of the crown, all clothed in their robes of state. The king mounted his golden throne

"These creatures all sing at once; the noise is unendurable; no one can choose in such a turmoil. Take them

This was done. One sweet warbler after another charmed the young king's ear and was removed to make way

for another candidate. The precious minutes slipped by; among so many bewitching songsters he found it

hard to choose, and all the harder because the promised penalty for an error was so terrible that it unsettled

his judgment and made him afraid to trust his own ears. He grew nervous and his face showed distress. His

ministers saw this, for they never took their eyes from him a moment. Now they began to say in their hearts:

"He has lost couragethe cool head is gonehe will errhe and his dynasty and his people are doomed!"

The linnet trilled forth her jubilant music. In the midst of it the king was about to uplift his scepter in sign of

The thrush was brought, and the two birds poured out their marvels of song together. The king wavered, then

his inclination began to settle and strengthenone could see it in his countenance. Hope budded in the hearts

of the old ministers, their pulses began to beat quicker, the scepter began to rise slowly, when: There was a

The next instant the dearest, sweetest, prettiest little peasantmaid of nine years came tripping in, her brown

eyes glowing with childish eagerness; but when she saw that august company and those angry faces she

stopped and hung her head and put her poor coarse apron to her eyes. Nobody gave her welcome, none pitied

"My lord the king, I pray you pardon me, for I meant no wrong. I have no father and no mother, but I have a

goat and a donkey, and they are all in all to me. My goat gives me the sweetest milk, and when my dear good

donkey brays it seems to me there is no music like to it. ~So when my lord the king's jester said the sweetest

singer among all the animals should save the crown and nation, and moved me to bring him here"

All the court burst into a rude laugh, and the child fled away crying, without trying to finish her speech. The

chief minister gave a private order that she and her disastrous donkey be flogged beyond the precincts of the

Then the trial of the birds was resumed. The two birds sang their best, but the scepter lay motionless in the

king's hand. Hope died slowly out in the breasts of all. An hour went by; two hours, still no decision. The day

waned to its close, and the waiting multitudes outside the palace grew crazed with anxiety and apprehension.

The twilight came on, the shadows fell deeper and deeper. The king and his court could no longer see each

other's faces. No one spokenone called for lights. The great trial had been made; it had failed; each and all

wished to hide their faces from the light and cover up their deep trouble in their own hearts.

Finallyhark! A rich, full strain of the divinest melody streamed forth from a remote part of the hall the

"Up!" shouted the king, "let all the bells make proclamation to the people, for the choice is made and we have

not erred. King, dynasty, and nation are saved. From henceforth let the nightingale be honored throughout the

land forever. And publish it among all the people that whosoever shall insult a nightingale, or injure it, shall

All that little world was drunk with joy. The castle and the city blazed with bonfires all night long, the people

From that day the nightingale was a sacred bird. Its song was heard in every house; the poets wrote its

praises; the painters painted it; its sculptured image adorned every arch and turret and fountain and public

building. It was even taken into the king's councils; and no grave matter of state was decided until the

soothsayers had laid the thing before the state nightingale and translated to the ministry what it was that the

The young king was very fond of the chase. When the summer was come he rode forth with hawk and hound,

one day, in a brilliant company of his nobles. He got separated from them by and by, in a great forest, and

took what he imagined a neat cut, to find them again; but it was a mistake. He rode on and on, hopefully at

first, but with sinking courage finally. Twilight came on, and still he was plunging through a lonely and

unknown land. Then came a catastrophe. In the dim light he forced his horse through a tangled thicket

overhanging a steep and rocky declivity. When horse and rider reached the bottom, the former had a broken

neck and the latter a broken leg. The poor little king lay there suffering agonies of pain, and each hour

seemed a long month to him. He kept his ear strained to heat any sound that might promise hope of rescue;

but he heard no voice, no sound of horn or bay of hound. So at last he gave up all hope, and said, "Let death

Just then the deep, sweet song of a nightingale swept across the still wastes of the night.

"Saved!" the king said. "Saved! It is the sacred bird, and the prophecy is come true. The gods themselves

He could hardly contain his joy; he could not word his gratitude. Every few moments, now he thought he

caught the sound of approaching succor. But each time it was a disappointment; no succor came. The dull

hours drifted on. Still no help camebut still the sacred bird sang on. He began to have misgivings about his

choice, but he stifled them. Toward dawn the bird ceased. The morning came, and with it thirst and hunger;

but no succor. The day waxed and waned. At last the king cursed the nightingale.

Immediately the song of the thrush came from out the wood. The king said in his heart, "This was the

But it did not come. Then he lay many hours insensible. When he came to himself, a linnet was singing. He

listenedwith apathy. His faith was gone. "These birds," he said, "can bring no help; I and my house and my

people are doomed." He turned him about to die; for he was grown very feeble from hunger and thirst and

suffering, and felt that his end was near. In truth, he wanted to die, and be released from pain. For long hours

he lay without thought or feeling or motion. Then his senses returned. The dawn of the third morning was

breaking. Ah, the world seemed very beautiful to those worn eyes. Suddenly a great longing to live rose up in

the lad's heart, and from his soul welled a deep and fervent prayer that Heaven would have mercy upon him

and let him see his home and his friends once more. In that instant a soft, a faint, a far off sound, but oh,

"That, oh, that song is sweeter, a thousand times sweeter than the voice of the nightingale, thrush, or linnet,

for it brings not mere hope, but certainty of succor; and now, indeed, am I saved! The sacred singer has

chosen itself, as the oracle intended; the prophecy is fulfilled, and my life, my house, and my people are

The divine music grew nearer and nearer, stronger and stronger and ever sweeter and sweeter to the perishing

sufferer's ear. Down the declivity the docile little donkey wandered, cropping herbage and singing as he went;

and when at last he saw the dead horse and the wounded king, he came and snuffed at them with simple and

marveling curiosity. The king petted him, and he knelt down as had been his wont when his little mistress

desired to mount. With great labor and pain the lad drew himself upon the creature's back, and held himself

there by aid of the generous ears. The ass went singing forth from the place and carried the king to the little

peasantmaid's hut. She gave him her pallet for a bed, refreshed him with goat's milk, and then flew to tell

The king got well. His first act was to proclaim the sacredness and inviolability of the ass; his second was to

add this particular ass to his cabinet and make him chief minister of the crown; his third was to have all the

statues and effigies of nightingales throughout his kingdom destroyed, and replaced by statues and effigies of

the sacred donkey; and, his fourth was to announce that when the little peasant maid should reach her

Such is the legend. This explains why the moldering image of the ass adorns all these old crumbling walls

and arches; and it explains why, during many centuries, an ass was always the chief minister in that royal

cabinet, just as is still the case in most cabinets to this day; and it also explains why, in that little kingdom,

during many centuries, all great poems, all great speeches, all great books, all public solemnities, and all

I like that. We have not all had the good for tune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or

statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground. It is a shame that for a

thousand years the world's banquets have utterly ignored the baby, as if he didn't amount to anything. If you

will stop and think a minute if you will go back fifty or one hundred years to your early married life and

recontemplate your first babyyou will remember that he amounted to a great deal, and even something

over. You soldiers all know that when the little fellow arrived at family, headquarters you had to hand in your

resignation. He took entire command. You became his lackey, his mere body servant, and you had to stand

around, too. He was not a commander who made allowances far time, distance, weather, or anything else.

You had to execute his order whether it was possible or mot. And there was only one form of marching in his

manual of tactics, and that was the doublequick. He treated you with every sort of insolence and disrespect,

and the bravest of you didn't dare to say a word. You could face the deathstorm at Donelson and Vicksburg,

and give back blow for blow; but when he clawed your whiskers, and pulled your hair, and twisted your nose,

you had to take it. When the thunders of war were sounding in your ears you set your faces toward the

batteries, and advanced with steady tread; but when he turned on the terrors of his warwhoop you advanced

in the other direction, and mighty glad of the chance, too. When he called for soothingsyrup, did you

venture to throw out any side remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer and a gentleman?

No. You got up and got it. When he ordered his pap bottle and it was not warm, did you talk back? Not you.

You went to work and warmed it. You even descended so far in your menial office as to take a suck at that

warm, insipid stuff yourself, to see if it was rightthree parts water to one of milk, a touch of sugar to

modify the colic, and a drop of peppermint to kill those hiccoughs. I can taste that stuff yet. And how many

things you learned as you went along! Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying that

when the baby smiles in his sleep, it is because the angels are whispering to him. Very pretty, but too

thinsimply wind on the stomach, my friends. If the baby proposed to take a walk at his usual hour, two

o'clock in the morning, didn't you rise up promptly and remark, with a mental addition which would not

improve a Sundayschool book much, that that was the very thing you were about to propose yourself? Oh!

you were under good discipline, and as you went fluttering up and down the room in your undress uniform,

you not only prattled undignified baby talk, but even tuned up your martial voices and tried to sing!"

Rocka by baby in the treetop," for instance. What a spectacle for an Army of the Tennessee! And what an

affliction for the neighbors, too; for it is not everybody within a mile around that likes military music at three

in the morning: And when you had been keeping this sort of thing up two or three hours, and your little

velvethead intimated that nothing suited him like exercise and noise, what did you do? ["Go on!"] You

simply went on until you dropped in the last ditch. The idea that a baby doesn't amount to anything! Why,

one baby is just a house and a front yard full by itself. One baby can furnish more business than you and your

whole Interior Department can attend to. He is enterprising, irrepressible, brimful of lawless activities. Do

what you please, you can't make him stay on the reservation. Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as

you are in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot. And there ain't

Yes, it was high time for a toastmaster to recognize the importance of the babies. Think what is in store for

the present crop! Fifty years from now we shall all be dead, I trust, and then this flag, if it still survive (and let

us hope it may), will be floating over a Republic numbering 200,000,000 souls, according to the settled laws

of our increase. Our present schooner of State will have grown into a political leviathana Great Eastern.

The cradled babies of today will be on deck. Let them be well trained, for we are going to leave a big

contract on their hands. Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this

nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are. In one of them

cradles the unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teethingthink of it!and putting in a

world of dead earnest, unarticulated, but perfectly justifiable profanity over it, too. In another the future

renowned astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way with but a languid interestpoor little

chap!and wondering what has become of that other one they call the wetnurse. In another the future great

historian is lyingand doubtless will continue to lie until his earthly mission is ended. In another the future

President is busying himself with no profounder problem of state than what the mischief has become of his

hair so early; and in a mighty array of other cradles there are now some 60,000 future officeseekers, getting

ready to furnish him occasion to grapple with that same old problem a second time. And in still one more

cradle, somewhere under the flag, the future illustrious commanderin chief of the American armies is so

little burdened with his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his whole strategic mind at

this moment to trying to find out some way to get his big toe into his mouthan achievement which,

meaning no disrespect, the illustrious guest of this evening turned his entire attention to some fiftysix years

ago; and if the child is but a prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt that he succeeded.

I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I

don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weatherclerk's factory who

experiment and learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather

for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it. There is a

sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admirationand regret. The

weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new

designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in spring

than in any other season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirtysix different kinds of weather

inside of fourandtwenty hours. It was I that made the fame and fortune of that man that had that marvelous

collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, that so astounded the foreigners. He was going to travel

all over the world and get specimens from all the climes. I said, "Don't you do it; you come to New England

on a favorable spring day." I told him what we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity. Well, he

came and he made his collection in four days. As to variety, why, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds

of weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantitywell, after he had picked out and discarded

all that was blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough, but weather to spare; weather to hire out;

weather to sell; to deposit; weather to invest; weather to give to the poor. The people of New England are by

nature patient and forbearing, but there are some things which they will not stand. Every year they kill a lot of

poets for writing about "Beautiful Spring." These are generally casual visitors, who bring their notions of

spring from somewhere else, and cannot, of course, know how the natives feel about spring. And so the first

thing they know the opportunity to inquire how they feel has permanently gone by. Old Probabilities has a

mighty reputation for accurate prophecy, and thoroughly well deserves it. You take up the paper and observe

how crisply and confidently he checks off what today's weather is going to be on the Pacific, down South, in

the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region. See him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to

New England, and then seehis tail drop. He doesn't know what the weather is going to be in New England.

Well, he mulls over it, and by and by he gets out something about like this: Probable northeast to southwest

minds, varying to the southward and westward and eastward, and points between, high and low barometer

swapping around from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded

by earthquakes, with thunder and lightning. Then he jots down this postscript from his wandering mind, to

cover accidents: "But it is possible that the program may be wholly changed in the mean time." Yes, one of

the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it. There is only one thing

certain about it: you are certain there is going to be plenty of ita perfect grand review; but you never can

tell which end of the procession is going to move first. You fix up for the drought; you leave your umbrella in

the house and sally out, and two to one you get drowned. You make up your mind that the earthquake is due;

you stand from under, and take hold of something to steady yourself, and the first thing you know you get

struck by lightning. These are great disappointments; but they can't be helped. The lightning there is peculiar;

it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell

whether Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there. And the thunder.

When the thunder begins to merely tune up and scrape and saw, and key up the instruments for the

performance, strangers say, "Why, what awful thunder you have here!" But when the baton is raised and the

real concert begins, you'll find that stranger down in the cellar with his head in the ashbarrel. Now as to the

size of the weather in New England lengthways, I mean. It is utterly disproportioned to the size of that little

country. Half the time, when it is packed as full as it can stick, you will see that New England weather

sticking out beyond the edges and projecting around hundreds and hundreds of miles over the neighboring

states. She can't hold a tenth part of her weather. You can see cracks all about where she has strained herself

trying to do it. I could speak volumes about the inhuman perversity of the New England weather, but I will

give but a single specimen. I like to hear rain on a tin roof. So I covered part of my roof with tin, with an eye

to that luxury. Well, sir, do you think it ever rains on that tin? No, sir; skips it every time. Mind, in this

speech I have been trying merely to do honor to the New England weatherno language could do it justice.

But, after all, there is at least one or two things about that weather (or, if you please, effects produced, by it)

which we residents would not like to part with. If we hadn't our bewitching autumn foliage, we should still

have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries the icestorm:

when a leafless tree is clothed with ice from the bottom to the topice that is as bright and clear as crystal;

when every bough and twig is strung with icebeads, frozen dewdrops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and

white, like the Shah of Persia's diamond plume. Then the wind waves the branches and the sun comes out and

turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and burn and flash with all manner of colored

fires, which change and change again with inconceivable rapidity from blue to red, from red to green, and

green to goldthe tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of dazzling jewels; and it stands there

the acme, the climax, the supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, intoxicating, intolerable

There was as Englishman in our compartment, and he complimented me on on what? But you would never

guess. He complimented me on my English. He said Americans in general did not speak the English language

as correctly as I did. I said I was obliged to him for his compliment, since I knew he meant it for one, but that

I was not fairly entitled to it, for I did not speak English at allI only spoke American.

He laughed, and said it was a distinction without a difference. I said no, the difference was not prodigious,

but still it was considerable. We fell into a friendly dispute over the matter. I put my case as well as I could,

"The languages were identical several generations ago, but our changed conditions and the spread of our

people far to the south and far to the west have made many alterations in our pronunciation, and have

introduced new words among us and changed the meanings of many old ones. English people talk through

their noses; we do not. We say know, English people say nao; we say cow, the Briton says kaow; we"

"Yes, it is pure Yankee; that is true. One cannot hear it in America outside of the little corner called New

England, which is Yankee land. The English themselves planted it there, two hundred and fifty years ago, and

there it remains; it has never spread. But England talks through her nose yet; the Londoner and the

backwoods NewEnglander pronounce 'know' and 'cow' alike, and then the Briton unconsciously satirizes

We argued this point at some length; nobody won; but no matter, the fact remains Englishmen say nao and

kaow for "know" and "cow," and that is what the rustic inhabitant of a very small section of America does.

"You conferred your 'a' upon New England, too, and there it remains; it has not traveled out of the narrow

limits of those six little states in all these two hundred and fifty years. All England uses it, New England's

small populationsay four millionsuse it, but we have forty five millions who do not use it. You say 'glahs

of wawtah,' so does New England; at least, New England says 'glahs.' America at large flattens the 'a', and

says 'glass of water.' These sounds are pleasanter than yours; you may think they are not rightwell, in

English they are not right, but 'American' they are. You say 'flahsk' and 'bahsket,' and 'jackahss'; we say

'flask,' 'basket,' 'jackass'sounding the 'a' as it is in 'tallow,' 'fallow,' and so on. 'Up to as late as 1847 Mr.

Webster's Dictionary had the impudence to still pronounce 'basket' bahsket, when he knew that outside of his

little New England all America shortened the 'a' and paid no attention to his English broadening of it.

However, it called itself an English Dictionary, so it was proper enough that it should stick to English forms,

perhaps. It still calls itself an English Dictionary today, but it has quietly ceased to pronounce 'basket' as if it

were spelt 'bahsket.' In the American language the 'h' is respected; the 'h' is not dropped or added

"Yes, that is true; but a nation's language is a very large matter. It is not simply a manner of speech obtaining

among the educated handful; the manner obtaining among the vast uneducated multitude must be considered

also. Your uneducated masses speak English, you will not deny that; our uneducated masses speak American

it won't be fair for you to deny that, for you can see, yourself, that when your stableboy says, 'It isn't the

'unting that 'urts the 'orse, but the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'ighway,' and our stableboy makes the

same remark without suffocating a single h, these two people are manifestly talking two different languages.

But if the signs are to he trusted, even your educated classes used to drop the 'h.' They say humble, now, and

heroic, and historic etc., but I judge that they used to drop those h's because your writers still keep up the

fashion of patting an before those words instead of a. This is what Mr. Darwin might call a 'rudimentary' sign

that as an was justifiable once, and useful when your educated classes used ,to say 'umble, and 'eroic, and

'istorical. Correct writers of the American language do not put an before three words."

The English gentleman had something to say upon this matter, but never mind what he saidI'm not arguing

"In England you encourage an orator by exclaiming, 'H'yaah! h'yaah!' We pronounce it heer in some sections,

'h'yer' in others, and so on; but our whites do not say 'h'yaah,' pronouncing the a's like the a in ah. I have

heard English ladies say 'don't you'making two separate and distinct words of it; your Mr. Burnand has

satirized it. But we always say 'dontchu.' This is much better. Your ladies say, 'Oh, it's oful nice!' Ours say,

'Oh, it's awful nice!' We say, 'Four hundred,' you say 'For'as in the word or. Your clergymen speak of 'the

Lawd,' ours of 'the Lord'; yours speak of 'the gawds of the heathen,' ours of 'the gods of the heathen.' When

you are exhausted, you say you are 'knocked up.' We don't. When you say you will do a thing 'directly,' you

mean 'immediately'; in the American languagegenerally speakingthe word signifies 'after a little.' When

you say 'clever,' you mean 'capable'; with us the word used to mean 'accommodating,' but I don't know what it

means now. Your word 'stout' means 'fleshy'; our word 'stout' usually means 'strong.' Your words 'gentleman'

and 'lady' have a very restricted meaning; with us they include the barmaid, butcher, burglar, harlot, and

horsethief. You say, 'I haven't got any stockings on,' 'I haven't got any memory,' 'I haven't got any money in

my purse; we usually say, 'I haven't any stockings on,' 'I haven't any memory,!' 'I haven't any money in my

purse.' You say 'out of window'; we always put in a the. If one asks 'How old is that man?' the Briton

answers, 'He will be about forty'; in the American language we should say, 'He is about forty.' However, I

won't tire you, sir; but if I wanted to, I could pile up differences here until I not only convinced you that

English and American are separate languages, but that when I speak my native tongue in its utmost purity an

"I don't wish to flatter you, but it is about all I can do to understand you now."

That was a very pretty compliment, and it put us on the pleasantest terms directlyI use the word in the

[Later1882. Esthetes in many of our schools are now beginning to teach the pupils to broaden the 'a,' and

This Man Rogers happened upon me and introduced himself at the town of , in the South of England,

where I stayed awhile. His stepfather had married a distant relative of mine who was afterward hanged; and

so he seemed to think a blood relationship existed between us. He came in every day and sat down and

talked. Of all the bland, serene human curiosities I ever saw, I think he was the chiefest. He desired to look at

my new chimneypot hat. I was very willing, for I thought he would notice the name of the great Oxford

Street hatter in it, and respect me accordingly. But he turned it about with a sort of grave compassion, pointed

out two or three blemishes, and said that I, being so recently arrived, could not be expected to know where to

supply myself. Said he would send me the address of his hatter. Then he said, "Pardon me," and proceeded to

cut a neat circle of red tissue paper; daintily notched the edges of it; took the mucilage and pasted it in my hat

so as to cover the manufacturer's name. He said, "No one will know now where you got it. I will send you a

hattip of my hatter, and you can paste it over this tissue circle." It was the calmest, coolest thingI never

admired a man so much in my life. Mind, he did this while his own hat sat offensively near our noses, on the

tablean ancient extinguisher of the "slouch" pattern, limp and shapeless with age, discolored by

vicissitudes of the weather, and banded by an equator of bear's grease that had stewed through.

Another time he examined my coat. I had no terrors, for over my tailor's door was the legend, "By Special

Appointment Tailor to H. R. H. the Prince of Wales," etc. I did not know at the time that the most of the tailor

shops had the same sign out, and that whereas it takes nine tailors to make an ordinary man, it takes a

hundred and fifty to make a prince. He was full of compassion for my coat. Wrote down the address of his

tailor for me. Did not tell me to mention my nom de plume and the tailor would put his best work on my

garment, as complimentary people sometimes do, but said his tailor would hardly trouble himself for an

unknown person (unknown person, when I thought I was so celebrated in England!that was the cruelest

cut), but cautioned me to mention his name, and it would be all right. Thinking to be facetious, I said:

"Well, let him," said Rogers; "I've done enough for him, for him to show some appreciation of it."

I might as well have tried to disconcert a mummy with my facetiousness. Said Rogers: "I get all my coats

I made one more attempt. I said, "I wish you had brought one with you I would like to look at it."

I examined it. The coat had been bought readymade, of a Chatham Street Jew, without any questionabout

1848. It probably cost four dollars when it was new. It was ripped, it was frayed, it was napless and greasy. I

could not resist showing him where it was ripped. It so affected him that I was almost sorry I had done it.

First he seemed plunged into a bottomless abyss of grief. Then he roused himself, made a feint with his hands

as if waving off the pity of a nation, and said with what seemed to me a manufactured emotion"No

When he was thoroughly restored, so that he could examine the rip and command his feelings, he said, ah,

now he understood ithis servant must have done it while dressing him that morning.

Nearly every day he interested himself in some article of my clothing. One would hardly have expected this

sort of infatuation in a man who always wore the same suit, and it a suit that seemed coeval with the

It was an unworthy ambition, perhaps, but I did wish I could make this man admire something about me or

something I didyou would have felt the same way. I saw my opportunity: I was about to return to London,

and had "listed" my soiled linen for the, wash. It made quite au imposing mountain in the corner of the

roomfiftyfour pieces. I hoped he would fancy it was the accumulation of a single week. I took up the

washlist, as if to see that it was all right, and then tossed it on the table, with pretended forgetfulness. Sure

enough, he took it. up and ran his eye along down to the grand total. Then he said, "You get off easy," and

His gloves were the saddest ruin, but he told me where I could get some like them. His shoes would hardly

hold walnuts without leaking, but he liked to put his feet up on the mantelpiece and contemplate them. He

wore a dim glass breastpin, which he called a "morphylitic diamond" whatever that may meanand said

Afterward, in London, it was a pleasure to me to see this fantastic vagabond come marching into the lobby of

the hotel in his grandducal way, for he always had some new imaginary grandeur to developthere was

nothing stale about him but his clothes. If he addressed me when strangers were about, he always raised his

voice a little and called me "Sir Richard," or "General," or "Your Lordship"and when people began to stare

and look deferential, he would fall to inquiring in a casual way why I disappointed the Duke of Argyll the

night before; and then remind me of our engagement at the Duke of Westminster's for the following day. I

think that for the time being these things were realities to him. He once came and invited me to go with him

and spend the evening with the Earl of Warwick at his town house. I said I had received no formal invitation.

He said that that was of no consequence, the Earl had no formalities for him or his friends. I asked if I could

go just as I was. He said no, that would hardly do; evening dress was requisite at night in any gentleman's

house. He said he would wait while I dressed, and then we would go to his apartments and I could take a

bottle of champagne and a cigar while he dressed. I was very willing to see how this enterprise would turn

out, so I dressed, and we started to his lodgings. He said if I didn't mind we would walk. So we tramped some

four miles through the mud and fog, and finally found his "apartments"; they consisted of a single room over

a barber's shop in a back street. Two chairs, a small table, an ancient valise, a washbasin and pitcher (both

on the floor in a corner), an unmade bed, a fragment of a lookingglass, and a flower pot, with a perishing

little rose geranium in it, which he called a century plant, and said it had not bloomed now for upward of two

centuriesgiven to him by the late Lord Palmerston (been offered a prodigious sum for it)these were the

contents of the room. Also a brass candlestick and a part of a candle. Rogers lit the candle, and told me to sit

down and make myself at home. He said he hoped I was thirsty, because he would surprise my palate with an

article of champagne that seldom got into a commoner's system; or would I prefer sherry, or port? Said he

had port in bottles that were swathed in stratified cobwebs, every stratum representing a generation. And as

for his cigars well, I should judge of them myself. Then he put his head out at the door and called:

"Now what the devil can have become of that butler? I never allow a servant toOh, confound that idiot,

(I was just wondering at his intrepidity in still keeping up the delusion of the champagne, and trying to

Now he stopped calling Sackville and began to call "Anglesy." But Anglesy didn't come. He said, "This is the

second time that that equerry has been absent without leave. Tomorrow I'll discharge him." Now he began

to whoop for "Thomas," but Thomas didn't answer. Then for "Theodore," but no Theodore replied.

"Well, I give it up," said Rogers. "The servants never expect me at this hour, and so they're all off on a lark.

Might get along without the equerry and the page, but can't have any wine or cigars without the butler, and

I offered to help him dress, but he would not hear of it; and besides, he said he would not feel comfortable

unless dressed by a practised hand. However, he finally concluded that he was such old friends with the Earl

that it would not make any difference how he was dressed. So we took a cab, he gave the driver some

directions, and we started. By and by we stopped before a large house and got out. I never had seen this man

with a collar on. He now stepped under a lamp and got a venerable paper collar out of his coat pocket, along

with a hoary cravat, and put them on. He ascended the stoop, and entered. Presently he reappeared, descended

"Now we're safe," he said, and took off his collar and cravat and returned them to his pocket.

"Know me? Absolutely worships me. I just did happen to catch a glimpse of her before she saw meand out

I shot. Haven't seen her for two monthsto rush in on her without any warning might have been fatal. She

could not have stood it. I didn't know she was in townthought she was at the castle. Let me lean on

youjust a momentthere; now I am betterthank you; thank you ever so much. Lord bless me, what an

So I never got to call on the Earl, after all. But I marked the house for future reference. It proved to be an

In most things Rogers was by no means a fool. In some things it was plain enough that he was a fool, but he

certainly did not know it. He was in the "deadest" earnest in these matters. He died at sea, last summer, as the