Once or twice a year I get a letter of a certain pattern,
a pattern that never materially changes, in form and substance,
yet I cannot get used to that letter–it always astonishes me.
It affects me as the locomotive always affects me: I saw to myself,
“I have seen you a thousand times, you always look the same way,
yet you are always a wonder, and you are always impossible; to contrive
you is clearly beyond human genius–you can’t exist, you don’t exist,
yet here you are!”

I have a letter of that kind by me, a very old one. I yearn to print it,
and where is the harm? The writer of it is dead years ago, no doubt,
and if I conceal her name and address–her this-world address–
I am sure her shade will not mind. And with it I wish to print
the answer which I wrote at the time but probably did not send.
If it went–which is not likely–it went in the form of a copy,
for I find the original still here, pigeonholed with the said letter.
To that kind of letters we all write answers which we do not send,
fearing to hurt where we have no desire to hurt; I have done it many
a time, and this is doubtless a case of the sort.

THE LETTER

X——, California, JUNE 3, 1879.

Mr. S. L. Clemens, HARTFORD, CONN.:

Dear Sir,–You will doubtless be surprised to know who has presumed
to write and ask a favor of you. let your memory go back to your days
in the Humboldt mines–’62-’63. You will remember, you and Clagett
and Oliver and the old blacksmith Tillou lived in a lean-to which was
half-way up the gulch, and there were six log cabins in the camp–
strung pretty well separated up the gulch from its mouth at the
desert to where the last claim was, at the divide. The lean-to
you lived in was the one with a canvas roof that the cow fell down
through one night, as told about by you in roughing it–my uncle
Simmons remembers it very well. He lived in the principal cabin,
half-way up the divide, along with Dixon and Parker and Smith.
It had two rooms, one for kitchen and the other for bunks,
and was the only one that had. You and your party were there on
the great night, the time they had dried-apple-pie, Uncle Simmons
often speaks of it. It seems curious that dried-apple-pie should
have seemed such a great thing, but it was, and it shows how far
Humboldt was out of the world and difficult to get to, and how slim
the regular bill of fare was. Sixteen years ago–it is a long time.
I was a little girl then, only fourteen. I never saw you, I lived
in Washoe. But Uncle Simmons ran across you every now and then,
all during those weeks that you and party were there working
your claim which was like the rest. The camp played out long
and long ago, there wasn’t silver enough in it to make a button.
You never saw my husband, but he was there after you left, and lived
in that very lean-to, a bachelor then but married to me now.
He often wishes there had been a photographer there in those days,
he would have taken the lean-to. He got hurt in the old Hal Clayton
claim that was abandoned like the others, putting in a blast
and not climbing out quick enough, though he scrambled the best
he could. It landed him clear down on the train and hit a Piute.
For weeks they thought he would not get over it but he did,
and is all right, now. Has been ever since. This is a long
introduction but it is the only way I can make myself known.
The favor I ask I feel assured your generous heart will grant:
Give me some advice about a book I have written. I do not claim
anything for it only it is mostly true and as interesting as most
of the books of the times. I am unknown in the literary world
and you know what that means unless one has some one of influence
(like yourself) to help you by speaking a good word for you.
I would like to place the book on royalty basis plan with any one you
would suggest.

This is a secret from my husband and family. I intend
it as a surprise in case I get it published.

Feeling you will take an interest in this and if possible write
me a letter to some publisher, or, better still, if you could see
them for me and then let me hear.

I appeal to you to grant me this favor. With deepest gratitude I
think you for your attention.

One knows, without inquiring, that the twin of that embarrassing
letter is forever and ever flying in this and that and the other
direction across the continent in the mails, daily, nightly, hourly,
unceasingly, unrestingly. It goes to every well-known merchant,
and railway official, and manufacturer, and capitalist, and Mayor,
and Congressman, and Governor, and editor, and publisher, and author,
and broker, and banker–in a word, to every person who is supposed
to have “influence.” It always follows the one pattern: “You do
not know me, but you once knew a relative of mine,” etc., etc.
We should all like to help the applicants, we should all be glad
to do it, we should all like to return the sort of answer that
is desired, but–Well, there is not a thing we can do that would
be a help, for not in any instance does that latter ever come from
anyone who can be helped. The struggler whom you could help does
his own helping; it would not occur to him to apply to you, stranger.
He has talent and knows it, and he goes into his fight eagerly and
with energy and determination–all alone, preferring to be alone.
That pathetic letter which comes to you from the incapable,
the unhelpable–how do you who are familiar with it answer it?
What do you find to say? You do not want to inflict a wound;
you hunt ways to avoid that. What do you find? How do you get out
of your hard place with a contend conscience? Do you try to explain?
The old reply of mine to such a letter shows that I tried that once.
Was I satisfied with the result? Possibly; and possibly not;
probably not; almost certainly not. I have long ago forgotten all
about it. But, anyway, I append my effort:

THE REPLY

I know Mr. H., and I will go to him, dear madam, if upon reflection
you find you still desire it. There will be a conversation.
I know the form it will take. It will be like this:

MR. H. How do her books strike you?

MR. CLEMENS. I am not acquainted with them.

H. Who has been her publisher?

C. I don’t know.

H. She has one, I suppose?

C. I–I think not.

H. Ah. You think this is her first book?

C. Yes–I suppose so. I think so.

H. What is it about? What is the character of it?

C. I believe I do not know.

H. Have you seen it?

C. Well–no, I haven’t.

H. Ah-h. How long have you known her?

C. I don’t know her.

H. Don’t know her?

C. No.

H. Ah-h. How did you come to be interested in her book, then?

C. Well, she–she wrote and asked me to find a publisher for her,
and mentioned you.

H. Why should she apply to you instead of me?

C. She wished me to use my influence.

H. Dear me, what has influence to do with such a matter?

C. Well, I think she thought you would be more likely to examine
her book if you were influenced.

H. Why, what we are here for is to examine books–anybody’s book
that comes along. It’s our business. Why should we turn away
a book unexamined because it’s a stranger’s? It would be foolish.
No publisher does it. On what ground did she request your influence,
since you do not know her? She must have thought you knew her
literature and could speak for it. Is that it?

C. No; she knew I didn’t.

H. Well, what then? She had a reason of some sort for believing you
competent to recommend her literature, and also under obligations
to do it?

C. Yes, I–I knew her uncle.

H. Knew her uncle?

C. Yes.

H. Upon my word! So, you knew her uncle; her uncle knows her literature;
he endorses it to you; the chain is complete, nothing further needed;
you are satisfied, and therefore–

C. No, that isn’t all, there are other ties. I know the cabin
her uncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his partners, too; also I
came near knowing her husband before she married him, and I did
know the abandoned shaft where a premature blast went off and he
went flying through the air and clear down to the trail and hit
an Indian in the back with almost fatal consequences.

H. To him, or to the Indian?

C. She didn’t say which it was.

H. (with a sigh). It certainly beats the band! You don’t know her,
you don’t know her literature, you don’t know who got hurt when
the blast went off, you don’t know a single thing for us to build
an estimate of her book upon, so far as I–

C. I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her uncle.

H. Oh, what use is he? Did you know him long? How long was it?

C. Well, I don’t know that I really knew him, but I must have
met him, anyway. I think it was that way; you can’t tell about
these things, you know, except when they are recent.

H. Recent? When was all this?

C. Sixteen years ago.

H. What a basis to judge a book upon! As first you said you knew him,
and not you don’t know whether you did or not.

C. Oh yes, I know him; anyway, I think I thought I did; I’m perfectly
certain of it.

H. What makes you think you thought you knew him?

C. Why, she says I did, herself.

H. She says so!

C. Yes, she does, and I did know him, too, though I don’t remember
it now.

H. Come–how can you know it when you don’t remember it.

C. I don’t know. That is, I don’t know the process, but I do know
lots of things that I don’t remember, and remember lots of things
that I don’t know. It’s so with every educated person.

H. (after a pause). Is your time valuable?

C. No–well, not very.

H. Mine is.

So I came away then, because he was looking tired. Overwork, I reckon;
I never do that; I have seen the evil effects of it. My mother
was always afraid I work overwork myself, but I never did.

Dear madam, you see how it would happen if I went there. He would
ask me those questions, and I would try to answer them to suit him,
and he would hunt me here and there and yonder and get me embarrassed
more and more all the time, and at last he would look tired on
account of overwork, and there it would end and nothing done.
I wish I could be useful to you, but, you see, they do not
care for uncles or any of those things; it doesn’t move them,
it doesn’t have the least effect, they don’t care for anything
but the literature itself, and they as good as despise influence.
But they do care for books, and are eager to get them and examine them,
no matter whence they come, nor from whose pen. If you will send
yours to a publisher–any publisher–he will certainly examine it,
I can assure you of that.

Correspondence of the ‘London Times’
Chicago, April 1, 1904

I resume by cable-telephone where I left off yesterday. For many hours
now, this vast city–along with the rest of the globe, of course–has
talked of nothing but the extraordinary episode mentioned in my last
report. In accordance with your instructions, I will now trace the
romance from its beginnings down to the culmination of yesterday–or
today; call it which you like. By an odd chance, I was a personal actor
in a part of this drama myself. The opening scene plays in Vienna.
Date, one o’clock in the morning, March 31, 1898. I had spent the
evening at a social entertainment. About midnight I went away, in
company with the military attaches of the British, Italian, and American
embassies, to finish with a late smoke. This function had been appointed
to take place in the house of Lieutenant Hillyer, the third attache
mentioned in the above list. When we arrived there we found several
visitors in the room; young Szczepanik;[1] Mr. K., his financial backer;
Mr. W., the latter’s secretary; and Lieutenant Clayton, of the United
States Army. War was at that time threatening between Spain and our
country, and Lieutenant Clayton had been sent to Europe on military
business. I was well acquainted with young Szczepanik and his two
friends, and I knew Mr. Clayton slightly. I had met him at West Point
years before, when he was a cadet. It was when General Merritt was
superintendent. He had the reputation of being an able officer, and also
of being quick-tempered and plain-spoken.

This smoking-party had been gathered together partly for business. This
business was to consider the availability of the telelectroscope for
military service. It sounds oddly enough now, but it is nevertheless
true that at that time the invention was not taken seriously by any one
except its inventor. Even his financial support regarded it merely as a
curious and interesting toy. Indeed, he was so convinced of this that he
had actually postponed its use by the general world to the end of the
dying century by granting a two years’ exclusive lease of it to a
syndicate, whose intent was to exploit it at the Paris World’s Fair.
When we entered the smoking-room we found Lieutenant Clayton and
Szczepanik engaged in a warm talk over the telelectroscope in the German
tongue. Clayton was saying:

‘Well, you know my opinion of it, anyway!’ and he brought his fist down
with emphasis upon the table.

‘And I do not value it,’ retorted the young inventor, with provoking
calmness of tone and manner.

Clayton turned to Mr. K., and said:

‘I cannot see why you are wasting money on this toy. In my opinion, the
day will never come when it will do a farthing’s worth of real service
for any human being.’

‘That may be; yes, that may be; still, I have put the money in it, and am
content. I think, myself, that it is only a toy; but Szczepanik claims
more for it, and I know him well enough to believe that he can see father
than I can–either with his telelectroscope or without it.’

The soft answer did not cool Clayton down; it seemed only to irritate him
the more; and he repeated and emphasised his conviction that the
invention would never do any man a farthing’s worth of real service. He
even made it a ‘brass’ farthing, this time. Then he laid an English
farthing on the table, and added:

‘Take that, Mr. K., and put it away; and if ever the telelectroscope does
any man an actual service–mind, a real service–please mail it to me as
a reminder, and I will take back what I have been saying. Will you?’

‘I will,’ and Mr. K. put the coin in his pocket.

Mr. Clayton now turned toward Szczepanik, and began with a taunt–a taunt
which did not reach a finish; Szczepanik interrupted it with a hardy
retort, and followed this with a blow. There was a brisk fight for a
moment or two; then the attaches separated the men.

The scene now changes to Chicago. Time, the autumn of 1901. As soon as
the Paris contract released the telelectroscope, it was delivered to
public use, and was soon connected with the telephonic systems of the
whole world. The improved ‘limitless-distance’ telephone was presently
introduced, and the daily doings of the globe made visible to everybody,
and audibly discussible, too, by witnesses separated by any number of
leagues.

By-and-by Szczepanik arrived in Chicago. Clayton (now captain) was
serving in that military department at the time. The two men resumed the
Viennese quarrel of 1898. On three different occasions they quarrelled,
and were separated by witnesses. Then came an interval of two months,
during which time Szczepanik was not seen by any of his friends, and it
was at first supposed that he had gone off on a sight seeing tour and
would soon be heard from. But no; no word came from him. Then it was
supposed that he had returned to Europe. Still, time drifted on, and he
was not heard from. Nobody was troubled, for he was like most inventors
and other kinds of poets, and went and came in a capricious way, and
often without notice.

Now comes the tragedy. On December 29, in a dark and unused compartment
of the cellar under Captain Clayton’s house, a corpse was discovered by
one of Clayton’s maid-servants. Friends of deceased identified it as
Szczepanik’s. The man had died by violence. Clayton was arrested,
indicted, and brought to trial, charged with this murder. The evidence
against him was perfect in every detail, and absolutely unassailable.
Clayton admitted this himself. He said that a reasonable man could not
examine this testimony with a dispassionate mind and not be convinced by
it; yet the man would be in error, nevertheless. Clayton swore that he
did not commit the murder, and that he had had nothing to do with it.

As your readers will remember, he was condemned to death. He had
numerous and powerful friends, and they worked hard to save him, for none
of them doubted the truth of his assertion. I did what little I could to
help, for I had long since become a close friend of his, and thought I
knew that it was not in his character to inveigle an enemy into a corner
and assassinate him. During 1902 and 1903 he was several times reprieved
by the governor; he was reprieved once more in the beginning of the
present year, and the execution day postponed to March 31.

The governor’s situation has been embarrassing, from the day of the
condemnation, because of the fact that Clayton’s wife is the governor’s
niece. The marriage took place in 1899, when Clayton was thirty-four and
the girl twenty-three, and has been a happy one. There is one child, a
little girl three years old. Pity for the poor mother and child kept the
mouths of grumblers closed at first; but this could not last for ever
–for in America politics has a hand in everything–and by-and-by the
governor’s political opponents began to call attention to his delay in
allowing the law to take its course. These hints have grown more and
more frequent of late, and more and more pronounced. As a natural
result, his own part grew nervous. Its leaders began to visit
Springfield and hold long private conferences with him. He was now
between two fires. On the one hand, his niece was imploring him to
pardon her husband; on the other were the leaders, insisting that he
stand to his plain duty as chief magistrate of the State, and place no
further bar to Clayton’s execution. Duty won in the struggle, and the
Governor gave his word that he would not again respite the condemned man.
This was two weeks ago. Mrs. Clayton now said:

‘Now that you have given your word, my last hope is gone, for I know you
will never go back from it. But you have done the best you could for
John, and I have no reproaches for you. You love him, and you love me,
and we know that if you could honourable save him, you would do it. I
will go to him now, and be what help I can to him, and get what comfort I
may out of the few days that are left to us before the night comes which
will have no end for me in life. You will be with me that day? You will
not let me bear it alone?’

‘I will take you to him myself, poor child, and I will be near you to the
last.’

By the governor’s command, Clayton was now allowed every indulgence he
might ask for which could interest his mind and soften the hardships of
his imprisonment. His wife and child spent the days with him; I was his
companion by night. He was removed from the narrow cell which he had
occupied during such a dreary stretch of time, and given the chief
warden’s roomy and comfortable quarters. His mind was always busy with
the catastrophe of his life, and with the slaughtered inventor, and he
now took the fancy that he would like to have the telelectroscope and
divert his mind with it. He had his wish. The connection was made with
the international telephone-station, and day by day, and night by night,
he called up one corner of the globe after another, and looked upon its
life, and studied its strange sights, and spoke with its people, and
realised that by grace of this marvellous instrument he was almost as
free as the birds of the air, although a prisoner under locks and bars.
He seldom spoke, and I never interrupted him when he was absorbed in this
amusement. I sat in his parlour and read, and smoked, and the nights
were very quiet and reposefully sociable, and I found them pleasant. Now
and then I would her him say ‘Give me Yedo;’ next, ‘Give me Hong-Kong;’
next, ‘Give me Melbourne.’ And I smoked on, and read in comfort, while
he wandered about the remote underworld, where the sun was shining in the
sky, and the people were at their daily work. Sometimes the talk that
came from those far regions through the microphone attachment interested
me, and I listened.

Yesterday–I keep calling it yesterday, which is quite natural, for
certain reasons–the instrument remained unused, and that also was
natural, for it was the eve of the execution day. It was spent in tears
and lamentations and farewells. The governor and the wife and child
remained until a quarter-past eleven at night, and the scenes I witnessed
were pitiful to see. The execution was to take place at four in the
morning. A little after eleven a sound of hammering broke out upon the
still night, and there was a glare of light, and the child cried out,
‘What is that, papa?’ and ran to the window before she could be stopped
and clapped her small hands and said, ‘Oh, come and see, mamma–such a
pretty thing they are making!’ The mother knew–and fainted. It was the
gallows!

She was carried away to her lodging, poor woman, and Clayton and I were
alone–alone, and thinking, brooding, dreaming. We might have been
statues, we sat so motionless and still. It was a wild night, for winter
was come again for a moment, after the habit of this region in the early
spring. The sky was starless and black, and a strong wind was blowing
from the lake. The silence in the room was so deep that all outside
sounds seemed exaggerated by contrast with it. These sounds were fitting
ones: they harmonised with the situation and the conditions: the boom and
thunder of sudden storm-gusts among the roofs and chimneys, then the
dying down into moanings and wailings about the eaves and angles; now and
then a gnashing and lashing rush of sleet along the window-panes; and
always the muffled and uncanny hammering of the gallows-builders in the
court-yard. After an age of this, another sound–far off, and coming
smothered and faint through the riot of the tempest–a bell tolling
twelve! Another age, and it was tolled again. By-and-by, again. A
dreary long interval after this, then the spectral sound floated to us
once more–one, two three; and this time we caught our breath; sixty
minutes of life left!

Clayton rose, and stood by the window, and looked up into the black sky,
and listened to the thrashing sleet and the piping wind; then he said:
‘That a dying man’s last of earth should be–this!’ After a little he
said: ‘I must see the sun again–the sun!’ and the next moment he was
feverishly calling: ‘China! Give me China–Peking!’

I was strangely stirred, and said to myself: ‘To think that it is a mere
human being who does this unimaginable miracle–turns winter into summer,
night into day, storm into calm, gives the freedom of the great globe to
a prisoner in his cell, and the sun in his naked splendour to a man dying
in Egyptian darkness.’

I was listening.

‘What light! what brilliancy! what radiance!… This is Peking?’

‘Yes.’

‘The time?’

‘Mid-afternoon.’

‘What is the great crowd for, and in such gorgeous costumes? What masses
and masses of rich colour and barbaric magnificence! And how they flash
and glow and burn in the flooding sunlight! What is the occasion of it
all?’

‘The coronation of our new emperor–the Czar.’

‘But I thought that that was to take place yesterday.’

‘This is yesterday–to you.’

‘Certainly it is. But my mind is confused, these days: there are reasons
for it…. Is this the beginning of the procession?’

‘Oh, no; it began to move an hour ago.’

‘Is there much more of it still to come?’

‘Two hours of it. Why do you sigh?’

‘Because I should like to see it all.’

‘And why can’t you?’

‘I have to go–presently.’

‘You have an engagement?’

After a pause, softly: ‘Yes.’ After another pause: ‘Who are these in the
splendid pavilion?’

‘The imperial family, and visiting royalties from here and there and
yonder in the earth.’

‘And who are those in the adjoining pavilions to the right and left?’

‘Ambassadors and their families and suites to the right; unofficial
foreigners to the left.’

‘If you will be so good, I–’

Boom! That distant bell again, tolling the half-hour faintly through the
tempest of wind and sleet. The door opened, and the governor and the
mother and child entered–the woman in widow’s weeds! She fell upon her
husband’s breast in a passion of sobs, and I–I could not stay; I could
not bear it. I went into the bedchamber, and closed the door. I sat
there waiting–waiting–waiting, and listening to the rattling sashes and
the blustering of the storm. After what seemed a long, long time, I
heard a rustle and movement in the parlour, and knew that the clergyman
and the sheriff and the guard were come. There was some low-voiced
talking; then a hush; then a prayer, with a sound of sobbing; presently,
footfalls–the departure for the gallows; then the child’s happy voice:
‘Don’t cry now, mamma, when we’ve got papa again, and taking him home.’

The door closed; they were gone. I was ashamed: I was the only friend of
the dying man that had no spirit, no courage. I stepped into the room,
and said I would be a man and would follow. But we are made as we are
made, and we cannot help it. I did not go.

I fidgeted about the room nervously, and presently went to the window and
softly raised it–drawn by that dread fascination which the terrible and
the awful exert–and looked down upon the court-yard. By the garish
light of the electric lamps I saw the little group of privileged
witnesses, the wife crying on her uncle’s breast, the condemned man
standing on the scaffold with the halter around his neck, his arms
strapped to his body, the black cap on his head, the sheriff at his side
with his hand on the drop, the clergyman in front of him with bare head
and his book in his hand.

‘I am the resurrection and the life–’

I turned away. I could not listen; I could not look. I did not know
whither to go or what to do. Mechanically and without knowing it, I put
my eye to that strange instrument, and there was Peking and the Czar’s
procession! The next moment I was leaning out of the window, gasping,
suffocating, trying to speak, but dumb from the very imminence of the
necessity of speaking. The preacher could speak, but I, who had such
need of words–’And may God have mercy upon your soul. Amen.’

The sheriff drew down the black cap, and laid his hand upon the lever. I
got my voice.

‘Stop, for God’s sake! The man is innocent. Come here and see
Szczepanik face to face!’

Hardly three minutes later the governor had my place at the window, and
was saying:

‘Strike off his bonds and set him free!’

Three minutes later all were in the parlour again. The reader will
imagine the scene; I have no need to describe it. It was a sort of mad
orgy of joy.

A messenger carried word to Szczepanik in the pavilion, and one could see
the distressed amazement in his face as he listened to the tale. Then he
came to his end of the line, and talked with Clayton and the governor and
the others; and the wife poured out her gratitude upon him for saving her
husband’s life, and in her deep thankfulness she kissed him at twelve
thousand miles’ range.

The telelectroscopes of the world were put to service now, and for many
hours the kinds and queens of many realms (with here and there a
reporter) talked with Szczepanik, and praised him; and the few scientific
societies which had not already made him an honorary member conferred
that grace upon him.

How had he come to disappear from among us? It was easily explained.
HE had not grown used to being a world-famous person, and had been forced
to break away from the lionising that was robbing him of all privacy and
repose. So he grew a beard, put on coloured glasses, disguised himself a
little in other ways, then took a fictitious name, and went off to wander
about the earth in peace.

Such is the tale of the drama which began with an inconsequential quarrel
in Vienna in the spring of 1898, and came near ending as a tragedy in the
spring of 1904.

II

Correspondence of the ‘London Times’
Chicago, April 5, 1904

To-day, by a clipper of the Electric Line, and the latter’s Electric
Railway connections, arrived an envelope from Vienna, for Captain
Clayton, containing an English farthing. The receiver of it was a good
deal moved. He called up Vienna, and stood face to face with Mr. K., and
said:

‘I do not need to say anything: you can see it all in my face. My wife
has the farthing. Do not be afraid–she will not throw it away.’

III

Correspondence of the ‘London Times’
Chicago, April 23, 1904

Now that the after developments of the Clayton case have run their course
and reached a finish, I will sum them up. Clayton’s romantic escape from
a shameful death stepped all this region in an enchantment of wonder and
joy–during the proverbial nine days. Then the sobering process
followed, and men began to take thought, and to say: ‘But a man was
killed, and Clayton killed him.’ Others replied: ‘That is true: we have
been overlooking that important detail; we have been led away by
excitement.’

The telling soon became general that Clayton ought to be tried again.
Measures were taken accordingly, and the proper representations conveyed
to Washington; for in America under the new paragraph added to the
Constitution in 1889, second trials are not State affairs, but national,
and must be tried by the most august body in the land–the Supreme Court
of the United States. The justices were therefore summoned to sit in
Chicago. The session was held day before yesterday, and was opened with
the usual impressive formalities, the nine judges appearing in their
black robes, and the new chief justice (Lemaitre) presiding. In opening
the case the chief justice said:

‘It is my opinion that this matter is quite simple. The prisoner at the
bar was charged with murdering the man Szczepanik; he was tried for
murdering the man Szczepanik; he was fairly tried and justly condemned
and sentenced to death for murdering the man Szczepanik. It turns out
that the man Szczepanik was not murdered at all. By the decision of the
French courts in the Dreyfus matter, it is established beyond cavil or
question that the decisions of courts and permanent and cannot be
revised. We are obliged to respect and adopt this precedent. It is upon
precedents that the enduring edifice of jurisprudence is reared. The
prisoner at the bar has been fairly and righteously condemned to death
for the murder of the man Szczepanik, and, in my opinion, there is but
one course to pursue in the matter: he must be hanged.’

Mr. Justice Crawford said:

‘But, your Excellency, he was pardoned on the scaffold for that.’

‘The pardon is not valid, and cannot stand, because he was pardoned for
killing Szczepanik, a man whom he had not killed. A man cannot be
pardoned for a crime which he has not committed; it would be an
absurdity.’

‘But, your Excellency, he did kill a man.’

‘That is an extraneous detail; we have nothing to do with it. The court
cannot take up this crime until the prisoner has expiated the other one.’

Mr. Justice Halleck said:

‘If we order his execution, your Excellency, we shall bring about a
miscarriage of justice, for the governor will pardon him again.’

‘He will not have the power. He cannot pardon a man for a crime which he
has not committed. As I observed before, it would be an absurdity.’

After a consultation, Mr. Justice Wadsworth said:

‘Several of us have arrived at the conclusion, your Excellency, that it
would be an error to hang the prisoner for killing Szczepanik, instead of
for killing the other man, since it is proven that he did not kill
Szczepanik.’

‘On the contrary, it is proven that he did kill Szczepanik. By the
French precedent, it is plain that we must abide by the finding of the
court.’

‘But Szczepanik is still alive.’

‘So is Dreyfus.’

In the end it was found impossible to ignore or get around the French
precedent. There could be but one result: Clayton was delivered over for
the execution. It made an immense excitement; the State rose as one man
and clamored for Clayton’s pardon and retrial. The governor issued the
pardon, but the Supreme Court was in duty bound to annul it, and did so,
and poor Clayton was hanged yesterday. The city is draped in black, and,
indeed, the like may be said of the State. All America is vocal with
scorn of ‘French justice,’ and of the malignant little soldiers who
invented it and inflicted it upon the other Christian lands.

[1] Pronounced (approximately) Shepannik.

Chapter I

In the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket, and said:

“Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary,
chose wisely; oh, choose wisely! for only one of them is valuable.”

The gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death.
The youth said, eagerly:

“There is no need to consider”; and he chose Pleasure.

He went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth
delights in. But each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing,
vain and empty; and each, departing, mocked him. In the end he said:
“These years I have wasted. If I could but choose again, I would
choose wisely.

Chapter II

The fairy appeared, and said:

“Four of the gifts remain. Choose once more; and oh, remember–
time is flying, and only one of them is precious.”

The man considered long, then chose Love; and did not mark the tears
that rose in the fairy’s eyes.

After many, many years the man sat by a coffin, in an empty home.
And he communed with himself, saying: “One by one they have gone
away and left me; and now she lies here, the dearest and the last.
Desolation after desolation has swept over me; for each hour
of happiness the treacherous trader, Love, as sold me I have paid
a thousand hours of grief. Out of my heart of hearts I curse him.”

Chapter III

“Choose again.” It was the fairy speaking.

“The years have taught you wisdom–surely it must be so.
Three gifts remain. Only one of them has any worth–remember it,
and choose warily.”

The man reflected long, then chose Fame; and the fairy, sighing,
went her way.

Years went by and she came again, and stood behind the man where he
sat solitary in the fading day, thinking. And she knew his thought:

“My name filled the world, and its praises were on every tongue,
and it seemed well with me for a little while. How little a while
it was! Then came envy; then detraction; then calumny; then hate;
then persecution. Then derision, which is the beginning of the end.
And last of all came pity, which is the funeral of fame. Oh,
the bitterness and misery of renown! target for mud in its prime,
for contempt and compassion in its decay.”

Chapter IV

“Chose yet again.” It was the fairy’s voice.

“Two gifts remain. And do not despair. In the beginning there
was but one that was precious, and it is still here.”

“Wealth–which is power! How blind I was!” said the man.
“Now, at last, life will be worth the living. I will spend,
squander, dazzle. These mockers and despisers will crawl in the
dirt before me, and I will feed my hungry heart with their envy.
I will have all luxuries, all joys, all enchantments of the spirit,
all contentments of the body that man holds dear. I will buy,
buy, buy! deference, respect, esteem, worship–every pinchbeck
grace of life the market of a trivial world can furnish forth.
I have lost much time, and chosen badly heretofore, but let that pass;
I was ignorant then, and could but take for best what seemed so.”

Three short years went by, and a day came when the man sat shivering
in a mean garret; and he was gaunt and wan and hollow-eyed,
and clothed in rags; and he was gnawing a dry crust and mumbling:

“Curse all the world’s gifts, for mockeries and gilded lies!
And miscalled, every one. They are not gifts, but merely lendings.
Pleasure, Love, Fame, Riches: they are but temporary disguises for
lasting realities–Pain, Grief, Shame, Poverty. The fairy said true;
in all her store there was but one gift which was precious,
only one that was not valueless. How poor and cheap and mean I
know those others now to be, compared with that inestimable one,
that dear and sweet and kindly one, that steeps in dreamless and
enduring sleep the pains that persecute the body, and the shames
and griefs that eat the mind and heart. Bring it! I am weary,
I would rest.”

Chapter V

The fairy came, bringing again four of the gifts, but Death was wanting.
She said:

“I gave it to a mother’s pet, a little child. It was ignorant,
but trusted me, asking me to choose for it. You did not ask me
to choose.”

“Oh, miserable me! What is left for me?”

“What not even you have deserved: the wanton insult of Old Age.”

From My Unpublished Autobiography

Some days ago a correspondent sent in an old typewritten sheet,
faded by age, containing the following letter over the signature
of Mark Twain:

"Hartford, March 10, 1875.

"Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge
that fact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped using
the typewriter, for the reason that I never could write a letter
with it to anybody without receiving a request by return mail that I
would not only describe the machine, but state what progress I had
made in the use of it, etc., etc. I don't like to write letters,
and so I don't want people to know I own this curiosity-breeding
little joker."

A note was sent to Mr. Clemens asking him if the letter was genuine
and whether he really had a typewriter as long ago as that.
Mr. Clemens replied that his best answer is the following chapter
from his unpublished autobiography:

1904. VILLA QUARTO, FLORENCE, JANUARY.

Dictating autobiography to a typewriter is a new experience for me,
but it goes very well, and is going to save time and "language"--
the kind of language that soothes vexation.

I have dictated to a typewriter before--but not autobiography.
Between that experience and the present one there lies a mighty gap--
more than thirty years! It is sort of lifetime. In that wide interval
much has happened--to the type-machine as well as to the rest of us.
At the beginning of that interval a type-machine was a curiosity.
The person who owned one was a curiosity, too. But now it is the
other way about: the person who doesn't own one is a curiosity.
I saw a type-machine for the first time in--what year? I suppose it
was 1873--because Nasby was with me at the time, and it was in Boston.
We must have been lecturing, or we could not have been in Boston,
I take it. I quitted the platform that season.

But never mind about that, it is no matter. Nasby and I saw
the machine through a window, and went in to look at it.
The salesman explained it to us, showed us samples of its work,
and said it could do fifty-seven words a minute--a statement
which we frankly confessed that we did not believe. So he put
his type-girl to work, and we timed her by the watch. She actually
did the fifty-seven in sixty seconds. We were partly convinced,
but said it probably couldn't happen again. But it did.
We timed the girl over and over again--with the same result always:
she won out. She did her work on narrow slips of paper, and we
pocketed them as fast as she turned them out, to show as curiosities.
The price of the machine was one hundred and twenty-five dollars.
I bought one, and we went away very much excited.

At the hotel we got out our slips and were a little disappointed
to find that they contained the same words. The girl had economized
time and labor by using a formula which she knew by heart.
However, we argued--safely enough--that the first type-girl must
naturally take rank with the first billiard-player: neither of them
could be expected to get out of the game any more than a third or a
half of what was in it. If the machine survived--if it survived--
experts would come to the front, by and by, who would double the girl's
output without a doubt. They would do one hundred words a minute--
my talking speed on the platform. That score has long ago been beaten.

At home I played with the toy, repeated and repeating and repeated "The
Boy stood on the Burning Deck," until I could turn that boy's adventure
out at the rate of twelve words a minute; then I resumed the pen,
for business, and only worked the machine to astonish inquiring visitors.
They carried off many reams of the boy and his burning deck.

By and by I hired a young woman, and did my first dictating (letters,
merely), and my last until now. The machine did not do both capitals
and lower case (as now), but only capitals. Gothic capitals they were,
and sufficiently ugly. I remember the first letter I dictated.
it was to Edward Bok, who was a boy then. I was not acquainted
with him at that time. His present enterprising spirit is not new--
he had it in that early day. He was accumulating autographs, and was
not content with mere signatures, he wanted a whole autograph letter.
I furnished it--in type-written capitals, signature and all.
It was long; it was a sermon; it contained advice; also reproaches.
I said writing was my trade, my bread-and-butter; I said it was
not fair to ask a man to give away samples of his trade; would he
ask the blacksmith for a horseshoe? would he ask the doctor for
a corpse?

Now I come to an important matter--as I regard it. In the year
'74 the young woman copied a considerable part of a book of mine
on the machine. In a previous chapter of this Autobiography I
have claimed that I was the first person in the world that ever had
a telephone in the house for practical purposes; I will now claim--
until dispossess--that I was the first person in the world to apply
the type-machine to literature. That book must have been The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I wrote the first half of it in '72,
the rest of it in '74. My machinist type-copied a book for me
in '74, so I concluded it was that one.

That early machine was full of caprices, full of defects--devilish ones.
It had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues.
After a year or two I found that it was degrading my character,
so I thought I would give it to Howells. He was reluctant, for he
was suspicious of novelties and unfriendly toward them, and he remains
so to this day. But I persuaded him. He had great confidence in me,
and I got him to believe things about the machine that I did not
believe myself. He took it home to Boston, and my morals began
to improve, but his have never recovered.

He kept it six months, and then returned it to me. I gave it away
twice after that, but it wouldn't stay; it came back. Then I
gave it to our coachman, Patrick McAleer, who was very grateful,
because he did not know the animal, and thought I was trying to
make him wiser and better. As soon as he got wiser and better he
traded it to a heretic for a side-saddle which he could not use,
and there my knowledge of its history ends.

‘Yes, I will tell you anything about my life that you would like to know,
Mr. Twain,’ she said, in her soft voice, and letting her honest eyes rest
placidly upon my face, ‘for it is kind and good of you to like me and
care to know about me.’

She had been absently scraping blubber-grease from her cheeks with a
small bone-knife and transferring it to her fur sleeve, while she watched
the Aurora Borealis swing its flaming streamers out of the sky and wash
the lonely snow plain and the templed icebergs with the rich hues of the
prism, a spectacle of almost intolerable splendour and beauty; but now
she shook off her reverie and prepared to give me the humble little
history I had asked for. She settled herself comfortably on the block of
ice which we were using as a sofa, and I made ready to listen.

She was a beautiful creature. I speak from the Esquimaux point of view.
Others would have thought her a trifle over-plump. She was just twenty
years old, and was held to be by far the most bewitching girl in her
tribe. Even now, in the open air, with her cumbersome and shapeless fur
coat and trousers and boots and vast hood, the beauty of her face was at
least apparent; but her figure had to be taken on trust. Among all the
guests who came and went, I had seen no girl at her father’s hospitable
trough who could be called her equal. Yet she was not spoiled. She was
sweet and natural and sincere, and if she was aware that she was a belle,
there was nothing about her ways to show that she possessed that
knowledge.

She had been my daily comrade for a week now, and the better I knew her
the better I liked her. She had been tenderly and carefully brought up,
in an atmosphere of singularly rare refinement for the polar regions, for
her father was the most important man of his tribe and ranked at the top
of Esquimaux civilisation. I made long dog-sledge trips across the
mighty ice floes with Lasca–that was her name–and found her company
always pleasant and her conversation agreeable. I went fishing with her,
but not in her perilous boat: I merely followed along on the ice and
watched her strike her game with her fatally accurate spear. We went
sealing together; several times I stood by while she and the family dug
blubber from a stranded whale, and once I went part of the way when she
was hunting a bear, but turned back before the finish, because at bottom
I am afraid of bears.

However, she was ready to begin her story, now, and this is what she
said:

‘Our tribe had always been used to wander about from place to place over
the frozen seas, like the other tribes, but my father got tired of that,
two years ago, and built this great mansion of frozen snow-blocks–look
at it; it is seven feet high and three or four times as long as any of
the others–and here we have stayed ever since. He was very proud of his
house, and that was reasonable, for if you have examined it with care you
must have noticed how much finer and completer it is than houses usually
are. But if you have not, you must, for you will find it has luxurious
appointments that are quite beyond the common. For instance, in that end
of it which you have called the “parlour,” the raised platform for the
accommodation of guests and the family at meals is the largest you have
ever seen in any house–is it not so?’

‘Yes, you are quite right, Lasca; it is the largest; we have nothing
resembling it in even the finest houses in the United States.’ This
admission made her eyes sparkle with pride and pleasure. I noted that,
and took my cue.

‘I thought it must have surprised you,’ she said. ‘And another thing; it
is bedded far deeper in furs than is usual; all kinds of furs–seal,
sea-otter, silver-grey fox, bear, marten, sable–every kind of fur in
profusion; and the same with the ice-block sleeping-benches along the
walls which you call “beds.” Are your platforms and sleeping-benches
better provided at home?’

‘Indeed, they are not, Lasca–they do not begin to be.’ That pleased her
again. All she was thinking of was the number of furs her aesthetic
father took the trouble to keep on hand, not their value. I could have
told her that those masses of rich furs constituted wealth–or would in
my country–but she would not have understood that; those were not the
kind of things that ranked as riches with her people. I could have told
her that the clothes she had on, or the every-day clothes of the
commonest person about her, were worth twelve or fifteen hundred dollars,
and that I was not acquainted with anybody at home who wore
twelve-hundred dollar toilets to go fishing in; but she would not have
understood it, so I said nothing. She resumed:

‘And then the slop-tubs. We have two in the parlour, and two in the rest
of the house. It is very seldom that one has two in the parlour. Have
you two in the parlour at home?’

The memory of those tubs made me gasp, but I recovered myself before she
noticed, and said with effusion:

‘Why, Lasca, it is a shame of me to expose my country, and you must not
let it go further, for I am speaking to you in confidence; but I give you
my word of honour that not even the richest man in the city of New York
has two slop-tubs in his drawing-room.’

She clapped her fur-clad hands in innocent delight, and exclaimed:

‘Oh, but you cannot mean it, you cannot mean it!’

‘Indeed, I am in earnest, dear. There is Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is
almost the richest man in the whole world. Now, if I were on my dying
bed, I could say to you that not even he has two in his drawing-room.
Why, he hasn’t even one–I wish I may die in my tracks if it isn’t true.’

Her lovely eyes stood wide with amazement, and she said, slowly, and with
a sort of awe in her voice:

‘How strange–how incredible–one is not able to realise it. Is he
penurious?’

‘No–it isn’t that. It isn’t the expense he minds, but–er–well, you
know, it would look like showing off. Yes, that is it, that is the idea;
he is a plain man in his way, and shrinks from display.’

‘Why, that humility is right enough,’ said Lasca, ‘if one does not carry
it too far–but what does the place look like?’

‘Well, necessarily it looks pretty barren and unfinished, but–’

‘I should think so! I never heard anything like it. Is it a fine house
–that is, otherwise?’

‘Pretty fine, yes. It is very well thought of.’

The girl was silent awhile, and sat dreamily gnawing a candle-end,
apparently trying to think the thing out. At last she gave her head a
little toss and spoke out her opinion with decision:

‘Well, to my mind there’s a breed of humility which is itself a species
of showing off when you get down to the marrow of it; and when a man is
able to afford two slop-tubs in his parlour, and doesn’t do it, it may be
that he is truly humble-minded, but it’s a hundred times more likely that
he is just trying to strike the public eye. In my judgment, your Mr.
Vanderbilt knows what he is about.’

I tried to modify this verdict, feeling that a double slop-tub standard
was not a fair one to try everybody by, although a sound enough one in
its own habitat; but the girl’s head was set, and she was not to be
persuaded. Presently she said:

‘Do the rich people, with you, have as good sleeping-benches as ours, and
made out of as nice broad ice-blocks?’

‘Well, they are pretty good–good enough–but they are not made of
ice-blocks.’

‘I want to know! Why aren’t they made of ice-blocks?’

I explained the difficulties in the way, and the expensiveness of ice in
a country where you have to keep a sharp eye on your ice-man or your
ice-bill will weigh more than your ice. Then she cried out:

‘Dear me, do you buy your ice?’

‘We most surely do, dear.’

She burst into a gale of guileless laughter, and said:

‘Oh, I never heard of anything so silly! My! there’s plenty of it–it
isn’t worth anything. Why, there is a hundred miles of it in sight,
right now. I wouldn’t give a fish-bladder for the whole of it.’

‘Well, it’s because you don’t know how to value it, you little provincial
muggings. If you had it in New York in midsummer, you could buy all the
whales in the market with it.’

She looked at me doubtfully, and said:

‘Are you speaking true?’

‘Absolutely. I take my oath to it.’

This made her thoughtful. Presently she said, with a little sigh:

‘I wish I could live there.’

I had merely meant to furnish her a standard of values which she could
understand; but my purpose had miscarried. I had only given her the
impression that whales were cheap and plenty in New York, and set her
mouth to watering for them. It seemed best to try to mitigate the evil
which I had done, so I said:

‘But you wouldn’t care for whale-meat if you lived there. Nobody does.’

‘What!’

‘Indeed they don’t.’

‘Why don’t they?’

‘Wel-l-l, I hardly know. It’s prejudice, I think. Yes, that is it–just
prejudice. I reckon somebody that hadn’t anything better to do started a
prejudice against it, some time or other, and once you get a caprice like
that fairly going, you know it will last no end of time.’

‘That is true–perfectly true,’ said the girl, reflectively. ‘Like our
prejudice against soap, here–our tribes had a prejudice against soap at
first, you know.’

I glanced at her to see if she was in earnest. Evidently she was. I
hesitated, then said, cautiously:

‘But pardon me. They had a prejudice against soap? Had?’–with falling
inflection.

‘Yes–but that was only at first; nobody would eat it.’

‘Oh–I understand. I didn’t get your idea before.’

She resumed:

‘It was just a prejudice. The first time soap came here from the
foreigners, nobody liked it; but as soon as it got to be fashionable,
everybody liked it, and now everybody has it that can afford it. Are you
fond of it?’

‘Yes, indeed; I should die if I couldn’t have it–especially here. Do
you like it?’

‘I just adore it! Do you like candles?’

‘I regard them as an absolute necessity. Are you fond of them?’

Her eyes fairly danced, and she exclaimed:

‘Oh! Don’t mention it! Candles!–and soap!–’

‘And fish-interiors!–’

‘And train-oil–’

‘And slush!–’

‘And whale-blubber!–’

‘And carrion! and sour-krout! and beeswax! and tar! and turpentine! and
molasses! and–’

‘Don’t–oh, don’t–I shall expire with ecstasy!–’

‘And then serve it all up in a slush-bucket, and invite the neighbours
and sail in!’

But this vision of an ideal feast was too much for her, and she swooned
away, poor thing. I rubbed snow in her face and brought her to, and
after a while got her excitement cooled down. By-and-by she drifted into
her story again:

‘So we began to live here in the fine house. But I was not happy. The
reason was this: I was born for love: for me there could be no true
happiness without it. I wanted to be loved for myself alone. I wanted
an idol, and I wanted to be my idol’s idol; nothing less than mutual
idolatry would satisfy my fervent nature. I had suitors in plenty–in
over-plenty, indeed–but in each and every case they had a fatal defect:
sooner or later I discovered that defect–not one of them failed to
betray it–it was not me they wanted, but my wealth.’

‘Your wealth?’

‘Yes; for my father is much the richest man in this tribe–or in any
tribe in these regions.’

I wondered what her father’s wealth consisted of. It couldn’t be the
house–anybody could build its mate. It couldn’t be the furs–they were
not valued. It couldn’t be the sledge, the dogs, the harpoons, the boat,
the bone fish-hooks and needles, and such things–no, these were not
wealth. Then what could it be that made this man so rich and brought
this swarm of sordid suitors to his house? It seemed to me, finally,
that the best way to find out would be to ask. So I did it. The girl
was so manifestly gratified by the question that I saw she had been
aching to have me ask it. She was suffering fully as much to tell as I
was to know. She snuggled confidentially up to me and said:

‘Guess how much he is worth–you never can!’

I pretended to consider the matter deeply, she watching my anxious and
labouring countenance with a devouring and delighted interest; and when,
at last, I gave it up and begged her to appease my longing by telling me
herself how much this polar Vanderbilt was worth, she put her mouth close
to my ear and whispered, impressively:

‘Twenty-two fish-hooks–not bone, but foreign–made out of real iron!’

Then she sprang back dramatically, to observe the effect. I did my level
best not to disappoint her. I turned pale and murmured:

‘Great Scott!’

‘It’s as true as you live, Mr. Twain!’

‘Lasca, you are deceiving me–you cannot mean it.’

She was frightened and troubled. She exclaimed:

‘Mr. Twain, every word of it is true–every word. You believe me–you do
believe me, now don’t you? Say you believe me–do say you believe me!’

‘I–well, yes, I do–I am trying to. But it was all so sudden. So
sudden and prostrating. You shouldn’t do such a thing in that sudden
way. It–’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry! If I had only thought–’

‘Well, it’s all right, and I don’t blame you any more, for you are young
and thoughtless, and of course you couldn’t foresee what an effect–’

‘But oh, dear, I ought certainly to have known better. Why–’

‘You see, Lasca, if you had said five or six hooks, to start with, and
then gradually–’

‘Oh, I see, I see–then gradually added one, and then two, and then–ah,
why couldn’t I have thought of that!’

‘Never mind, child, it’s all right–I am better now–I shall be over it
in a little while. But–to spring the whole twenty-two on a person
unprepared and not very strong anyway–’

‘Oh, it was a crime! But you forgive me–say you forgive me. Do!’

After harvesting a good deal of very pleasant coaxing and petting and
persuading, I forgave her and she was happy again, and by-and-by she got
under way with her narrative once more. I presently discovered that the
family treasury contained still another feature–a jewel of some sort,
apparently–and that she was trying to get around speaking squarely about
it, lest I get paralysed again. But I wanted to known about that thing,
too, and urged her to tell me what it was. She was afraid. But I
insisted, and said I would brace myself this time and be prepared, then
the shock would not hurt me. She was full of misgivings, but the
temptation to reveal that marvel to me and enjoy my astonishment and
admiration was too strong for her, and she confessed that she had it on
her person, and said that if I was sure I was prepared–and so on and so
on–and with that she reached into her bosom and brought out a battered
square of brass, watching my eye anxiously the while. I fell over
against her in a quite well-acted faint, which delighted her heart and
nearly frightened it out of her, too, at the same time. When I came to
and got calm, she was eager to know what I thought of her jewel.

‘What do I think of it? I think it is the most exquisite thing I ever
saw.’

‘Do you really? How nice of you to say that! But it is a love, now isn’t
it?’

‘Well, I should say so! I’d rather own it than the equator.’

‘I thought you would admire it,’ she said. ‘I think it is so lovely.
And there isn’t another one in all these latitudes. People have come all
the way from the open Polar Sea to look at it. Did you ever see one
before?’

I said no, this was the first one I had ever seen. It cost me a pang to
tell that generous lie, for I had seen a million of them in my time, this
humble jewel of hers being nothing but a battered old New York Central
baggage check.

‘Land!’ said I, ‘you don’t go about with it on your person this way,
alone and with no protection, not even a dog?’

‘Ssh! not so loud,’ she said. ‘Nobody knows I carry it with me. They
think it is in papa’s treasury. That is where it generally is.’

‘Where is the treasury?’

It was a blunt question, and for a moment she looked startled and a
little suspicious, but I said:

‘Oh, come, don’t you be afraid about me. At home we have seventy
millions of people, and although I say it myself that shouldn’t, there is
not one person among them all but would trust me with untold fish-hooks.’

This reassured her, and she told me where the hooks were hidden in the
house. Then she wandered from her course to brag a little about the size
of the sheets of transparent ice that formed the windows of the mansion,
and asked me if I had ever seen their like at home, and I came right out
frankly and confessed that I hadn’t, which pleased her more than she
could find words to dress her gratification in. It was so easy to please
her, and such a pleasure to do it, that I went on and said–

‘Ah, Lasca, you are a fortune girl!–this beautiful house, this dainty
jewel, that rich treasure, all this elegant snow, and sumptuous icebergs
and limitless sterility, and public bears and walruses, and noble freedom
and largeness and everybody’s admiring eyes upon you, and everybody’s
homage and respect at your command without the asking; young, rich,
beautiful, sought, courted, envied, not a requirement unsatisfied, not a
desire ungratified, nothing to wish for that you cannot have–it is
immeasurable good-fortune! I have seen myriads of girls, but none of whom
these extraordinary things could be truthfully said but you alone. And
you are worthy–worthy of it all, Lasca–I believe it in my heart.’

It made her infinitely proud and happy to hear me say this, and she
thanked me over and over again for that closing remark, and her voice and
eyes showed that she was touched. Presently she said:

‘Still, it is not all sunshine–there is a cloudy side. The burden of
wealth is a heavy one to bear. Sometimes I have doubted if it were not
better to be poor–at least not inordinately rich. It pains me to see
neighbouring tribesmen stare as they pass by, and overhear them say,
reverently, one to another, “There–that is she–the millionaire’s
daughter!” And sometimes they say sorrowfully, “She is rolling in
fish-hooks, and I–I have nothing.” It breaks my heart. When I was a
child and we were poor, we slept with the door open, if we chose, but
now–now we have to have a night-watchman. In those days my father was
gentle and courteous to all; but now he is austere and haughty and cannot
abide familiarity. Once his family were his sole thought, but now he
goes about thinking of his fish-hooks all the time. And his wealth makes
everybody cringing and obsequious to him. Formerly nobody laughed at his
jokes, they being always stale and far-fetched and poor, and destitute of
the one element that can really justify a joke–the element of humour;
but now everybody laughs and cackles at these dismal things, and if any
fails to do it my father is deeply displeased, and shows it. Formerly
his opinion was not sought upon any matter and was not valuable when he
volunteered it; it has that infirmity yet, but, nevertheless, it is
sought by all and applauded by all–and he helps do the applauding
himself, having no true delicacy and a plentiful want of tact. He has
lowered the tone of all our tribe. Once they were a frank and manly
race, now they are measly hypocrites, and sodden with servility. In my
heart of hearts I hate all the ways of millionaires! Our tribe was once
plain, simple folk, and content with the bone fish-hooks of their
fathers; now they are eaten up with avarice and would sacrifice every
sentiment of honour and honesty to possess themselves of the debasing
iron fish-hooks of the foreigner. However, I must not dwell on these sad
things. As I have said, it was my dream to be loved for myself alone.

‘At last, this dream seemed about to be fulfilled. A stranger came by,
one day, who said his name was Kalula. I told him my name, and he said
he loved me. My heart gave a great bound of gratitude and pleasure, for
I had loved him at sight, and now I said so. He took me to his breast
and said he would not wish to be happier than he was now. We went
strolling together far over the ice-floes, telling all about each other,
and planning, oh, the loveliest future! When we were tired at last we sat
down and ate, for he had soap and candles and I had brought along some
blubber. We were hungry and nothing was ever so good.

‘He belonged to a tribe whose haunts were far to the north, and I found
that he had never heard of my father, which rejoiced me exceedingly. I
mean he had heard of the millionaire, but had never heard his name–so,
you see, he could not know that I was the heiress. You may be sure that
I did not tell him. I was loved for myself at last, and was satisfied.
I was so happy–oh, happier than you can think!

‘By-and-by it was towards supper time, and I led him home. As we
approached our house he was amazed, and cried out:

‘”How splendid! Is that your father’s?”

‘It gave me a pang to hear that tone and see that admiring light in his
eye, but the feeling quickly passed away, for I loved him so, and he
looked so handsome and noble. All my family of aunts and uncles and
cousins were pleased with him, and many guests were called in, and the
house was shut up tight and the rag lamps lighted, and when everything
was hot and comfortable and suffocating, we began a joyous feast in
celebration of my betrothal.

‘When the feast was over my father’s vanity overcame him, and he could
not resist the temptation to show off his riches and let Kalula see what
grand good-fortune he had stumbled into–and mainly, of course, he wanted
to enjoy the poor man’s amazement. I could have cried–but it would have
done no good to try to dissuade my father, so I said nothing, but merely
sat there and suffered.

‘My father went straight to the hiding-place in full sight of everybody,
and got out the fish-hooks and brought them and flung them scatteringly
over my head, so that they fell in glittering confusion on the platform
at my lover’s knee.

‘Of course, the astounding spectacle took the poor lad’s breath away. He
could only stare in stupid astonishment, and wonder how a single
individual could possess such incredible riches. Then presently he
glanced brilliantly up and exclaimed:

‘”Ah, it is you who are the renowned millionaire!”

‘My father and all the rest burst into shouts of happy laughter, and when
my father gathered the treasure carelessly up as if it might be mere
rubbish and of no consequence, and carried it back to its place, poor
Kulala’s surprise was a study. He said:

‘”Is it possible that you put such things away without counting them?”

‘My father delivered a vain-glorious horse-laugh, and said:

‘”Well, truly, a body may know you have never been rich, since a mere
matter of a fish-hook or two is such a mighty matter in your eyes.”

‘Kalula was confused, and hung his head, but said:

‘”Ah, indeed, sir, I was never worth the value of the barb of one of
those precious things, and I have never seen any man before who was so
rich in them as to render the counting of his hoard worth while, since
the wealthiest man I have ever known, till now, was possessed of but
three.”

‘My foolish father roared again with jejune delight, and allowed the
impression to remain that he was not accustomed to count his hooks and
keep sharp watch over them. He was showing off, you see. Count them?
Why, he counted them every day!

‘I had met and got acquainted with my darling just at dawn; I had brought
him home just at dark, three hours afterwards–for the days were
shortening toward the six-months’ night at that time. We kept up the
festivities many hours; then, at last, the guests departed and the rest
of us distributed ourselves along the walls on sleeping-benches, and soon
all were steeped in dreams but me. I was too happy, too excited, to
sleep. After I had lain quiet a long, long time, a dim form passed by me
and was swallowed up in the gloom that pervaded the farther end of the
house. I could not make out who it was, or whether it was man or woman.
Presently that figure or another one passed me going the other way. I
wondered what it all meant, but wondering did no good; and while I was
still wondering I fell asleep.

‘I do not know how long I slept, but at last I came suddenly broad awake
and heard my father say in a terrible voice, “By the great Snow God,
there’s a fish-hook gone!” Something told me that that meant sorrow for
me, and the blood in my veins turned cold. The presentiment was
confirmed in the same instant: my father shouted, “Up, everybody, and
seize the stranger!” Then there was an outburst of cries and curses from
all sides, and a wild rush of dim forms through the obscurity. I flew to
my beloved’s help, but what could I do but wait and wring my hands?–he
was already fenced away from me by a living wall, he was being bound hand
and foot. Not until he was secured would they let me get to him. I
flung myself upon his poor insulted form and cried my grief out upon his
breast while my father and all my family scoffed at me and heaped threats
and shameful epithets upon him. He bore his ill usage with a tranquil
dignity which endeared him to me more than ever, and made me proud and
happy to suffer with him and for him. I heard my father order that the
elders of the tribe be called together to try my Kalula for his life.

‘”What!” I said, “before any search has been made for the lost hook?”

‘”Lost hook!” they all shouted, in derision; and my father added,
mockingly, “Stand back, everybody, and be properly serious–she is going
to hunt up that lost hook: oh, without doubt she will find it!”–whereat
they all laughed again.

‘I was not disturbed–I had no fears, no doubts. I said:

‘”It is for you to laugh now; it is your turn. But ours is coming; wait
and see.”

‘I got a rag lamp. I thought I should find that miserable thing in one
little moment; and I set about that matter with such confidence that
those people grew grace, beginning to suspect that perhaps they had been
too hasty. But alas and alas!–oh, the bitterness of that search! There
was deep silence while one might count his fingers ten or twelve times,
then my heart began to sink, and around me the mockings began again, and
grew steadily louder and more assured, until at last, when I gave up,
they burst into volley after volley of cruel laughter.

‘None will ever know what I suffered then. But my love was my support
and my strength, and I took my rightful place at my Kalula’s side, and
put my arm about his neck, and whispered in his ear, saying:

‘”You are innocent, my own–that I know; but say it to me yourself, for
my comfort, then I can bear whatever is in store for us.”

‘He answered:

‘”As surely as I stand upon the brink of death at this moment, I am
innocent. Be comforted, then, O bruised heart; be at peace, O thou
breath of my nostrils, life of my life!”

‘”Now, then, let the elders come!”–and as I said the words there was a
gathering sound of crunching snow outside, and then a vision of stooping
forms filing in at the door–the elders.

‘My father formally accused the prisoner, and detailed the happenings of
the night. He said that the watchman was outside the door, and that in
the house were none but the family and the stranger. “Would the family
steal their own property?” He paused. The elders sat silent many
minutes; at last, one after another said to his neighbour, “This looks
bad for the stranger”–sorrowful words for me to hear. Then my father
sat down. O miserable, miserable me! At that very moment I could have
proved my darling innocent, but I did not know it!

‘The chief of the court asked:

‘”Is there any here to defend the prisoner?”

‘I rose and said:

‘”Why should he steal that hook, or any or all of them? In another day
he would have been heir to the whole!”

I stood waiting. There was a long silence, the steam from the many
breaths rising about me like a fog. At last one elder after another
nodded his head slowly several times, and muttered, “There is force in
what the child has said.” Oh, the heart-lift that was in those words!
–so transient, but, oh, so precious! I sat down.

‘”If any would say further, let him speak now, or after hold his peace,”
said the chief of the court.

‘My father rose and said:

‘”In the night a form passed by me in the gloom, going toward the
treasury and presently returned. I think, now, it was the stranger.”

‘Oh, I was like to swoon! I had supposed that that was my secret; not the
grip of the great Ice God himself could have dragged it out of my heart.
The chief of the court said sternly to my poor Kalula:

‘”Speak!”

‘Kalula hesitated, then answered:

‘”It was I. I could not sleep for thinking of the beautiful hooks. I
went there and kissed them and fondled them, to appease my spirit and
drown it in a harmless joy, then I put them back. I may have dropped
one, but I stole none.”

‘Oh, a fatal admission to make in such a place! There was an awful hush.
I knew he had pronounced his own doom, and that all was over. On every
face you could see the words hieroglyphed: “It is a confession!–and
paltry, lame, and thin.”

‘I sat drawing in my breath in faint gasps–and waiting. Presently, I
heard the solemn words I knew were coming; and each word, as it came, was
a knife in my heart:

‘”It is the command of the court that the accused be subjected to the
trial by water.”

‘Oh, curses be upon the head of him who brought “trial by water” to our
land! It came, generations ago, from some far country that lies none
knows where. Before that our fathers used augury and other unsure
methods of trial, and doubtless some poor guilty creatures escaped with
their lives sometimes; but it is not so with trial by water, which is an
invention by wiser men than we poor ignorant savages are. By it the
innocent are proved innocent, without doubt or question, for they drown;
and the guilty are proven guilty with the same certainty, for they do not
drown. My heart was breaking in my bosom, for I said, “He is innocent,
and he will go down under the waves and I shall never see him more.”

‘I never left his side after that. I mourned in his arms all the
precious hours, and he poured out the deep stream of his love upon me,
and oh, I was so miserable and so happy! At last, they tore him from me,
and I followed sobbing after them, and saw them fling him into the sea
–then I covered my face with my hands. Agony? Oh, I know the deepest
deeps of that word!

‘The next moment the people burst into a shout of malicious joy, and I
took away my hands, startled. Oh, bitter sight–he was swimming! My
heart turned instantly to stone, to ice. I said, “He was guilty, and he
lied to me!” I turned my back in scorn and went my way homeward.

‘They took him far out to sea and set him on an iceberg that was drifting
southward in the great waters. Then my family came home, and my father
said to me:

‘”Your thief sent his dying message to you, saying, ‘Tell her I am
innocent, and that all the days and all the hours and all the minutes
while I starve and perish I shall love her and think of her and bless the
day that gave me sight of her sweet face.’” Quite pretty, even poetical!

‘I said, “He is dirt–let me never hear mention of him again.” And oh,
to think–he was innocent all the time!

‘Nine months–nine dull, sad months–went by, and at last came the day of
the Great Annual Sacrifice, when all the maidens of the tribe wash their
faces and comb their hair. With the first sweep of my comb out came the
fatal fish-hook from where it had been all those months nestling, and I
fell fainting into the arms of my remorseful father! Groaning, he said,
“We murdered him, and I shall never smile again!” He has kept his word.
Listen; from that day to this not a month goes by that I do not comb my
hair. But oh, where is the good of it all now!’

So ended the poor maid’s humble little tale–whereby we learn that since
a hundred million dollars in New York and twenty-two fish-hooks on the
border of the Arctic Circle represent the same financial supremacy, a man
in straitened circumstances is a fool to stay in New York when he can buy
ten cents’ worth of fish-hooks and emigrate.

These two were distantly related to each other–seventh cousins,
or something of that sort. While still babies they became orphans,
and were adopted by the Brants, a childless couple, who quickly
grew very fond of them. The Brants were always saying: “Be pure,
honest, sober, industrious, and considerate of others, and success
in life is assured.” The children heard this repeated some thousands
of times before they understood it; they could repeat it themselves
long before they could say the Lord’s Prayer; it was painted over
the nursery door, and was about the first thing they learned to read.
It was destined to be the unswerving rule of Edward Mills’s life.
Sometimes the Brants changed the wording a little, and said:
“Be pure, honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and you will never
lack friends.”

Baby Mills was a comfort to everybody about him. When he wanted
candy and could not have it, he listened to reason, and contented
himself without it. When Baby Benton wanted candy, he cried for it
until he got it. Baby Mills took care of his toys; Baby Benton
always destroyed his in a very brief time, and then made himself
to insistently disagreeable that, in order to have peace in the house,
little Edward was persuaded to yield up his play-things to him.

When the children were a little older, Georgie became a heavy expense
in one respect: he took no care of his clothes; consequently, he
shone frequently in new ones, with was not the case with Eddie.
The boys grew apace. Eddie was an increasing comfort, Georgie an
increasing solicitude. It was always sufficient to say, in answer
to Eddie’s petitions, “I would rather you would not do it”–
meaning swimming, skating, picnicking, berrying, circusing,
and all sorts of things which boys delight in. But no answer
was sufficient for Georgie; he had to be humored in his desires,
or he would carry them with a high hand. Naturally, no boy got
more swimming skating, berrying, and so forth than he; no body
ever had a better time. The good Brants did not allow the boys
to play out after nine in summer evenings; they were sent to bed
at that hour; Eddie honorably remained, but Georgie usually slipped
out of the window toward ten, and enjoyed himself until midnight.
It seemed impossible to break Georgie of this bad habit, but the
Brants managed it at last by hiring him, with apples and marbles,
to stay in. The good Brants gave all their time and attention
to vain endeavors to regulate Georgie; they said, with grateful
tears in their eyes, that Eddie needed no efforts of theirs,
he was so good, so considerate, and in all ways so perfect.

By and by the boys were big enough to work, so they were apprenticed
to a trade: Edward went voluntarily; George was coaxed and bribed.
Edward worked hard and faithfully, and ceased to be an expense to the
good Brants; they praised him, so did his master; but George ran away,
and it cost Mr. Brant both money and trouble to hunt him up and get
him back. By and by he ran away again–more money and more trouble.
He ran away a third time–and stole a few things to carry with him.
Trouble and expense for Mr. Brant once more; and, besides, it was with
the greatest difficulty that he succeeded in persuading the master
to let the youth go unprosecuted for the theft.

Edward worked steadily along, and in time became a full partner
in his master’s business. George did not improve; he kept the loving
hearts of his aged benefactors full of trouble, and their hands full
of inventive activities to protect him from ruin. Edward, as a boy,
had interested himself in Sunday-schools, debating societies,
penny missionary affairs, anti-tobacco organizations, anti-profanity
associations, and all such things; as a man, he was a quiet but
steady and reliable helper in the church, the temperance societies,
and in all movements looking to the aiding and uplifting of men. This
excited no remark, attracted no attention–for it was his “natural bent.”

Finally, the old people died. The will testified their loving
pride in Edward, and left their little property to George–
because he “needed it”; whereas, “owing to a bountiful Providence,”
such was not the case with Edward. The property was left to
George conditionally: he must buy out Edward’s partner with it;
else it must go to a benevolent organization called the Prisoner’s
Friend Society. The old people left a letter, in which they begged
their dear son Edward to take their place and watch over George,
and help and shield him as they had done.

Edward dutifully acquiesced, and George became his partner in
the business. He was not a valuable partner: he had been meddling
with drink before; he soon developed into a constant tippler now,
and his flesh and eyes showed the fact unpleasantly. Edward had
been courting a sweet and kindly spirited girl for some time.
They loved each other dearly, and–But about this period George began
to haunt her tearfully and imploringly, and at last she went crying
to Edward, and said her high and holy duty was plain before her–
she must not let her own selfish desires interfere with it:
she must marry “poor George” and “reform him.” It would break
her heart, she knew it would, and so on; but duty was duty.
So she married George, and Edward’s heart came very near breaking,
as well as her own. However, Edward recovered, and married another girl–
a very excellent one she was, too.

Children came to both families. Mary did her honest best to reform
her husband, but the contract was too large. George went on drinking,
and by and by he fell to misusing her and the little ones sadly.
A great many good people strove with George–they were always at it,
in fact–but he calmly took such efforts as his due and their duty,
and did not mend his ways. He added a vice, presently–that of
secret gambling. He got deeply in debt; he borrowed money on the
firm’s credit, as quietly as he could, and carried this system so far
and so successfully that one morning the sheriff took possession of
the establishment, and the two cousins found themselves penniless.

Times were hard, now, and they grew worse. Edward moved his family
into a garret, and walked the streets day and night, seeking work.
He begged for it, but in was really not to be had. He was astonished
to see how soon his face became unwelcome; he was astonished
and hurt to see how quickly the ancient interest which people had
had in him faded out and disappeared. Still, he must get work;
so he swallowed his chagrin, and toiled on in search of it.
At last he got a job of carrying bricks up a ladder in a hod,
and was a grateful man in consequence; but after that nobody knew
him or cared anything about him. He was not able to keep up
his dues in the various moral organizations to which he belonged,
and had to endure the sharp pain of seeing himself brought under
the disgrace of suspension.

But the faster Edward died out of public knowledge and interest,
the faster George rose in them. He was found lying, ragged and drunk,
in the gutter one morning. A member of the Ladies’ Temperance Refuge
fished him out, took him in hand, got up a subscription for him,
kept him sober a whole week, then got a situation for him.
An account of it was published.

General attention was thus drawn to the poor fellow, and a great
many people came forward and helped him toward reform with their
countenance and encouragement. He did not drink a drop for two months,
and meantime was the pet of the good. Then he fell–in the gutter;
and there was general sorrow and lamentation. But the noble
sisterhood rescued him again. They cleaned him up, they fed him,
they listened to the mournful music of his repentances, they got
him his situation again. An account of this, also, was published,
and the town was drowned in happy tears over the re-restoration
of the poor beast and struggling victim of the fatal bowl.
A grand temperance revival was got up, and after some rousing
speeches had been made the chairman said, impressively: “We are
not about to call for signers; and I think there is a spectacle
in store for you which not many in this house will be able to view
with dry eyes.” There was an eloquent pause, and then George Benton,
escorted by a red-sashed detachment of the Ladies of the Refuge,
stepped forward upon the platform and signed the pledge. The air
was rent with applause, and everybody cried for joy. Everybody wrung
the hand of the new convert when the meeting was over; his salary
was enlarged next day; he was the talk of the town, and its hero.
An account of it was published.

George Benton fell, regularly, every three months, but was faithfully
rescued and wrought with, every time, and good situations were
found for him. Finally, he was taken around the country lecturing,
as a reformed drunkard, and he had great houses and did an immense
amount of good.

He was so popular at home, and so trusted–during his sober intervals–
that he was enabled to use the name of a principal citizen, and get
a large sum of money at the bank. A mighty pressure was brought
to bear to save him from the consequences of his forgery, and it
was partially successful–he was “sent up” for only two years.
When, at the end of a year, the tireless efforts of the benevolent
were crowned with success, and he emerged from the penitentiary
with a pardon in his pocket, the Prisoner’s Friend Society met him
at the door with a situation and a comfortable salary, and all
the other benevolent people came forward and gave him advice,
encouragement and help. Edward Mills had once applied to the Prisoner’s
Friend Society for a situation, when in dire need, but the question,
“Have you been a prisoner?” made brief work of his case.

While all these things were going on, Edward Mills had been
quietly making head against adversity. He was still poor, but was
in receipt of a steady and sufficient salary, as the respected
and trusted cashier of a bank. George Benton never came near him,
and was never heard to inquire about him. George got to indulging
in long absences from the town; there were ill reports about him,
but nothing definite.

One winter’s night some masked burglars forced their way into the bank,
and found Edward Mills there alone. They commanded him to reveal
the “combination,” so that they could get into the safe. He refused.
They threatened his life. He said his employers trusted him,
and he could not be traitor to that trust. He could die, if he must,
but while he lived he would be faithful; he would not yield up
the “combination.” The burglars killed him.

The detectives hunted down the criminals; the chief one proved
to be George Benton. A wide sympathy was felt for the widow and
orphans of the dead man, and all the newspapers in the land begged
that all the banks in the land would testify their appreciation
of the fidelity and heroism of the murdered cashier by coming
forward with a generous contribution of money in aid of his family,
now bereft of support. The result was a mass of solid cash amounting
to upward of five hundred dollars–an average of nearly three-eights
of a cent for each bank in the Union. The cashier’s own bank
testified its gratitude by endeavoring to show (but humiliatingly
failed in it) that the peerless servant’s accounts were not square,
and that he himself had knocked his brains out with a bludgeon
to escape detection and punishment.

George Benton was arraigned for trial. Then everybody seemed to
forget the widow and orphans in their solicitude for poor George.
Everything that money and influence could do was done to save him,
but it all failed; he was sentenced to death. Straightway the
Governor was besieged with petitions for commutation or pardon;
they were brought by tearful young girls; by sorrowful old maids;
by deputations of pathetic widows; by shoals of impressive orphans.
But no, the Governor–for once–would not yield.

Now George Benton experienced religion. The glad news flew all around.
From that time forth his cell was always full of girls and women and
fresh flowers; all the day long there was prayer, and hymn-singing,
and thanksgiving, and homilies, and tears, with never an interruption,
except an occasional five-minute intermission for refreshments.

This sort of thing continued up to the very gallows, and George
Benton went proudly home, in the black cap, before a wailing
audience of the sweetest and best that the region could produce.
His grave had fresh flowers on it every day, for a while,
and the head-stone bore these words, under a hand pointing aloft:
“He has fought the good fight.”

The brave cashier’s head-stone has this inscription: “Be pure,
honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and you will never–”

Nobody knows who gave the order to leave it that way, but it was
so given.

The cashier’s family are in stringent circumstances, now, it is said;
but no matter; a lot of appreciative people, who were not willing
that an act so brave and true as his should go unrewarded,
have collected forty-two thousand dollars–and built a Memorial
Church with it.

My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am
a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know
these nice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large
words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness for such;
she liked to say them, and see other dogs look surprised and envious,
as wondering how she got so much education. But, indeed, it was not
real education; it was only show: she got the words by listening
in the dining-room and drawing-room when there was company,
and by going with the children to Sunday-school and listening there;
and whenever she heard a large word she said it over to herself
many times, and so was able to keep it until there was a dogmatic
gathering in the neighborhood, then she would get it off,
and surprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff,
which rewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a stranger
he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and when he got his breath
again he would ask her what it meant. And she always told him.
He was never expecting this but thought he would catch her;
so when she told him, he was the one that looked ashamed,
whereas he had thought it was going to be she. The others were
always waiting for this, and glad of it and proud of her, for they
knew what was going to happen, because they had had experience.
When she told the meaning of a big word they were all so taken up
with admiration that it never occurred to any dog to doubt if it
was the right one; and that was natural, because, for one thing,
she answered up so promptly that it seemed like a dictionary speaking,
and for another thing, where could they find out whether it was right
or not? for she was the only cultivated dog there was. By and by,
when I was older, she brought home the word Unintellectual, one time,
and worked it pretty hard all the week at different gatherings,
making much unhappiness and despondency; and it was at this time
that I noticed that during that week she was asked for the meaning
at eight different assemblages, and flashed out a fresh definition
every time, which showed me that she had more presence of mind
than culture, though I said nothing, of course. She had one word
which she always kept on hand, and ready, like a life-preserver,
a kind of emergency word to strap on when she was likely to get
washed overboard in a sudden way–that was the word Synonymous.
When she happened to fetch out a long word which had had its day
weeks before and its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile,
if there was a stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for
a couple of minutes, then he would come to, and by that time she
would be away down wind on another tack, and not expecting anything;
so when he’d hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on
the inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment–
but only just a moment–then it would belly out taut and full,
and she would say, as calm as a summer’s day, “It’s synonymous
with supererogation,” or some godless long reptile of a word
like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack,
perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking
profane and embarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor
with their tails in unison and their faces transfigured with a
holy joy.

And it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a whole phrase,
if it had a grand sound, and play it six nights and two matinees,
and explain it a new way every time–which she had to, for all she
cared for was the phrase; she wasn’t interested in what it meant,
and knew those dogs hadn’t wit enough to catch her, anyway.
Yes, she was a daisy! She got so she wasn’t afraid of anything,
she had such confidence in the ignorance of those creatures.
She even brought anecdotes that she had heard the family and the
dinner-guests laugh and shout over; and as a rule she got the nub
of one chestnut hitched onto another chestnut, where, of course,
it didn’t fit and hadn’t any point; and when she delivered the nub
she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed and barked
in the most insane way, while I could see that she was wondering
to herself why it didn’t seem as funny as it did when she first
heard it. But no harm was done; the others rolled and barked too,
privately ashamed of themselves for not seeing the point, and never
suspecting that the fault was not with them and there wasn’t any
to see.

You can see by these things that she was of a rather vain and
frivolous character; still, she had virtues, and enough to make up,
I think. She had a kind heart and gentle ways, and never harbored
resentments for injuries done her, but put them easily out of her
mind and forgot them; and she taught her children her kindly way,
and from her we learned also to be brave and prompt in time of danger,
and not to run away, but face the peril that threatened friend
or stranger, and help him the best we could without stopping to think
what the cost might be to us. And she taught us not by words only,
but by example, and that is the best way and the surest and the
most lasting. Why, the brave things she did, the splendid things! she
was just a soldier; and so modest about it–well, you couldn’t help
admiring her, and you couldn’t help imitating her; not even a King
Charles spaniel could remain entirely despicable in her society.
So, as you see, there was more to her than her education.

Chapter II

When I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away,
and I never saw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so was I,
and we cried; but she comforted me as well as she could, and said
we were sent into this world for a wise and good purpose, and must
do our duties without repining, take our life as we might find it,
live it for the best good of others, and never mind about the results;
they were not our affair. She said men who did like this would have
a noble and beautiful reward by and by in another world, and although
we animals would not go there, to do well and right without reward
would give to our brief lives a worthiness and dignity which in
itself would be a reward. She had gathered these things from time
to time when she had gone to the Sunday-school with the children,
and had laid them up in her memory more carefully than she had done
with those other words and phrases; and she had studied them deeply,
for her good and ours. One may see by this that she had a wise
and thoughtful head, for all there was so much lightness and vanity
in it.

So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each other through
our tears; and the last thing she said–keeping it for the last
to make me remember it the better, I think–was, “In memory of me,
when there is a time of danger to another do not think of yourself,
think of your mother, and do as she would do.”

Do you think I could forget that? No.

Chapter III

It was such a charming home!–my new one; a fine great house,
with pictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture,
and no gloom anywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up
with flooding sunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the
great garden–oh, greensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no end!
And I was the same as a member of the family; and they loved me,
and petted me, and did not give me a new name, but called me by my
old one that was dear to me because my mother had given it me–
Aileen Mavoureen. She got it out of a song; and the Grays knew
that song, and said it was a beautiful name.

Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot
imagine it; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a
darling slender little copy of her, with auburn tails down her back,
and short frocks; and the baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled,
and fond of me, and never could get enough of hauling on my tail,
and hugging me, and laughing out its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray
was thirty-eight, and tall and slender and handsome, a little bald
in front, alert, quick in his movements, business-like, prompt,
decided, unsentimental, and with that kind of trim-chiseled face
that just seems to glint and sparkle with frosty intellectuality!
He was a renowned scientist. I do not know what the word means,
but my mother would know how to use it and get effects. She would
know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog
look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one
was Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one that
would skin the tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory
was not a book, or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in,
as the college president’s dog said–no, that is the lavatory;
the laboratory is quite different, and is filled with jars,
and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and strange machines;
and every week other scientists came there and sat in the place,
and used the machines, and discussed, and made what they called
experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood
around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother,
and in loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realizing
what she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all;
for try as I might, I was never able to make anything out of it
at all.

Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress’s work-room and slept,
she gently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it pleased me,
for it was a caress; other times I spent an hour in the nursery,
and got well tousled and made happy; other times I watched by the
crib there, when the baby was asleep and the nurse out for a few
minutes on the baby’s affairs; other times I romped and raced
through the grounds and the garden with Sadie till we were tired out,
then slumbered on the grass in the shade of a tree while she read
her book; other times I went visiting among the neighbor dogs–
for there were some most pleasant ones not far away, and one very
handsome and courteous and graceful one, a curly-haired Irish
setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a Presbyterian like me,
and belonged to the Scotch minister.

The servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me,
and so, as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There could not be
a happier dog that I was, nor a gratefuler one. I will say this
for myself, for it is only the truth: I tried in all ways to do
well and right, and honor my mother’s memory and her teachings,
and earn the happiness that had come to me, as best I could.

By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happiness
was perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth
and soft and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward paws,
and such affectionate eyes, and such a sweet and innocent face;
and it made me so proud to see how the children and their mother
adored it, and fondled it, and exclaimed over every little wonderful
thing it did. It did seem to me that life was just too lovely to–

Then came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the nursery.
That is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby was asleep in
the crib, which was alongside the bed, on the side next the fireplace.
It was the kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it made of gauzy
stuff that you can see through. The nurse was out, and we two
sleepers were alone. A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it
lit on the slope of the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed,
then a scream from the baby awoke me, and there was that tent
flaming up toward the ceiling! Before I could think, I sprang
to the floor in my fright, and in a second was half-way to the door;
but in the next half-second my mother’s farewell was sounding
in my ears, and I was back on the bed again., I reached my head
through the flames and dragged the baby out by the waist-band,
and tugged it along, and we fell to the floor together in a cloud
of smoke; I snatched a new hold, and dragged the screaming little
creature along and out at the door and around the bend of the hall,
and was still tugging away, all excited and happy and proud,
when the master’s voice shouted:

“Begone you cursed beast!” and I jumped to save myself; but he
was furiously quick, and chased me up, striking furiously at me
with his cane, I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a
strong blow fell upon my left foreleg, which made me shriek and fall,
for the moment, helpless; the came went up for another blow,
but never descended, for the nurse’s voice rang wildly out,
“The nursery’s on fire!” and the master rushed away in that direction,
and my other bones were saved.

The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any time;
he might come back at any moment; so I limped on three legs to the
other end of the hall, where there was a dark little stairway leading
up into a garret where old boxes and such things were kept, as I had
heard say, and where people seldom went. I managed to climb up there,
then I searched my way through the dark among the piles of things,
and hid in the secretest place I could find. It was foolish to be
afraid there, yet still I was; so afraid that I held in and hardly
even whimpered, though it would have been such a comfort to whimper,
because that eases the pain, you know. But I could lick my leg,
and that did some good.

For half an hour there was a commotion downstairs, and shoutings,
and rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again. Quiet for
some minutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears
began to go down; and fears are worse than pains–oh, much worse.
Then came a sound that froze me. They were calling me–calling me
by name–hunting for me!

It was muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of it,
and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard.
It went all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all
the rooms, in both stories, and in the basement and the cellar;
then outside, and farther and farther away–then back, and all
about the house again, and I thought it would never, never stop.
But at last it did, hours and hours after the vague twilight of
the garret had long ago been blotted out by black darkness.

Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away,
and I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke
before the twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable,
and I could think out a plan now. I made a very good one;
which was, to creep down, all the way down the back stairs,
and hide behind the cellar door, and slip out and escape when the
iceman came at dawn, while he was inside filling the refrigerator;
then I would hide all day, and start on my journey when night came;
my journey to–well, anywhere where they would not know me and betray
me to the master. I was feeling almost cheerful now; then suddenly
I thought: Why, what would life be without my puppy!

That was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that;
I must say where I was; stay, and wait, and take what might come–
it was not my affair; that was what life is–my mother had said it.
Then–well, then the calling began again! All my sorrows came back.
I said to myself, the master will never forgive. I did not know
what I had done to make him so bitter and so unforgiving, yet I
judged it was something a dog could not understand, but which was
clear to a man and dreadful.

They called and called–days and nights, it seemed to me.
So long that the hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I
recognized that I was getting very weak. When you are this way you
sleep a great deal, and I did. Once I woke in an awful fright–
it seemed to me that the calling was right there in the garret!
And so it was: it was Sadie’s voice, and she was crying; my name
was falling from her lips all broken, poor thing, and I could not
believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard her say:

“Come back to us–oh, come back to us, and forgive–it is all so sad
without our–”

I broke in with such a grateful little yelp, and the next moment
Sadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the lumber
and shouting for the family to hear, “She’s found, she’s found!”

The days that followed–well, they were wonderful. The mother
and Sadie and the servants–why, they just seemed to worship me.
They couldn’t seem to make me a bed that was fine enough;
and as for food, they couldn’t be satisfied with anything but game
and delicacies that were out of season; and every day the friends
and neighbors flocked in to hear about my heroism–that was the
name they called it by, and it means agriculture. I remember my
mother pulling it on a kennel once, and explaining it in that way,
but didn’t say what agriculture was, except that it was synonymous
with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times a day Mrs. Gray
and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I risked my life
to say the baby’s, and both of us had burns to prove it, and then
the company would pass me around and pet me and exclaim about me,
and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother;
and when the people wanted to know what made me limp, they looked
ashamed and changed the subject, and sometimes when people hunted
them this way and that way with questions about it, it looked to me
as if they were going to cry.

And this was not all the glory; no, the master’s friends came,
a whole twenty of the most distinguished people, and had me in
the laboratory, and discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery;
and some of them said it was wonderful in a dumb beast, the finest
exhibition of instinct they could call to mind; but the master said,
with vehemence, “It’s far above instinct; it’s reason, and many a man,
privileged to be saved and go with you and me to a better world
by right of its possession, has less of it that this poor silly
quadruped that’s foreordained to perish”; and then he laughed,
and said: “Why, look at me–I’m a sarcasm! bless you, with all
my grand intelligence, the only think I inferred was that the dog
had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the
beast’s intelligence–it’s reason, I tell you!–the child would
have perished!”

They disputed and disputed, and _I_ was the very center of subject
of it all, and I wished my mother could know that this grand honor
had come to me; it would have made her proud.

Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a certain
injury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but they could
not agree about it, and said they must test it by experiment by and by;
and next they discussed plants, and that interested me, because in
the summer Sadie and I had planted seeds–I helped her dig the holes,
you know–and after days and days a little shrub or a flower came
up there, and it was a wonder how that could happen; but it did,
and I wished I could talk–I would have told those people about it
and shown then how much I knew, and been all alive with the subject;
but I didn’t care for the optics; it was dull, and when the came back
to it again it bored me, and I went to sleep.

Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely,
and the sweet mother and the children patted me and the puppy
good-by, and went away on a journey and a visit to their kin,
and the master wasn’t any company for us, but we played together
and had good times, and the servants were kind and friendly,
so we got along quite happily and counted the days and waited
for the family.

And one day those men came again, and said, now for the test,
and they took the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped
three-leggedly along, too, feeling proud, for any attention shown
to the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course. They discussed
and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy shrieked,
and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering around,
with his head all bloody, and the master clapped his hands and shouted:

“There, I’ve won–confess it! He’s a blind as a bat!”

And they all said:

“It’s so–you’ve proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes
you a great debt from henceforth,” and they crowded around him,
and wrung his hand cordially and thankfully, and praised him.

But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my
little darling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked
the blood, and it put its head against mine, whimpering softly,
and I knew in my heart it was a comfort to it in its pain and
trouble to feel its mother’s touch, though it could not see me.
Then it dropped down, presently, and its little velvet nose rested
upon the floor, and it was still, and did not move any more.

Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the footman,
and said, “Bury it in the far corner of the garden,” and then went
on with the discussion, and I trotted after the footman, very happy
and grateful, for I knew the puppy was out of its pain now, because it
was asleep. We went far down the garden to the farthest end,
where the children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play
in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug
a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad,
because it would grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair,
and be a beautiful surprise for the family when they came home;
so I tried to help him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff,
you know, and you have to have two, or it is no use. When the
footman had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head,
and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: “Poor little doggie,
you saved his child!”

I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn’t come up! This last week
a fright has been stealing upon me. I think there is something terrible
about this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick,
and I cannot eat, though the servants bring me the best of food;
and they pet me so, and even come in the night, and cry, and say,
“Poor doggie–do give it up and come home; Don’t break our hearts!”
and all this terrifies me the more, and makes me sure something
has happened. And I am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my
feet anymore. And within this hour the servants, looking toward the
sun where it was sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on,
said things I could not understand, but they carried something cold
to my heart.

“Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home
in the morning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie that did
the brave deed, and who of us will be strong enough to say the truth
to them: ‘The humble little friend is gone where go the beasts
that perish.’”

VIENNA, January 5–I find in this morning’s papers the statement that the
Government of the United States has paid to the two members of the Peace
Commission entitled to receive money for their services 100,000 dollars
each for their six weeks’ work in Paris.

I hope that this is true. I will allow myself the satisfaction of
considering that it is true, and of treating it as a thing finished and
settled.

It is a precedent; and ought to be a welcome one to our country. A
precedent always has a chance to be valuable (as well as the other way);
and its best chance to be valuable (or the other way) is when it takes
such a striking form as to fix a whole nation’s attention upon it. If it
come justified out of the discussion which will follow, it will find a
career ready and waiting for it.

We realise that the edifice of public justice is built of precedents,
from the ground upward; but we do not always realise that all the other
details of our civilisation are likewise built of precedents. The
changes also which they undergo are due to the intrusion of new
precedents, which hold their ground against opposition, and keep their
place. A precedent may die at birth, or it may live–it is mainly a
matter of luck. If it be imitated once, it has a chance; if twice a
better chance; if three times it is reaching a point where account must
be taken of it; if four, five, or six times, it has probably come to
stay–for a whole century, possibly. If a town start a new bow, or a new
dance, or a new temperance project, or a new kind of hat, and can get the
precedent adopted in the next town, the career of that precedent is
begun; and it will be unsafe to bet as to where the end of its journey is
going to be. It may not get this start at all, and may have no career;
but, if a crown prince introduce the precedent, it will attract vast
attention, and its chances for a career are so great as to amount almost
to a certainty.

For a long time we have been reaping damage from a couple of disastrous
precedents. One is the precedent of shabby pay to public servants
standing for the power and dignity of the Republic in foreign lands; the
other is a precedent condemning them to exhibit themselves officially in
clothes which are not only without grace or dignity, but are a pretty
loud and pious rebuke to the vain and frivolous costumes worn by the
other officials. To our day an American ambassador’s official costume
remains under the reproach of these defects. At a public function in a
European court all foreign representatives except ours wear clothes which
in some way distinguish them from the unofficial throng, and mark them as
standing for their countries. But our representative appears in a plain
black swallow-tail, which stands for neither country, nor people. It has
no nationality. It is found in all countries; it is as international as
a night-shirt. It has no particular meaning; but our Government tries to
give it one; it tries to make it stand for Republican Simplicity, modesty
and unpretentiousness. Tries, and without doubt fails, for it is not
conceivable that this loud ostentation of simplicity deceives any one.
The statue that advertises its modesty with a fig-leaf really brings its
modesty under suspicion. Worn officially, our nonconforming swallow-tail
is a declaration of ungracious independence in the matter of manners, and
is uncourteous. It says to all around: ‘In Rome we do not choose to do
as Rome does; we refuse to respect your tastes and your traditions; we
make no sacrifices to anyone’s customs and prejudices; we yield no jot to
the courtesies of life; we prefer our manners, and intrude them here.’

That is not the true American spirit, and those clothes misrepresent us.
When a foreigner comes among us and trespasses against our customs and
our code of manners, we are offended, and justly so; but our Government
commands our ambassadors to wear abroad an official dress which is an
offence against foreign manners and customers; and the discredit of it
falls upon the nation.

We did not dress our public functionaries in undistinguished raiment
before Franklin’s time; and the change would not have come if he had been
an obscurity. But he was such a colossal figure in the world that
whatever he did of an unusual nature attracted the world’s attention,
and became a precedent. In the case of clothes, the next representative
after him, and the next, had to imitate it. After that, the thing was
custom; and custom is a petrifaction: nothing but dynamite can dislodge
it for a century. We imagine that our queer official costumery was
deliberately devised to symbolise our Republican Simplicity–a quality
which we have never possessed, and are too old to acquire now, if we had
any use for it or any leaning toward it. But it is not so; there was
nothing deliberate about it; it grew naturally and heedlessly out of the
precedent set by Franklin.

If it had been an intentional thing, and based upon a principle, it would
not have stopped where it did: we should have applied it further.
Instead of clothing our admirals and generals, for courts-martial and
other public functions, in superb dress uniforms blazing with colour and
gold, the Government would put them in swallow-tails and white cravats,
and make them look like ambassadors and lackeys. If I am wrong in making
Franklin the father of our curious official clothes, it is no matter–he
will be able to stand it.

It is my opinion–and I make no charge for the suggestion–that, whenever
we appoint an ambassador or a minister, we ought to confer upon him the
temporary rank of admiral or general, and allow him to wear the
corresponding uniform at public functions in foreign countries. I would
recommend this for the reason that it is not consonant with the dignity
of the United States of America that her representative should appear
upon occasions of state in a dress which makes him glaringly conspicuous;
and that is what his present undertaker-outfit does when it appears, with
its dismal smudge, in the midst of the butterfly splendours of a
Continental court. It is a most trying position for a shy man, a modest
man, a man accustomed to being like other people. He is the most
striking figure present; there is no hiding from the multitudinous eyes.
It would be funny, if it were not such a cruel spectacle, to see the
hunted creature in his solemn sables scuffling around in that sea of
vivid colour, like a mislaid Presbyterian in perdition. We are all aware
that our representative’s dress should not compel too much attention; for
anybody but an Indian chief knows that that is a vulgarity. I am saying
these things in the interest of our national pride and dignity. Our
representative is the flag. He is the Republic. He is the United States
of America. And when these embodiments pass by, we do not want them
scoffed at; we desire that people shall be obliged to concede that they
are worthily clothed, and politely.

Our Government is oddly inconsistent in this matter of official dress.
When its representative is a civilian who has not been a solider, it
restricts him to the black swallow-tail and white tie; but if he is a
civilian who has been a solider, it allows him to wear the uniform of his
former rank as an official dress. When General Sickles was minister to
Spain, he always wore, when on official duty, the dress uniform of a
major-general. When General Grant visited foreign courts, he went
handsomely and properly ablaze in the uniform of a full general, and was
introduced by diplomatic survivals of his own Presidential
Administration. The latter, by official necessity, went in the meek and
lowly swallow-tail–a deliciously sarcastic contrast: the one dress
representing the honest and honourable dignity of the nation; the other,
the cheap hypocrisy of the Republican Simplicity tradition. In Paris our
present representative can perform his official functions reputably
clothed; for he was an officer in the Civil War. In London our late
ambassador was similarly situated; for he, also, was an officer in the
Civil War. But Mr. Choate must represent the Great Republic–even at
official breakfasts at seven in the morning–in that same old funny
swallow-tail.

Our Government’s notions about proprieties of costume are indeed very,
very odd–as suggested by that last fact. The swallow-tail is recognised
the world over as not wearable in the daytime; it is a night-dress, and a
night-dress only–a night-shirt is not more so. Yet, when our
representative makes an official visit in the morning, he is obliged by
his Government to go in that night-dress. It makes the very cab-horses
laugh.

The truth is, that for awhile during the present century, and up to
something short of forty years ago, we had a lucid interval, and dropped
the Republican Simplicity sham, and dressed our foreign representatives
in a handsome and becoming official costume. This was discarded
by-and-by, and the swallow-tail substituted. I believe it is not now
known which statesman brought about this change; but we all know that,
stupid as he was as to diplomatic proprieties in dress, he would not have
sent his daughter to a state ball in a corn-shucking costume, nor to a
corn-shucking in a state-ball costume, to be harshly criticised as an
ill-mannered offender against the proprieties of custom in both places.
And we know another thing, viz. that he himself would not have wounded
the tastes and feelings of a family of mourners by attending a funeral in
their house in a costume which was an offence against the dignities and
decorum prescribed by tradition and sanctified by custom. Yet that man
was so heedless as not to reflect that all the social customs of
civilised peoples are entitled to respectful observance, and that no man
with a right spirit of courtesy in him ever has any disposition to
transgress these customs.

There is still another argument for a rational diplomatic dress–a
business argument. We are a trading nation; and our representative is a
business agent. If he is respected, esteemed, and liked where he is
stationed, he can exercise an influence which can extend our trade and
forward our prosperity. A considerable number of his business activities
have their field in his social relations; and clothes which do not offend
against local manners and customers and prejudices are a valuable part of
his equipment in this matter–would be, if Franklin had died earlier.

I have not done with gratis suggestions yet. We made a great deal of
valuable advance when we instituted the office of ambassador. That lofty
rank endows its possessor with several times as much influence,
consideration, and effectiveness as the rank of minister bestows. For
the sake of the country’s dignity and for the sake of her advantage
commercially, we should have ambassadors, not ministers, at the great
courts of the world.

But not at present salaries! No; if we are to maintain present salaries,
let us make no more ambassadors; and let us unmake those we have already
made. The great position, without the means of respectably maintaining
it–there could be no wisdom in that. A foreign representative, to be
valuable to his country, must be on good terms with the officials of the
capital and with the rest of the influential folk. He must mingle with
this society; he cannot sit at home–it is not business, it butters no
commercial parsnips. He must attend the dinners, banquets, suppers,
balls, receptions, and must return these hospitalities. He should return
as good as he gets, too, for the sake of the dignity of his country, and
for the sake of Business. Have we ever had a minister or an ambassador
who could do this on his salary? No–not once, from Franklin’s time to
ours. Other countries understand the commercial value of properly lining
the pockets of their representatives; but apparently our Government has
not learned it. England is the most successful trader of the several
trading nations; and she takes good care of the watchmen who keep guard
in her commercial towers. It has been a long time, now, since we needed
to blush for our representatives abroad. It has become custom to send
our fittest. We send men of distinction, cultivation, character–our
ablest, our choicest, our best. Then we cripple their efficiency through
the meagreness of their pay. Here is a list of salaries for English and
American ministers and ambassadors:

City                               Salaries

                             American       English

Paris                         $17,500       $45,000
Berlin                         17,500        40,000
Vienna                         12,000        40,000
Constantinople                 10,000        40,000
St.  Petersburg                17,500        39,000
Rome                           12,000        35,000
Washington                        --         32,500

Sir Julian Pauncefote, the English ambassador at Washington, has a very
fine house besides–at no damage to his salary.

English ambassadors pay no house rent; they live in palaces owned by
England. Our representatives pay house-rent out of their salaries. You
can judge by the above figures what kind of houses the United States
of America has been used to living in abroad, and what sort of
return-entertaining she has done. There is not a salary in our list
which would properly house the representative receiving it, and, in
addition, pay $3,000 toward his family’s bacon and doughnuts–the strange
but economical and customary fare of the American ambassador’s household,
except on Sundays, when petrified Boston crackers are added.

The ambassadors and ministers of foreign nations not only have generous
salaries, but their Governments provide them with money wherewith to pay
a considerable part of their hospitality bills. I believe our Government
pays no hospitality bills except those incurred by the navy. Through
this concession to the navy, that arm is able to do us credit in foreign
parts; and certainly that is well and politic. But why the Government
does not think it well and politic that our diplomats should be able to
do us like credit abroad is one of those mysterious inconsistencies which
have been puzzling me ever since I stopped trying to understand baseball
and took up statesmanship as a pastime.

To return to the matter of house-rent. Good houses, properly furnished,
in European capitals, are not to be had at small figures. Consequently,
our foreign representatives have been accustomed to live in garrets
–sometimes on the roof. Being poor men, it has been the best they could
do on the salary which the Government has paid them. How could they
adequately return the hospitalities shown them? It was impossible. It
would have exhausted the salary in three months. Still, it was their
official duty to entertain their influentials after some sort of fashion;
and they did the best they could with their limited purse. In return for
champagne they furnished lemonade; in return for game they furnished ham;
in return for whale they furnished sardines; in return for liquors they
furnished condensed milk; in return for the battalion of liveried and
powdered flunkeys they furnished the hired girl; in return for the fairy
wilderness of sumptuous decorations they draped the stove with the
American flag; in return for the orchestra they furnished zither and
ballads by the family; in return for the ball–but they didn’t return the
ball, except in cases where the United States lived on the roof and had
room.

Is this an exaggeration? It can hardly be called that. I saw nearly the
equivalent of it, a good many years ago. A minister was trying to create
influential friends for a project which might be worth ten millions a
year to the agriculturists of the Republic; and our Government had
furnished him ham and lemonade to persuade the opposition with. The
minister did not succeed. He might not have succeeded if his salary had
been what it ought to have been–$50,000 or $60,00 a year–but his
chances would have been very greatly improved. And in any case, he and
his dinners and his country would not have been joked about by the
hard-hearted and pitied by the compassionate.

Any experienced ‘drummer’ will testify that, when you want to do
business, there is no economy in ham and lemonade. The drummer takes his
country customer to the theatre, the opera, the circus; dines him, wines
him, entertains him all the day and all the night in luxurious style; and
plays upon his human nature in all seductive ways. For he knows, by old
experience, that this is the best way to get a profitable order out of
him. He has this reward. All Governments except our own play the same
policy, with the same end in view; and they, also, have their reward.
But ours refuses to do business by business ways, and sticks to ham and
lemonade. This is the most expensive diet known to the diplomatic
service of the world.

Ours is the only country of first importance that pays its foreign
representatives trifling salaries. If we were poor, we could not find
great fault with these economies, perhaps–at least one could find a sort
of plausible excuse for them. But we are not poor; and the excuse fails.
As shown above, some of our important diplomatic representatives receive
$12,000; others, $17,500. These salaries are all ham and lemonade, and
unworthy of the flag. When we have a rich ambassador in London or Paris,
he lives as the ambassador of a country like ours ought to live, and it
costs him $100,000 a year to do it. But why should we allow him to pay
that out of his private pocket? There is nothing fair about it; and the
Republic is no proper subject for any one’s charity. In several cases
our salaries of $12,000 should be $50,000; and all of the salaries of
$17,500 ought to be $75,000 or $100,000, since we pay no representative’s
house-rent. Our State Department realises the mistake which we are
making, and would like to rectify it, but it has not the power.

When a young girl reaches eighteen she is recognised as being a woman.
She adds six inches to her skirt, she unplaits her dangling braids and
balls her hair on top of her head, she stops sleeping with her little
sister and has a room to herself, and becomes in many ways a thundering
expense. But she is in society now; and papa has to stand it. There is
no avoiding it. Very well. The Great Republic lengthened her skirts
last year, balled up her hair, and entered the world’s society. This
means that, if she would prosper and stand fair with society, she must
put aside some of her dearest and darlingest young ways and
superstitions, and do as society does. Of course, she can decline if she
wants to; but this would be unwise. She ought to realise, now that she
has ‘come out,’ that this is a right and proper time to change a part of
her style. She is in Rome; and it has long been granted that when one is
in Rome it is good policy to do as Rome does. To advantage Rome? No–to
advantage herself.

If our Government has really paid representatives of ours on the Paris
Commission $100,000 apiece for six weeks’ work, I feel sure that it is
the best cash investment the nation has made in many years. For it seems
quite impossible that, with that precedent on the books, the Government
will be able to find excuses for continuing its diplomatic salaries at
the present mean figure.

P.S.–VIENNA, January 10.–I see, by this morning’s telegraphic news,
that I am not to be the new ambassador here, after all. This–well, I
hardly know what to say. I–well, of course, I do not care anything
about it; but it is at least a surprise. I have for many months been
using my influence at Washington to get this diplomatic see expanded into
an ambassadorship, with the idea, of course th–But never mind. Let it
go. It is of no consequence. I say it calmly; for I am calm. But at
the same time–However, the subject has no interest for me, and never
had. I never really intended to take the place, anyway–I made up my
mind to it months and months ago, nearly a year. But now, while I am
calm, I would like to say this–that so long as I shall continue to
possess an American’s proper pride in the honour and dignity of his
country, I will not take any ambassadorship in the gift of the flag at a
salary short of $75,000 a year. If I shall be charged with wanting to
live beyond my country’s means, I cannot help it. A country which cannot
afford ambassador’s wages should be ashamed to have ambassadors.

Think of a Seventeen-thousand-five-hundred-dollar ambassador!
Particularly for America. Why it is the most ludicrous spectacle, the
most inconsistent and incongruous spectable, contrivable by even the most
diseased imagination. It is a billionaire in a paper collar, a king in a
breechclout, an archangel in a tin halo. And, for pure sham and
hypocrisy, the salary is just the match of the ambassador’s official
clothes–that boastful advertisement of a Republican Simplicity which
manifests itself at home in Fifty-thousand-dollar salaries to insurance
presidents and railway lawyers, and in domestic palaces whose fittings
and furnishings often transcend in costly display and splendour and
richness the fittings and furnishings of the palaces of the sceptred
masters of Europe; and which has invented and exported to the Old World
the palace-car, the sleeping-car, the tram-car, the electric trolley, the
best bicycles, the best motor-cars, the steam-heater, the best and
smartest systems of electric calls and telephonic aids to laziness and
comfort, the elevator, the private bath-room (hot and cold water on tap),
the palace-hotel, with its multifarious conveniences, comforts, shows,
and luxuries, the–oh, the list is interminable! In a word, Republican
Simplicity found Europe with one shirt on her back, so to speak, as far
as real luxuries, conveniences, and the comforts of life go, and has
clothed her to the chin with the latter. We are the lavishest and
showiest and most luxury-loving people on the earth; and at our masthead
we fly one true and honest symbol, the gaudiest flag the world has ever
seen. Oh, Republican Simplicity, there are many, many humbugs in the
world, but none to which you need take off your hat!

Some months ago I published a magazine article[1] descriptive of a
remarkable scene in the Imperial Parliament in Vienna. Since then I have
received from Jews in America several letters of inquiry. They were
difficult letters to answer, for they were not very definite. But at
last I have received a definite one. It is from a lawyer, and he really
asks the questions which the other writers probably believed they were
asking. By help of this text I will do the best I can to publicly answer
this correspondent, and also the others–at the same time apologising for
having failed to reply privately. The lawyer’s letter reads as follows:

‘I have read “Stirring Times in Austria.” One point in particular
is of vital import to not a few thousand people, including myself,
being a point about which I have often wanted to address a question
to some disinterested person. The show of military force in the
Austrian Parliament, which precipitated the riots, was not
introduced by any Jew. No Jew was a member of that body. No Jewish
question was involved in the Ausgleich or in the language
proposition. No Jew was insulting anybody. In short, no Jew was
doing any mischief toward anybody whatsoever. In fact, the Jews
were the only ones of the nineteen different races in Austria which
did not have a party–they are absolute non-participants. Yet in
your article you say that in the rioting which followed, all classes
of people were unanimous only on one thing, viz., in being against
the Jews. Now, will you kindly tell me why, in your judgment, the
Jews have thus ever been, and are even now, in these days of
supposed intelligence, the butt of baseless, vicious animosities?
I dare say that for centuries there has been no more quiet,
undisturbing, and well-behaving citizen, as a class, than that same
Jew. It seems to me that ignorance and fanaticism cannot alone
account for these horrible and unjust persecutions.

‘Tell me, therefore, from your vantage point of cold view, what in
your mind is the cause. Can American Jews do anything to correct it
either in America or abroad? Will it ever come to an end? Will a
Jew be permitted to live honestly, decently, and peaceably like the
rest of mankind? What has become of the Golden Rule?’

I will begin by saying that if I thought myself prejudiced against the
Jew, I should hold it fairest to leave this subject to a person not
crippled in that way. But I think I have no such prejudice. A few years
ago a Jew observed to me that there was no uncourteous reference to his
people in my books, and asked how it happened. It happened because the
disposition was lacking. I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race
prejudices, and I think I have no colour prejudices nor caste prejudices
nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All
that I care to know is that a man is a human being–that is enough for
me; he can’t be any worse. I have no special regard for Satan; but I can
at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that
I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All
religions issue Bibles against him, and say the most injurious things
about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for
the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this
is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French.
Without this precedent Dreyfus could not have been condemned. Of course
Satan has some kind of a case, it goes without saying. It may be a poor
one, but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us. As soon as I
can get at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can
find an unpolitic publisher. It is a thing which we ought to be willing
to do for any one who is under a cloud. We may not pay Satan reverence,
for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.
A person who has during all time maintained the imposing position of
spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head of
the whole of it, must be granted the possession of executive abilities of
the loftiest order. In his large presence the other popes and
politicians shrink to midges for the microscope. I would like to see
him. I would rather see him and shake him by the tail than any other
member of the European Concert. In the present paper I shall allow
myself to use the word Jew as if it stood for both religion and race. It
is handy; and, besides, that is what the term means to the general world.

In the above letter one notes these points:

1. The Jew is a well-behaved citizen.

2. Can ignorance and fanaticism alone account for his unjust treatment?

3. Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?

4. The Jews have no party; they are non-participants.

5. Will the persecution ever come to an end?

6. What has become of the Golden Rule?

Point No. 1.–We must grant proposition No. 1, for several sufficient
reasons. The Jew is not a disturber of the peace of any country. Even
his enemies will concede that. He is not a loafer, he is not a sot, he
is not noisy, he is not a brawler nor a rioter, he is not quarrelsome.
In the statistics of crime his presence is conspicuously rare–in all
countries. With murder and other crimes of violence he has but little to
do: he is a stranger to the hangman. In the police court’s daily long
roll of ‘assaults’ and ‘drunk and disorderlies’ his name seldom appears.
That the Jewish home is a home in the truest sense is a fact which no one
will dispute. The family is knitted together by the strongest
affections; its members show each other every due respect; and reverence
for the elders is an inviolate law of the house. The Jew is not a burden
on the charities of the state nor of the city; these could cease from
their functions without affecting him. When he is well enough, he works;
when he is incapacitated, his own people take care of him. And not in a
poor and stingy way, but with a fine and large benevolence. His race is
entitled to be called the most benevolent of all the races of men. A
Jewish beggar is not impossible, perhaps; such a thing may exist, but
there are few men that can say they have seen that spectacle. The Jew
has been staged in many uncomplimentary forms, but, so far as I know, no
dramatist has done him the injustice to stage him as a beggar. Whenever
a Jew has real need to beg, his people save him from the necessity of
doing it. The charitable institutions of the Jews are supported by
Jewish money, and amply. The Jews make no noise about it; it is done
quietly; they do not nag and pester and harass us for contributions; they
give us peace, and set us an example–an example which he have not found
ourselves able to follow; for by nature we are not free givers, and have
to be patiently and persistently hunted down in the interest of the
unfortunate.

These facts are all on the credit side of the proposition that the Jew is
a good and orderly citizen. Summed up, they certify that he is quiet,
peaceable, industrious, unaddicted to high crimes and brutal
dispositions; that his family life is commendable; that he is not a
burden upon public charities; that he is not a beggar; that in
benevolence he is above the reach of competition. These are the very
quintessentials of good citizenship. If you can add that he is as honest
as the average of his neighbours–But I think that question is
affirmatively answered by the fact that he is a successful business man.
The basis of successful business is honesty; a business cannot thrive
where the parties to it cannot trust each other. In the matter of
numbers the Jew counts for little in the overwhelming population of New
York; but that his honest counts for much is guaranteed by the fact that
the immense wholesale business of Broadway, from the Battery to Union
Square, is substantially in his hands.

I suppose that the most picturesque example in history of a trader’s
trust in his fellow-trader was one where it was not Christian trusting
Christian, but Christian trusting Jew. That Hessian Duke who used to
sell his subjects to George III. to fight George Washington with got rich
at it; and by-and-by, when the wars engendered by the French Revolution
made his throne too warm for him, he was obliged to fly the country. He
was in a hurry, and had to leave his earnings behind–$9,000,000. He had
to risk the money with some one without security. He did not select a
Christian, but a Jew–a Jew of only modest means, but of high character;
a character so high that it left him lonesome–Rothschild of Frankfort.
Thirty years later, when Europe had become quiet and safe again, the Duke
came back from overseas, and the Jew returned the loan, with interest
added.[2]

The Jew has his other side. He has some discreditable ways, though he
has not a monopoly of them, because he cannot get entirely rid of
vexatious Christian competition. We have seen that he seldom
transgresses the laws against crimes of violence. Indeed, his dealings
with courts are almost restricted to matters connected with commerce. He
has a reputation for various small forms of cheating, and for practising
oppressive usury, and for burning himself out to get the insurance, and
for arranging cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock the
other man in, and for smart evasions which find him safe and comfortable
just within the strict letter of the law, when court and jury know very
well that he has violated the spirit of it. He is a frequent and
faithful and capable officer in the civil service, but he is charged with
an unpatriotic disinclination to stand by the flag as a soldier–like the
Christian Quaker.

Now if you offset these discreditable features by the creditable ones
summarised in a preceding paragraph beginning with the words, ‘These
facts are all on the credit side,’ and strike a balance, what must the
verdict be? This, I think: that, the merits and demerits being fairly
weighed and measured on both sides, the Christian can claim no
superiority over the Jew in the matter of good citizenship.

Yet in all countries, from the dawn of history, the Jew has been
persistently and implacably hated, and with frequency persecuted.

Point No. 2.–’Can fanaticism alone account for this?’

Years ago I used to think that it was responsible for nearly all of it,
but latterly I have come to think that this was an error. Indeed, it is
now my conviction that it is responsible for hardly any of it.

In this connection I call to mind Genesis, chapter xlvii.

We have all thoughtfully–or unthoughtfully–read the pathetic story of
the years of plenty and the years of famine in Egypt, and how Joseph,
with that opportunity, made a corner in broken hearts, and the crusts of
the poor, and human liberty–a corner whereby he took a nation’s money
all away, to the last penny; took a nation’s live stock all away, to the
last hoof; took a nation’s land away, to the last acre; then took the
nation itself, buying it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, child by
child, till all were slaves; a corner which took everything, left
nothing; a corner so stupendous that, by comparison with it, the most
gigantic corners in subsequent history are but baby things, for it dealt
in hundreds of millions of bushels, and its profits were reckonable by
hundreds of millions of dollars, and it was a disaster so crushing that
its effects have not wholly disappeared from Egypt to-day, more than
three thousand years after the event.

Is it presumably that the eye of Egypt was upon Joseph the foreign Jew
all this time? I think it likely. Was it friendly? We must doubt it.
Was Joseph establishing a character for his race which would survive long
in Egypt? and in time would his name come to be familiarly used to
express that character–like Shylock’s? It is hardly to be doubted. Let
us remember that this was centuries before the Crucifixion?

I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later and refer to a remark
made by one of the Latin historians. I read it in a translation many
years ago, and it comes back to me now with force. It was alluding to a
time when people were still living who could have seen the Saviour in the
flesh. Christianity was so new that the people of Rome had hardly heard
of it, and had but confused notions of what it was. The substance of the
remark was this: Some Christians were persecuted in Rome through error,
they being ‘mistaken for Jews.’

The meaning seems plain. These pagans had nothing against Christians,
but they were quite ready to persecute Jews. For some reason or other
they hated a Jew before they even knew what a Christian was. May I not
assume, then, that the persecution of Jews is a thing which antedates
Christianity and was not born of Christianity? I think so. What was the
origin of the feeling?

When I was a boy, in the back settlements of the Mississippi Valley,
where a gracious and beautiful Sunday school simplicity and practicality
prevailed, the ‘Yankee’ (citizen of the New England States) was hated
with a splendid energy. But religion had nothing to do with it. In a
trade, the Yankee was held to be about five times the match of the
Westerner. His shrewdness, his insight, his judgment, his knowledge, his
enterprise, and his formidable cleverness in applying these forces were
frankly confessed, and most competently cursed.

In the cotton States, after the war, the simple and ignorant Negroes made
the crops for the white planter on shares. The Jew came down in force,
set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negro’s wants on credit,
and at the end of the season was proprietor of the negro’s share of the
present crop and of part of his share of the next one. Before long, the
whites detested the Jew, and it is doubtful if the negro loved him.

The Jew is begin legislated out of Russia. The reason is not concealed.
The movement was instituted because the Christian peasant and villager
stood no chance against his commercial abilities. He was always ready to
lend money on a crop, and sell vodka and other necessities of life on
credit while the crop was growing. When settlement day came he owned the
crop; and next year or year after he owned the farm, like Joseph.

In the dull and ignorant English of John’s time everybody got into debt
to the Jew. He gathered all lucrative enterprises into his hands; he was
the king of commerce; he was ready to be helpful in all profitable ways;
he even financed crusades for the rescue of the Sepulchre. To wipe out
his account with the nation and restore business to its natural and
incompetent channels he had to be banished the realm.

For the like reasons Spain had to banish him four hundred years ago, and
Austria about a couple of centuries later.

In all the ages Christian Europe has been oblige to curtail his
activities. If he entered upon a mechanical trade, the Christian had to
retire from it. If he set up as a doctor, he was the best one, and he
took the business. If he exploited agriculture, the other farmers had to
get at something else. Since there was no way to successfully compete
with him in any vocation, the law had to step in and save the Christian
from the poor-house. Trade after trade was taken away from the Jew by
statute till practically none was left. He was forbidden to engage in
agriculture; he was forbidden to practise law; he was forbidden to
practise medicine, except among Jews; he was forbidden the handicrafts.
Even the seats of learning and the schools of science had to be closed
against this tremendous antagonist. Still, almost bereft of employments,
he found ways to make money, even ways to get rich. Also ways to invest
his takings well, for usury was not denied him. In the hard conditions
suggested, the Jew without brains could not survive, and the Jew with
brains had to keep them in good training and well sharpened up, or
starve. Ages of restriction to the one tool which the law was not able
to take from him–his brain–have made that tool singularly competent;
ages of compulsory disuse of his hands have atrophied them, and he never
uses them now. This history has a very, very commercial look, a most
sordid and practical commercial look, the business aspect of a Chinese
cheap-labour crusade. Religious prejudices may account for one part of
it, but not for the other nine.

Protestants have persecuted Catholics, but they did not take their
livelihoods away from them. The Catholics have persecuted the
Protestants with bloody and awful bitterness, but they never closed
agriculture and the handicrafts against them. Why was that? That has
the candid look of genuine religious persecution, not a trade-union
boycott in a religious dispute.

The Jews are harried and obstructed in Austria and Germany, and lately in
France; but England and America give them an open field and yet survive.
Scotland offers them an unembarrassed field too, but there are not many
takers. There are a few Jews in Glasgow, and one in Aberdeen; but that
is because they can’t earn enough to get away. The Scotch pay themselves
that compliment, but it is authentic.

I feel convinced that the Crucifixion has not much to do with the world’s
attitude toward the Jew; that the reasons for it are older than that
event, as suggested by Egypt’s experience and by Rome’s regret for having
persecuted an unknown quantity called a Christian, under the mistaken
impression that she was merely persecuting a Jew. Merely a Jew–a
skinned eel who was used to it, presumably. I am persuaded that in
Russia, Austria, and Germany nine-tenths of the hostility to the Jew
comes from the average Christian’s inability to compete successfully with
the average Jew in business–in either straight business or the
questionable sort.

In Berlin, a few years ago, I read a speech which frankly urged the
expulsion of the Jews from Germany; and the agitator’s reason was as
frank as his proposition. It was this: that eighty-five percent of the
successful lawyers of Berlin were Jews, and that about the same
percentage of the great and lucrative businesses of all sorts in Germany
were in the hands of the Jewish race! Isn’t it an amazing confession?
It was but another way of saying that in a population of 48,000,000, of
whom only 500,000 were registered as Jews, eighty-five per cent of the
brains and honesty of the whole was lodged in the Jews. I must insist
upon the honesty–it is an essential of successful business, taken by and
large. Of course it does not rule out rascals entirely, even among
Christians, but it is a good working rule, nevertheless. The speaker’s
figures may have been inexact, but the motive of persecution stands out
as clear as day.

The man claimed that in Berlin the banks, the newspapers, the theatres,
the great mercantile, shipping, mining, and manufacturing interests, the
big army and city contracts, the tramways, and pretty much all other
properties of high value, and also the small businesses, were in the
hands of the Jews. He said the Jew was pushing the Christian to the wall
all along the line; that it was all a Christian could do to scrape
together a living; and that the Jew must be banished, and soon–there was
no other way of saving the Christian. Here in Vienna, last autumn,
an agitator said that all these disastrous details were true of
Austria-Hungary also; and in fierce language he demanded the expulsion of
the Jews. When politicians come out without a blush and read the baby
act in this frank way, unrebuked, it is a very good indication that they
have a market back of them, and know where to fish for votes.

You note the crucial point of the mentioned agitation; the argument is
that the Christian cannot compete with the Jew, and that hence his very
bread is in peril. To human beings this is a much more hate-inspiring
thing than is any detail connected with religion. With most people, of a
necessity, bread and meat take first rank, religion second. I am
convinced that the persecution of the Jew is not due in any large degree
to religious prejudice.

No, the Jew is a money-getter; and in getting his money he is a very
serious obstruction to less capable neighbours who are on the same quest.
I think that that is the trouble. In estimating worldly values the Jew
is not shallow, but deep. With precocious wisdom he found out in the
morning of time that some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some
worship power, some worship God, and that over these ideals they dispute
and cannot unite–but that they all worship money; so he made it the end
and aim of his life to get it. He was at it in Egypt thirty-six
centuries ago; he was at it in Rome when that Christian got persecuted by
mistake for him; he has been at it ever since. The cost to him has been
heavy; his success has made the whole human race his enemy–but it has
paid, for it has brought him envy, and that is the only thing which
men will sell both soul and body to get. He long ago observed
that a millionaire commands respect, a two-millionaire homage,
a multi-millionaire the deepest deeps of adoration. We all know that
feeling; we have seen it express itself. We have noticed that when the
average man mentions the name of a multi-millionaire he does it with that
mixture in his voice of awe and reverence and lust which burns in a
Frenchman’s eye when it falls on another man’s centime.

Point No. 4–’The Jews have no party; they are non-participants.’

Perhaps you have let the secret out and given yourself away. It seems
hardly a credit to the race that it is able to say that; or to you, sir,
that you can say it without remorse; more, that you should offer it as a
plea against maltreatment, injustice, and oppression. Who gives the Jew
the right, who gives any race the right, to sit still in a free country,
and let somebody else look after its safety? The oppressed Jew was
entitled to all pity in the former times under brutal autocracies, for he
was weak and friendless, and had no way to help his case. But he has
ways now, and he has had them for a century, but I do not see that he has
tried to make serious use of then. When the Revolution set him free in
France it was an act of grace–the grace of other people; he does not
appear in it as a helper. I do not know that he helped when England set
him free. Among the Twelve Sane Men of France who have stepped forward
with great Zola at their head to fight (and win, I hope and believe[3])
the battle for the most infamously misused Jew of modern times, do you
find a great or rich or illustrious Jew helping? In the United States he
was created free in the beginning–he did not need to help, of course.
In Austria and Germany and France he has a vote, but of what considerable
use is it to him? He doesn’t seem to know how to apply it to the best
effect. With all his splendid capacities and all his fat wealth he is
to-day not politically important in any country. In America, as early as
1854, the ignorant Irish hod-carrier, who had a spirit of his own and a
way of exposing it to the weather, made it apparent to all that he must
be politically reckoned with; yet fifteen years before that we hardly
knew what an Irishman looked like. As an intelligent force and
numerically, he has always been away down, but he has governed the
country just the same. It was because he was organised. It made his
vote valuable–in fact, essential.

You will say the Jew is everywhere numerically feeble. That is nothing
to the point–with the Irishman’s history for an object-lesson. But I am
coming to your numerical feebleness presently. In all parliamentary
countries you could no doubt elect Jews to the legislatures–and even one
member in such a body is sometimes a force which counts. How deeply have
you concerned yourselves about this in Austria, France, and Germany? Or
even in America, for that matter? You remark that the Jews were not to
blame for the riots in this Reichsrath here, and you add with
satisfaction that there wasn’t one in that body. That is not strictly
correct; if it were, would it not be in order for you to explain it and
apologise for it, not try to make a merit of it? But I think that the
Jew was by no means in as large force there as he ought to have been,
with his chances. Austria opens the suffrage to him on fairly liberal
terms, and it must surely be his own fault that he is so much in the
background politically.

As to your numerical weakness. I mentioned some figures awhile ago
–500,00–as the Jewish population of Germany. I will add some more
–6,000,000 in Russia, 5,000,000 in Austria, 250,000 in the United States.
I take them from memory; I read them in the ‘Encyclopaedia Brittannica’
ten or twelve years ago. Still, I am entirely sure of them. If those
statistics are correct, my argument is not as strong as it ought to be as
concerns America, but it still has strength. It is plenty strong enough
as concerns Austria, for ten years ago 5,000,000 was nine per cent of the
empire’s population. The Irish would govern the Kingdom of Heaven if
they had a strength there like that.

I have some suspicions; I got them at second-hand, but they have remained
with me these ten or twelve years. When I read in the ‘E.B.’ that the
Jewish population of the United States was 250,000 I wrote the editor,
and explained to him that I was personally acquainted with more Jews than
that in my country, and that his figures were without a doubt a misprint
for 25,000,000. I also added that I was personally acquainted with that
many there; but that was only to raise his confidence in me, for it was
not true. His answer miscarried, and I never got it; but I went around
talking about the matter, and people told me they had reason to suspect
that for business reasons many Jews whose dealings were mainly with the
Christians did not report themselves as Jews in the census. It looked
plausible; it looks plausible yet. Look at the city of New York; and
look at Boston, and Philadelphia, and New Orleans, and Chicago, and
Cincinnati, and San Francisco–how your race swarms in those places!–and
everywhere else in America, down to the least little village. Read the
signs on the marts of commerce and on the shops; Goldstein (gold stone),
Edelstein (precious stone), Blumenthal (flower-vale), Rosenthal
(rose-vale), Veilchenduft (violent odour), Singvogel (song-bird),
Rosenzweig (rose branch), and all the amazing list of beautiful and
enviable names which Prussia and Austria glorified you with so long ago.
It is another instance of Europe’s coarse and cruel persecution of your
race; not that it was coarse and cruel to outfit it with pretty and
poetical names like those, but it was coarse and cruel to make it pay for
them or else take such hideous and often indecent names that to-day their
owners never use them; or, if they do, only on official papers. And it
was the many, not the few, who got the odious names, they being too poor
to bribe the officials to grant them better ones.

Now why was the race renamed? I have been told that in Prussia it was
given to using fictitious names, and often changing them, so as to beat
the tax-gatherer, escape military service, and so on; and that finally
the idea was hit upon of furnishing all the inmates of a house with one
and the same surname, and then holding the house responsible right along
for those inmates, and accountable for any disappearances that might
occur; it made the Jews keep track of each other, for self-interest’s
sake, and saved the Government the trouble[4].

If that explanation of how the Jews of Prussia came to be renamed is
correct, if it is true that they fictitiously registered themselves to
gain certain advantages, it may possible be true that in America they
refrain from registered themselves as Jews to fend off the damaging
prejudices of the Christian customer. I have no way of knowing whether
this notion is well founded or not. There may be other and better ways
of explaining why only that poor little 250,000 of our Jews got into the
‘Encyclopaedia’. I may, of course, be mistaken, but I am strongly of the
opinion that we have an immense Jewish population in America.

Point No. 3–’Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?’

I think so. If I may make a suggestion without seeming to be trying to
teach my grandmother to suck eggs, I will offer it. In our days we have
learned the value of combination. We apply it everywhere–in railway
systems, in trusts, in trade unions, in Salvation Armies, in minor
politics, in major politics, in European Concerts. Whatever our strength
may be, big or little, we organise it. We have found out that that is
the only way to get the most out of it that is in it. We know the
weakness of individual sticks, and the strength of the concentrated
faggot. Suppose you try a scheme like this, for instance. In England
and America put every Jew on the census-book as a Jew (in case you have
not been doing that). Get up volunteer regiments composed of Jews
solely, and when the drum beats, fall in and go to the front, so as to
remove the reproach that you have few Massenas among you, and that you
feed on a country but don’t like to fight for it. Next, in politics,
organise your strength, band together, and deliver the casting-vote where
you can, and, where you can’t, compel as good terms as possible. You
huddle to yourselves already in all countries, but you huddle to no
sufficient purpose, politically speaking. You do not seem to be
organised, except for your charities. There you are omnipotent; there
you compel your due of recognition–you do not have to beg for it. It
shows what you can do when you band together for a definite purpose.

And then from America and England you can encourage your race in Austria,
France, and Germany, and materially help it. It was a pathetic tale that
was told by a poor Jew a fortnight ago during the riots, after he had
been raided by the Christian peasantry and despoiled of everything he
had. He said his vote was of no value to him, and he wished he could be
excused from casting it, for indeed, casting it was a sure damage to him,
since, no matter which party he voted for, the other party would come
straight and take its revenge out of him. Nine per cent of the
population, these Jews, and apparently they cannot put a plank into any
candidate’s platform! If you will send our Irish lads over here I think
they will organise your race and change the aspect of the Reichsrath.

You seem to think that the Jews take no hand in politics here, that they
are ‘absolutely non-participants.’ I am assured by men competent to
speak that this is a very large error, that the Jews are exceedingly
active in politics all over the empire, but that they scatter their work
and their votes among the numerous parties, and thus lose the advantages
to be had by concentration. I think that in America they scatter too,
but you know more about that than I do.

Speaking of concentration, Dr. Herzl has a clear insight into the value
of that. Have you heard of his plan? He wishes to gather the Jews of
the world together in Palestine, with a government of their own–under
the suzerainty of the Sultan, I suppose. At the Convention of Berne,
last year, there were delegates from everywhere, and the proposal was
received with decided favour. I am not the Sultan, and I am not
objecting; but if that concentration of the cunningest brains in the
world were going to be made in a free country (bar Scotland), I think it
would be politic to stop it. It will not be well to let that race find
out its strength. If the horses knew theirs, we should not ride any
more.

Point No. 5.–’Will the persecution of the Jews ever come to an end?’

On the score of religion, I think it has already come to an end. On the
score of race prejudice and trade, I have the idea that it will continue.
That is, here and there in spots about the world, where a barbarous
ignorance and a sort of mere animal civilisation prevail; but I do not
think that elsewhere the Jew need now stand in any fear of being robbed
and raided. Among the high civilisations he seems to be very comfortably
situated indeed, and to have more than his proportionate share of the
prosperities going. It has that look in Vienna. I suppose the race
prejudice cannot be removed; but he can stand that; it is no particular
matter. By his make and ways he is substantially a foreigner wherever he
may be, and even the angels dislike a foreigner. I am using this world
foreigner in the German sense–stranger. Nearly all of us have an
antipathy to a stranger, even of our own nationality. We pile grip-sacks
in a vacant seat to keep him from getting it; and a dog goes further, and
does as a savage would–challenges him on the spot. The German
dictionary seems to make no distinction between a stranger and a
foreigner; in its view a stranger is a foreigner–a sound position,
I think. You will always be by ways and habits and predilections
substantially strangers–foreigners–wherever you are, and that will
probably keep the race prejudice against you alive.

But you were the favourites of Heaven originally, and your manifold and
unfair prosperities convince me that you have crowded back into that snug
place again. Here is an incident that is significant. Last week in
Vienna a hailstorm struck the prodigious Central Cemetery and made
wasteful destruction there. In the Christian part of it, according to
the official figures, 621 window-panes were broken; more than 900
singing-birds were killed; five great trees and many small ones were torn
to shreds and the shreds scattered far and wide by the wind; the
ornamental plants and other decorations of the graces were ruined, and
more than a hundred tomb-lanterns shattered; and it took the cemetery’s
whole force of 300 labourers more than three days to clear away the
storm’s wreckage. In the report occurs this remark–and in its italics
you can hear it grit its Christian teeth: ‘…lediglich die israelitische
Abtheilung des Friedhofes vom Hagelwetter ganzlich verschont worden war.’
Not a hailstone hit the Jewish reservation! Such nepotism makes me
tired.

Point No. 6.–’What has become of the Golden Rule?’

It exists, it continues to sparkle, and is well taken care of. It is
Exhibit A in the Church’s assets, and we pull it out every Sunday and
give it an airing. But you are not permitted to try to smuggle it into
this discussion, where it is irrelevant and would not feel at home.
It is strictly religious furniture, like an acolyte, or a
contribution-plate, or any of those things. It has never intruded into
business; and Jewish persecution is not a religious passion, it is a
business passion.

To conclude.–If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one
per cent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust
lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be
heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as
prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial
importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his
bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in
literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning
are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has
made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it
with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be
excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose,
filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-stuff and
passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and
they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for
a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have
vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always
was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his
parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive
mind. All things are mortal to the Jew; all other forces pass, but he
remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

Postscript–THE JEW AS SOLDIER

When I published the above article in ‘Harper’s Monthly,’ I was ignorant
–like the rest of the Christian world–of the fact that the Jew had a
record as a soldier. I have since seen the official statistics, and I
find that he furnished soldiers and high officers to the Revolution, the
War of 1812, and the Mexican War. In the Civil War he was represented in
the armies and navies of both the North and the South by 10 per cent of
his numerical strength–the same percentage that was furnished by the
Christian populations of the two sections. This large fact means more
than it seems to mean; for it means that the Jew’s patriotism was not
merely level with the Christian’s, but overpassed it. When the Christian
volunteer arrived in camp he got a welcome and applause, but as a rule
the Jew got a snub. His company was not desired, and he was made to feel
it. That he nevertheless conquered his wounded pride and sacrificed both
that and his blood for his flag raises the average and quality of his
patriotism above the Christian’s. His record for capacity, for fidelity,
and for gallant soldiership in the field is as good as any one’s. This
is true of the Jewish private soldiers and of the Jewish generals alike.
Major-General O. O. Howard speaks of one of his Jewish staff officers as
being ‘of the bravest and best;’ of another–killed at Chancellorsville
–as being ‘a true friend and a brave officer;’ he highly praises two of
his Jewish brigadier-generals; finally, he uses these strong words:
‘Intrinsically there are no more patriotic men to be found in the country
than those who claim to be of Hebrew descent, and who served with me in
parallel commands or more directly under my instructions.’

Fourteen Jewish Confederate and Union families contributed, between them,
fifty-one soldiers to the war. Among these, a father and three sons; and
another, a father and four sons.

In the above article I was neither able to endorse nor repel the common
approach that the Jew is willing to feed upon a country but not to fight
for it, because I did not know whether it was true or false. I supposed
it to be true, but it is not allowable to endorse wandering maxims upon
supposition–except when one is trying to make out a case. That slur
upon the Jew cannot hold up its head in presence of the figures of the
War Department. It has done its work, and done it long and faithfully,
and with high approval: it ought to be pensioned off now, and retired
from active service.

[1] See ‘Stirring Times in Austria,’ in this volume.

[2] Here is another piece of picturesque history; and it reminds us that
shabbiness and dishonesty are not the monopoly of any race or creed, but
are merely human:

‘Congress has passed a bill to pay $379.56 to Moses Pendergrass, of
Libertyville, Missouri. The story of the reason of this liberality is
pathetically interesting, and shows the sort of pickle that an honest man
may get into who undertakes to do an honest job of work for Uncle Sam.
In 1886 Moses Pendergrass put in a bid for the contract to carry the mail
on the route from Knob Lick to Libertyville and Coffman, thirty miles a
day, from July 1, 1887, for one years. He got the postmaster at Knob
Lick to write the letter for him, and while Moses intended that his bid
should be $400, his scribe carelessly made it $4. Moses got the
contract, and did not find out about the mistake until the end of the
first quarter, when he got his first pay. When he found at what rate he
was working he was sorely cast down, and opened communication with the
Post Office Department. The department informed his that he must either
carry out his contract or throw it up, and that if he threw it up his
bondsman would have the pay the Government $1,459.85 damages. So Moses
carried out his contract, walked thirty miles every week-day for a year,
and carried the mail, and received for his labour $4, or, to be accurate,
$6.84; for, the route being extended after his bid was accepted, his pay
was proportionately increased. Now, after ten years, a bill was finally
passed to pay to Moses the difference between what he earned in that
unlucky year and what he received.’

The ‘Sun,’ which tells the above story, says that bills were introduced
in three or four Congresses for Moses’ relief, and that committees
repeatedly investigated his claim.

It took six Congresses, containing in their persons the compressed
virtues of 70,000,000 of people, and cautiously and carefully giving
expression to those virtues in the fear of God and the next election,
eleven years to find out some way to cheat a fellow Christian out of
about $13 on his honestly executed contract, and out of nearly $300 due
him on its enlarged terms. And they succeeded. During the same time
they paid out $1,000,000,000 in pensions–a third of it unearned and
undeserved. This indicates a splendid all-round competency in theft, for
it starts with farthings, and works its industries all the way up to
ship-loads. It may be possible that the Jews can beat this, but the man
that bets on it is taking chances.

[3] The article was written in the summer of 1898.

[4] In Austria the renaming was merely done because the Jews in some
newly-acquired regions had no surnames, but were mostly named Abraham and
Moses, and therefore the tax-gatherer could tell t’other from which, and
was likely to lose his reason over the matter. The renaming was put into
the hands of the War Department, and a charming mess the graceless young
lieutenants made of it. To them a Jew was of no sort of consequence, and
they labelled the race in a way to make the angels weep. As an example,
take these two: Abraham Bellyache and Schmul Godbedamned–Culled from
‘Namens Studien,’ by Karl Emil Fransos.

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

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the barroom stove of the
dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp of Angel’s, and I
noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of
winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He
roused up, and gave me good-day. I told him a friend had commissioned
me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood
named Leonidas W. Smiley–Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young
minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of
Angel’s Camp. I added that if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about
this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to
him.

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his
chair, and then sat down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which
follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never
changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned his
initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of
enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a
vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly
that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or
funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter,
and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse.
I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once.

“Rev. Leonidas W. H’m, Reverend Le–well, there was a feller here once
by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of ‘49–or may be it was
the spring of ‘50–I don’t recollect exactly, somehow, though what
makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big
flume warn’t finished when he first came to the camp; but any way, he
was the curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up
you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if
he couldn’t he’d change sides. Any way that suited the other man would
suit him–any way just so’s he got a bet, he was satisfied. But
still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He
was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn’t be no
solit’ry thing mentioned but that feller’d offer to bet on it, and
take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a
horse-race, you’d find him flush or you’d find him busted at the end
of it; if there was a dog-fight, he’d bet on it; if there was a
cat-fight, he’d bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he’d bet on
it; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you
which one would fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be
there reg’lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best
exhorter about here, and he was, too, and a good man. If he even see a
straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would
take him to get to–to wherever he was going to, and if you took him
up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find
out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of
the boys here has seen that Smiley and can tell you about him. Why, it
never made no difference to him–he’d bet on any thing–the
dangest feller. Parson Walker’s wife laid very sick once, for a good
while, and it seemed as if they warn’t going to save her; but one
morning he come in, and Smiley up and asked him how she was, and he
said she was considerable better–thank the Lord for his inf’nit’
mercy–and coming on so smart that with the blessing of Prov’dence
she’d get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, ‘Well, I’ll
risk two-and-a-half she don’t anyway.’”

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

And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you’d think he
warn’t worth a cent but to set around and look ornery and lay for a
chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him he was a
different dog; his under-jaw’d begin to stick out like the fo’-castle
of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover and shine like the
furnaces. And a dog might tackle him and bully-rag him, and bite him,
and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew
Jackson–which was the name of the pup–Andrew Jackson would never let
on but what he was satisfied, and hadn’t expected nothing else–and
the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time,
till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that
other dog jest by the j’int of his hind leg and freeze to it–not
chaw, you understand, but only just grip and hang on till they throwed
up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that
pup, till he harnessed a dog once that didn’t have no hind legs,
because they’d been sawed off in a circular saw, and when the thing
had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to
make a snatch for his pet holt, he see in a minute how he’d been
imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak,
and he ‘peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like,
and didn’t try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out
bad. He gave Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and
it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn’t no hind legs for
him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and
then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup,
was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if
he’d lived, for the stuff was in him and he had genius–I know it,
because he hadn’t no opportunities to speak of, and it don’t stand to
reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them
circumstances if he hadn’t no talent. It always makes me feel sorry
when I think of that last fight of his’n, and the way it turned out.

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

Well, Smiley kep’ the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to
fetch him downtown sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller–a
stranger in the camp, he was–come acrost him with his box, and says:

“What might be that you’ve got in the box?”

And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, “It might be a parrot, or it
might be a canary, maybe, but it ain’t–it’s only just a frog.”

And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round
this way and that, and says, “H’m–so ’tis. Well, what’s he good
for?”

“Well,” Smiley says, easy and careless, “he’s good enough for one
thing, I should judge–he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.”

The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look,
and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, “Well,” he
says, “I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any
other frog.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Smiley says. “Maybe you understand frogs and maybe
you don’t understand ‘em; maybe you’ve had experience, and maybe you
ain’t only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I’ve got my opinion and
I’ll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras
County.”

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

And then Smiley says, “That’s all right–that’s all right–if you’ll
hold my box a minute, I’ll go and get you a frog.” And so the feller
took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley’s, and
set down to wait.

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

“Now, if you’re ready, set him alongside of Dan’l, with his forepaws
just even with Dan’l’s, and I’ll give the word.” Then he says,
“One–two–three–git!” and him and the feller touched up the frogs
from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively, but Dan’l give a
heave, and hysted up his shoulders–so–like a Frenchman, but it
warn’t no use–he couldn’t budge; he was planted as solid as a church,
and he couldn’t no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a
good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn’t have no
idea what the matter was, of course.

The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out
at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder–so–at
Dan’l, and says again, very deliberate, “Well,” he says, “I don’t
see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.”

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan’l a long
time, and at last says, “I do wonder what in the nation that frog
throwed off for–I wonder if there ain’t something the matter with
him–he ‘pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.” And he ketched Dan’l up
by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, “Why blame my cats
if he don’t weigh five pounds!” and turned him upside down and he
belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and
he was the maddest man–he set the frog down and took out after that
feller, but he never ketched him. And—-

(Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got
up to see what was wanted.) And turning to me as he moved away, he
said: “Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy–I ain’t going
to be gone a second.”

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

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

“Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller, one-eyed cow that didn’t have no
tail, only jest a short stump like a bannanner, and—-”

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