So I said, "What does he wish to see me for?" and Sylvester said, "Ah couldn't ask him, sah; he, wuz a genlinun." "Return instantly," I thundered, "and inquire his mission. Ask him what's his game." Well, Sylvester returned with the announcement that he had lightning-rods to sell. "Indeed," said I, "things are coming to a fine pass when lightning-rod agents send up engraved cards." "He has pictures," added Sylvester. "Pictures, indeed! He maybe peddling etchings. Has he a Russia leather case?" But Sylvester was too frightened to remember. I said; "I am going down to make it hot for that upstart!"
I went down the stairs, working up my temper all the way. When I got to the parlor I was in a fine frenzy concealed beneath a veneer of frigid courtesy. And when I looked in the door, sure enough he had a Russia leather case in his hand. But I didn't happen to notice that it was our Russia leather case.
And if you'd believe me, that man was sitting with a whole gallery of etchings spread out before him. But I didn't happen to notice that they were our etchings, spread out by some member of my family for some unguessed purpose.
Very curtly I asked the gentleman his business. With a surprised, timid manner he faltered that he had met my wife and daughter at Onteora, and they had asked him to call. Fine lie, I thought, and I froze him.
He seemed to be kind of non-plussed, and sat there fingering the etchings in the case until I told him he needn't bother, because we had those. That pleased him so much that he leaned over, in an embarrassed way, to pick up another from the floor. But I stopped him. I said, "We've got that, too." He seemed pitifully amazed, but I was congratulating myself on my great success.
Finally the gentleman asked where Mr. Winton lived; he'd met him in the mountains, too. So I said I'd show him gladly. And I did on the spot. And when he was gone I felt queer, because there were all his etchings spread out on the floor.
Well, my wife came in and asked me who had been in. I showed her the card, and told her all exultantly. To my dismay she nearly fainted. She told me he had been a most kind friend to them in the country, and had forgotten to tell me that he was expected our way. And she pushed me out of the door, and commanded me to get over to the Wintons in a hurry and get him back.
I came into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Winton was sitting up very stiff in a chair, beating me at my own game. Well, I began, to put another light on things. Before many seconds Mrs. Winton saw it was time to change her temperature. In five minutes I had asked the man to luncheon, and she to dinner, and so on.
We made that fellow change his trip and stay a week, and we gave him the time of his life. Why, I don't believe we let him get sober the whole time.
I trust that you will carry away some good thought from these lessons I have given you, and that the memory of them will inspire you to higher things, and elevate you to plans far above the old--and--and--
And I tell you one thing, young ladies: I've had a better time with you to-day than with that peach fifty-three years ago.
QUEEN VICTORIA
ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES CLUB, AT DELMONICO'S, MONDAY, MAY 25, IN HONOR OF QUEEN VICTORIA'S BIRTHDAY
Mr. Clemens told the story of his duel with a rival editor: how he practised firing at a barn door and failed to hit it, but a friend of his took off the head of a little bird at thirty-five yards and attributed the shot to Mark twain. The duel did not take place. Mr. Clemens continued as follows:
It also happened that I was the means of stopping duelling in Nevada, for a law was passed sending all duellists to jail for two years, and the Governor, hearing of my marksmanship, said that if he got me I should go to prison for the full term. That's why I left Nevada, and I have not been there since.
You do me a high honor, indeed, in selecting me to speak of my country in this commemoration of the birthday of that noble lady whose life was consecrated to the virtues and the humanities and to the promotion of lofty ideals, and was a model upon which many a humbler life was formed and made beautiful while she lived, and upon which many such lives will still be formed in the generations that are to come--a life which finds its just image in the star which falls out of its place in the sky and out of existence, but whose light still streams with unfaded lustre across the abysses of space long after its fires have been extinguished at their source.