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Mark Twain's Journal Writings, Volume 2 - Mark Twain · Jane Austen Works Collection

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  Speaker 1: This is section one of Mark Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Mark Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two by
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  Speaker 1: Mark Twain. Section one A Curious Experience, Part one read
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  Speaker 1: by John Greenman. This is the story which the Major
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  Speaker 1: told me, as nearly as I can recall it, in
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  Speaker 1: the winter of eighteen sixty two three I was commandant
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  Speaker 1: at Fort Trumbull, at New London, Connecticut. It may be
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  Speaker 1: our life there was not so brisk as life at
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  Speaker 1: the front. Still it was brisk enough in its way.
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  Speaker 1: One's brains didn't cake together there for want of something
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  Speaker 1: to keep them stirring. For one thing, all the northern
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  Speaker 1: atmosphere at that time was thick with mysterious rumors, rumors
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  Speaker 1: to the effect that rebel spies were flitting everywhere and
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  Speaker 1: getting ready to blow up our northern forts, burn our hotels,
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  Speaker 1: send infected clothing into our towns, and all that sort
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  Speaker 1: of thing. You remember it. All that had a tendency
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  Speaker 1: to keep us awake and knock the traditional dullness out
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  Speaker 1: of our garrison life besides ours was a recruiting station,
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  Speaker 1: which is the same as saying we didn't have any
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  Speaker 1: time to waste in dozing or dreaming or fooling around. Why,
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  Speaker 1: with all our watchfulness, fifty percent of a day's recruits
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  Speaker 1: would leak out of our hands and give us the
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  Speaker 1: slip the same night. The bounties were so prodigious that
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  Speaker 1: a recruit could pay a sentinel three or four hundred
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  Speaker 1: dollars to let him escape and still have enough of
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  Speaker 1: his bounty money left to constitute a fortune for a
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  Speaker 1: poor man. Yes, as I said before, our life was
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  Speaker 1: not drowsy. Well. One day I was in my quarters
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  Speaker 1: alone doing some writing, when a pale, ragged lad of
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  Speaker 1: fourteen or fifteen entered, made a neat bow, and said,
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  Speaker 1: I believe recruits are received here. Yes, will you please
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  Speaker 1: enlist me, sir, dear me, No, you are too young,
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  Speaker 1: my boy, and too small. A disappointed look came into
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  Speaker 1: his face and quickly deepened into an expression of despondency.
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  Speaker 1: He turned slowly away as if to go hesitated, then
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  Speaker 1: faced me again and said, in a tone which went
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  Speaker 1: to my heart, I have no home, not a friend
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  Speaker 1: in the world. If you could only enlist me. But
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  Speaker 1: of course the thing was out of the question, and
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  Speaker 1: I said so as gently as I could. Then I
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  Speaker 1: told him to sit down by the stove and warm himself,
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  Speaker 1: and added, you shall have something to eat presently you
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  Speaker 1: are hungry. He did not answer, he did not need to.
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  Speaker 1: The gratitude in his big, soft eyes was more eloquent
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  Speaker 1: than any words could have been. He sat down by
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  Speaker 1: the stove and I went on writing. Occasionally I took
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  Speaker 1: a furtive glance at him. I noticed that his clothes
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  Speaker 1: and shoes, although soiled and damaged, were of good style
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  Speaker 1: and material. This fact was suggestive. To this, I added
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  Speaker 1: the facts that his voice was low and musical, his
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  Speaker 1: eyes deep and melancholy, his carriage and address gentlemanly. Evidently
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  Speaker 1: the poor chap was in trouble. As a result, I
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  Speaker 1: was interested. However, I became absorbed in my work by
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  Speaker 1: and by and forgot all about the boy. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know how long this lasted, but at length I happened
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  Speaker 1: to look up. The boy's back was toward me, but
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  Speaker 1: his face was turned in such a way that I
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  Speaker 1: could see one of his cheeks, and down that cheek
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  Speaker 1: a rill of noiseless tears was flowing. God bless my soul,
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  Speaker 1: I said to myself, I forgot the poor rat was starving.
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  Speaker 1: Then I made amends for my brutality by saying to him,
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  Speaker 1: come along, my lad, you shall dine with me. I
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  Speaker 1: am alone to day. He gave me another of those
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  Speaker 1: grateful looks, and a happy light broke in his face.
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  Speaker 1: At the table, he stood with his hands on his
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  Speaker 1: chair back until I was seated, then seated himself. I
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  Speaker 1: took up my knife and fork, and well I simply
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  Speaker 1: held them and kept still, for the boy had inclined
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  Speaker 1: his head and was saying a silent grace. A thousand
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  Speaker 1: hallowed memories of home and my childhood poured in upon me,
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  Speaker 1: and I sighed to think how far I had drifted
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  Speaker 1: from religion and its balm for hurt minds, its comfort
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  Speaker 1: and solace and support. As our meal progressed, I observed
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  Speaker 1: that young Wickclough Robert Wicklow was his full name, knew
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  Speaker 1: what to do with his napkin, and well, in a word,
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  Speaker 1: I observed he was a boy of good breeding. Never
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  Speaker 1: mind the details. He had a simple frankness, too, which
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  Speaker 1: won upon me. We talked mainly about himself, and I
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  Speaker 1: had no difficulty in getting his history out of him.
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  Speaker 1: When he spoke of his having been born and reared
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  Speaker 1: in Louisiana, I warmed to him decidedly, for I had
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  Speaker 1: spent some time down there. I knew all the coast
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  Speaker 1: region of the Mississippi and loved it, and had not
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  Speaker 1: been long enough away from it for my interest in
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  Speaker 1: it to begin to pale. The very names that fell
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  Speaker 1: from his lips sounded good to me, so good that
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  Speaker 1: I steered the talk and directions that would bring them out. Baton, Rouge, Plaquemin, Donaldsonville,
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  Speaker 1: sixty Mile Point at carry, the stock Landing, Carrollton, the
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  Speaker 1: steamship Landing, the steam boat Landing New Orleans, Chapatoula Street,
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  Speaker 1: the Esplanade, Rue des Bonnes, Arfon, the Saint Charles Hotel,
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  Speaker 1: the Tivoli Circle, the Shell Road, Lake Ponture Train, And
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  Speaker 1: was particularly delightful to me to hear once more of
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  Speaker 1: the R. E Lee, the Natchez, the Eclipse, the General Quitman,
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  Speaker 1: the Duncan, f Kenner, and other old familiar steamboats. It
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  Speaker 1: was almost as good as being back there, these names
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  Speaker 1: so vividly reproduced in my mind that looks of things
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  Speaker 1: they stood for Briefly, this was little Wicklow's history. When
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  Speaker 1: the war broke out, he and his invalid aunt and
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  Speaker 1: his father were living near Baton Rouge, on a great
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  Speaker 1: rich plantation which had been in the family for fifty years.
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  Speaker 1: The father there was a union man. He was persecuted
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  Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways, but clung to his principles.
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  Speaker 1: At last, one night, masked men burned his mansion down,
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  Speaker 1: and the family had to fly for their lives. They
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  Speaker 1: were hunted from place to place and learned all there
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  Speaker 1: was to know about poverty, hunger, and distress. The invalid
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  Speaker 1: aunt found relief at last. Misery and exposure killed her.
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  Speaker 1: She died in an open field like a tramp, the
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  Speaker 1: rain beating upon her and the thunder booming overhead. Not
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  Speaker 1: long afterwards, the father was captured by an armed band,
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  Speaker 1: and while the son begged and pleaded, the victim was
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  Speaker 1: strung up before his face. At this point a baleful
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  Speaker 1: light shone in the youth's eyes, and he said, with
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  Speaker 1: the manner of one who talks to himself, if I
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  Speaker 1: cannot be enlisted, no matter, I shall find a way.
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  Speaker 1: As soon as the father was pronounced dead, the sun
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  Speaker 1: was told that if he was not out of that
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  Speaker 1: region within twenty four hours, it would go hard with him.
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  Speaker 1: That night, he crept to the river side and hid
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  Speaker 1: himself near a plantation landing by and by the duncan
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  Speaker 1: f Kenner stopped there, and he swam out and concealed
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  Speaker 1: himself in the yawl that was dragging at her stern.
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  Speaker 1: Before daylight the boat reached the stock landing and he
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  Speaker 1: slipped ashore. He walked the three miles that lay between
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  Speaker 1: that point and the house of an uncle of his
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  Speaker 1: in Good Children Street in New Orleans, and then his
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  Speaker 1: troubles were over for the time being. But his uncle
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  Speaker 1: was a union Man too, and before very long he
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  Speaker 1: concluded that he had better leave the south. So he
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  Speaker 1: and young Wicklow slipped out of the country on board
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  Speaker 1: a sailing vessel, and in due time reached New York.
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  Speaker 1: They put up at the Astor House. Young Wicklow had
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  Speaker 1: a good time of it for a while, strolling up
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  Speaker 1: and down Broadway and observing these strange northern sights. But
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  Speaker 1: in the end a change came, and not for the better.
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  Speaker 1: The uncle had been cheerful at first, but now he
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  Speaker 1: began to look troubled and despondent. Moreover, he became moody
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  Speaker 1: and irritable, talked of money giving out and no way
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  Speaker 1: to get more, not enough left for one, let alone too.
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  Speaker 1: Then one morning he was missing, did not come to breakfast.
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  Speaker 1: The boy inquired at the office and was told that
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  Speaker 1: the uncle had paid his bill the night before and
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  Speaker 1: gone away to Boston. The clerk believed, but was not certain.
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  Speaker 1: The lad was alone and friendless. He did not know
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  Speaker 1: what to do, but concluded he had better try to
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  Speaker 1: follow and find his uncle. He went down to the
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  Speaker 1: steamboat landing, learned that the trifle of money in his
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  Speaker 1: pocket would not carry him to Boston. However, it would
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  Speaker 1: carry him to New London, so he took passage for
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  Speaker 1: that port, resolving to trust to Providence to furnish him
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  Speaker 1: means to travel the rest of the way. He had
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  Speaker 1: now been wandering about the streets of New London three
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  Speaker 1: days and nights, getting a bite and a nap here
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  Speaker 1: and there for charity's sake, but he had given up
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  Speaker 1: at last. Courage and hope were both gone. If he
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  Speaker 1: could enlist, nobody could be more thankful. If he could
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  Speaker 1: not get in as a soldier, couldn't he be a
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  Speaker 1: drummer boy. Ah. He would work so hard to please
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  Speaker 1: and would be so grateful. Well, there's the history of
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  Speaker 1: young Wicklow, just as he told it to me, barring details.
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  Speaker 1: I said, my boy, you're among friends, now, don't you
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  Speaker 1: be troubled any more? How his eyes glistened. I called
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  Speaker 1: in Sergeant John Raeburn. He was from Hartford, lives in Hartford.
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  Speaker 1: Yet maybe you know him, and said Rayburn, quarter this
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  Speaker 1: boy with the musicians. I am going to enroll him
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  Speaker 1: as a drummer boy, and I want you to look
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  Speaker 1: after him and see that he is well. Try well.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, intercourse between the Commandant of the Post and
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  Speaker 1: the drummer boy came to an end now. But the
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  Speaker 1: poor little friendless chap lay heavy on my heart just
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  Speaker 1: the same. I kept on the lookout, hoping to see
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  Speaker 1: him brighten up and begin to be cheery and gay.
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  Speaker 1: But no, the days went by and there was no change.
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  Speaker 1: He associated with nobody. He was always absent, minded, always thinking.
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  Speaker 1: His face was always sad. One morning, Rayburn asked leave
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  Speaker 1: to speak to me privately, said he, I hope I
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  Speaker 1: don't offend, sir, But the truth is, the musicians are
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  Speaker 1: in such a sweat. It seems as if somebody's got
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  Speaker 1: to speak. Why, what is the trouble? It's the Wicklow boy, sir.
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  Speaker 1: The musicians are down on him to an extent you
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  Speaker 1: can't imagine. Well, go on, go on, what has he
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  Speaker 1: been doing? Praying, sir? Praying yes, sir? The musicians haven't
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  Speaker 1: any peace of their life for the boy praying. First
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  Speaker 1: thing in the morning he's at it, noon's he's at it,
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  Speaker 1: and knights well, nights he just lays on to them
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  Speaker 1: like all possessed sleep bless you. They can't sleep. He's
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  Speaker 1: got the floor, as the saying is. And then when
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  Speaker 1: he once gets his supplication mill a going there just
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  Speaker 1: simply ain't any let up to him. He starts in
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  Speaker 1: with the bandmaster and he prays for him. Next he
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  Speaker 1: takes the head bugler and he prays for him. Next
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  Speaker 1: the bass drum, and he scoops him in and so on,
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  Speaker 1: right straight through the band, giving them all a show
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  Speaker 1: and taking that amount of interest in it, which would
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  Speaker 1: make you think he thought he weren't but a little
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  Speaker 1: while for this world, and believed he couldn't be happy
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  Speaker 1: in heaven without he had a brass band along and
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  Speaker 1: wanted to pick him out for himself, so he could
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  Speaker 1: depend on him to do up the national tunes in
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  Speaker 1: a style suiting to the place. Well, sir, even boots
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  Speaker 1: at him don't have no effect. It's darkened there. And besides,
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  Speaker 1: he don't pray fair anyway, but kneels down behind the
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  Speaker 1: big drum, so it don't make no difference. If they
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  Speaker 1: ring boots at him, he don't give a urn, warbles
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  Speaker 1: right along, same as if it was applause. They sing out, oh,
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  Speaker 1: dry up and give us a rest, shoot him, oh,
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  Speaker 1: take a walk, and all sorts of such things. But
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  Speaker 1: what of it. It don't phaze him. He don't mind it.
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  Speaker 1: After a pause, kind of a good little fool too,
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  Speaker 1: gets up in the morning and carts all the stock
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  Speaker 1: of boots back and sorts him out and sets each
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  Speaker 1: man's pair where they belong. And they've been thrown at
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  Speaker 1: him so much now that he knows every boot in
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  Speaker 1: the band can sort him out with his eyes shut.
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  Speaker 1: After another pause, which I forbore to interrupt. But the
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  Speaker 1: roughest thing about it is that when he's done praying,
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  Speaker 1: when he ever does get done, he pipes up and
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  Speaker 1: begins to sing. Well, you know what a honey kind
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  Speaker 1: of a voice he's got when he talks. You know
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  Speaker 1: how it would persuade a cast iron dog to come
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  Speaker 1: down off us doorstep and lick his hand. Nah, if
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  Speaker 1: you'll take my word for it, sir, it ain't the
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  Speaker 1: circumstance to his singing. Flute music is harsh to that
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  Speaker 1: boy singing. Oh, he just gurgles it out so soft
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  Speaker 1: and sweet and low there in the dark. But it
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  Speaker 1: makes you think you are in heaven. What is there
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  Speaker 1: rough about that? Ah, that's just it, sir. You hear
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  Speaker 1: him sing just as I am, poor, wretched blind, And
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  Speaker 1: just you hear him sing that once, and see if
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  Speaker 1: you don't melt all up in the water, come into
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  Speaker 1: your eyes. I don't care what he sings. It goes
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  Speaker 1: plum straight home to you. It goes deep down to
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  Speaker 1: where you live, and it fetches you every time. And
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  Speaker 1: just you hear him sing, child of sin and sorrow,
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  Speaker 1: filled with dismay, Wait not till tomorrow yield thee to day,
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  Speaker 1: grieve that love which from above, and so on. It
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  Speaker 1: makes a body feel like the wickedest, ungratefulest brute that walks.
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  Speaker 1: And when he sings them songs of his about home
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  Speaker 1: and mother and childhood and old memories and things that's vanished,
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  Speaker 1: and old friend's dead and gone. It fetches everything before
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  Speaker 1: your face that you ever lost in all your life.
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  Speaker 1: And it's just beautiful. It's just divine to listen to, sir.
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  Speaker 1: But Lord Lord, the heartbreak of it. The band while
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  Speaker 1: they all cry, every rascal of them blubbers, and don't
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  Speaker 1: try to hide it either. And first you know that
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  Speaker 1: very gang that's been slamming boots, that that boy will
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  Speaker 1: skip out of their bunks all of a sudden and
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  Speaker 1: rush over in the dark and hug him, Yes they do,
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  Speaker 1: and slobber all over him and call him pet names
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  Speaker 1: and beg him to forgive them. And just at that time,
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  Speaker 1: if a regiment was to offer to hurt a hair
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  Speaker 1: of that cub's head, and they'd go for that regiment
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  Speaker 1: if it was a whole army corps. Another pause is
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  Speaker 1: that all said? I yes, sir, Well, dear me, what
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  Speaker 1: is the complaint? What do they want done done? Why?
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  Speaker 1: Bless you, sir? They want you to stop him from singing?
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  Speaker 1: What an idea you said? His music was divine? That's
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  Speaker 1: just it, it's too divine, mortal man, can't stand it.
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  Speaker 1: It stirs a body up, so it turns a body
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  Speaker 1: inside out. It racks his feelings all the rags. It
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  Speaker 1: makes him feel bad and wicked and not fit for
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  Speaker 1: any place but perdition. It keeps a body in such
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  Speaker 1: an everlasting state of repentant that nothing don't taste good
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  Speaker 1: and there ain't no comfort in life. And then the
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  Speaker 1: crime you see every morning, they're ashamed to look one
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  Speaker 1: another in the face. Well, this is an odd case
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  Speaker 1: and a singular complaint. So they really want the singing stopped, Yes, sir,
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  Speaker 1: that is the idea. They don't wish to ask too much.
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  Speaker 1: They would like powerful well, to have the praying shut
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  Speaker 1: down on or leastways trimmed off around the edges. But
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  Speaker 1: the main thing's the singing. If they can only get
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  Speaker 1: the singing choked off, they think they can stand the
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  Speaker 1: praying rough as it is to be bully ragged so
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  Speaker 1: much that way, I told the sergeant I would take
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  Speaker 1: the matter under consideration. That night, I crept into the
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  Speaker 1: musician's quarters and listened. The sergeant had not overstated the case.
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  Speaker 1: I heard the praying voice pleading in the dark. I
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: heard the execrations of the harassed men. I heard the
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: rain of boots whizz through the air and bang and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: thump around the big drum. The next thing touched me,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: but it amused me too, By and bye. After an
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: impressive silence came the singing Lord, the pathos of it,
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  Speaker 1: the enchantment of it. Nothing in the world was ever
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  Speaker 1: so sweet, so gracious, so tender, so holy, so moving.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I made my stay very brief. I was beginning to
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: experience emotions of a sort not proper to the commandant
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  Speaker 1: of a fortress. Next day I issued orders which stopped
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  Speaker 1: the praying and singing. Then followed three or four days
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  Speaker 1: which were so full of bounty jumping, excitements and irritations
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  Speaker 1: that I never once thought of my drummer boy. But
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: now comes Sergeant Rayburn one morning and says that new
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: boy acts mighty strange, sir, How well, sir, he's all
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the time writing writing What does he write letters? I
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: don't know, sir. But whenever he's off duty, he's poking
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  Speaker 1: and nosing around the fort all by himself. Lest if
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I can think there's a whole or corner in it
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  Speaker 1: he hasn't been into. And every little while he outs
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: with pencil and paper and scribbles something down. This gave
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: me a most unpleasant sensation. I wanted to scoff at it,
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  Speaker 1: but it was not a time to scoff at anything
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  Speaker 1: that had the least suspicious tinge about it. Things were
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: happening all around us in the north. Then that warned
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: us to be always on the alert and always suspecting.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: I re called to mind the suggestive fact that this
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  Speaker 1: boy was from the south, the extreme south Louisiana, and
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the thought was not of a reassuring nature under the circumstances. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: it cost me a pang to give the orders which
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I now gave to Rayburn. I felt like a father
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  Speaker 1: who plots to expose his own child to shame and injury.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I told Rayburn to keep quiet, bide his time, and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: get me some of those writings whenever he could manage
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  Speaker 1: it without the boys finding it out. And I charged
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: him not to do anything which might let the boy
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: discover that he was being watched. I also ordered that
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: he allowed the lad his usual liberties, but that he
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: be followed at a distance when he went out into
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the town. During the next two days, Rayburn reported to
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: me several times, no success. The boy was still writing,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: but he always pocketed his paper with a careless air.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Whenever Rayburn appeared in his vicinity, he had gone twice
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to an old deserted stable in the town, remained a
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: minute or two, and come out again. One could not
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: pooh pooh these things. They had an evil look. I
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: was obliged to confess to myself that I was getting uneasy.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I went into my private quarters and sent for my
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: second in command, an officer of intelligence and judgment, son
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: of General James Watson Webb. He was surprised and troubled.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: We had a long talk over the matter, and came
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: to the conclusion that it would be worth while to
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: institute a secret search. I determined to take charge of
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that myself, so I had myself called at two in
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the morning, and pretty soon after I was in the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: musicians quarters, crawling along the floor in my stomach among
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: them snorers. I reached my lumbering Waife's bunk at last,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: without disturbing anybody, captured his clothes and kit, and crawled
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: stealthily back again. When I got to my own quarters,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: I found Webb there, waiting and eager to know the result.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: We made search immediately The clothes were a disappointment. In
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the pockets we found blank paper and pencil, nothing else
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: except a jackknife, and such queer odds and ends and
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: useless trifles as boy's hoard and value. We turned to
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the kit, hopefully nothing there but a rebuke for us,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: a little bible with this written on the fly leaf, stranger,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: be kind to my boy for his mother's sake. I
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: looked at Webb. He dropped his eyes. He looked at me,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and I dropped mine. Neither spoke. I put the book
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: reverently back in its place. Presently Webb got up and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: went away without remark. After a little I nerved myself
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: up to my unpalatable job and took the plunder back
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: to where it belonged, crawling on my stomach. As before,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: it seemed the peculiarly appropriate attitude for the business I
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: was in. I was most honestly glad when it was
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: over and done with. About noon the next day, Rayburn came,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: as usual to report. I cut him short. I said,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: let this nonsense be dropped. We are making a bugaboo
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: out of a poor little cub who has got no
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: more harm in him than a hymn book. The sergeant
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: looked surprised and said, well, you know it was your orders, sir,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and I've got some of the writing, and what does
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: it amount to? How did you get it? I peeped
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: through the keyhole and see him writing, So when I
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: judged he was about done, I made a sort of
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: a little cough, and I see him crumple it up
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and throw it in the fire and look all around
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to see if anybody was coming. Then he settled back,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: as comfortable and careless as anything. Then I comes in
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and passes the time of day pleasantly and sends him
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: on an errand he never looked uneasy, but went right along.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: It was a coal fire and new built. The writing
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: had gone over behind a chunk out of sight, but
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I got it out there. It is. It ain't hardly
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: scorched to see. I glanced at the paper and took
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: in a sentence or two. Then I dismissed the sergeant
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and told him to send Webb to me. Here is
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the paper in full for Trumbull, the eighth Colonel. I
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: was mistaken as to the caliber of the three guns.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I ended my list with they are eighteen pounders. All
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the rest of the armament is as I stated. The
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: garrison remains as before reported, except that the two light
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: infantry companies that were to be detached for service at
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the front are to stay here for the present. Can't
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: find out for how long just now, but we'll soon.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: We are satisfied that all things considered, matters had better
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: be postponed. And there it broke off, there where Rayburn
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: coughed and interrupted the writer. All my affection for the boy,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: all my respect for him and charity for his forlorn condition,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: withered in a moment under the blight of this revelation
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of cold blooded baseness. But never mind about that. Here
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: was business, business that required profound and immediate attention too.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Webb and I turned the subject over and over and
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: examined it all around. Webb said, what a pity he
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: was interrupted. Something is going to be postponed until when?
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: And what is the something? Possibly he would have mentioned it,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: the pious little reptile. Yes, I said, we have missed
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a trick. And who is we in the letter? Is
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: it conspirators inside the ford or outside? That we was
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: uncomfortably suggestive. However, it was not worthwhile to be guessing
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: around that, so we proceeded to matters more practical. In
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the first place, we decided to double the sentries and
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: keep the strictest possible watch. Next, we thought of calling
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Wicklow in and making him divulge everything, but that did
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: not seem wisest. Until other methods should fail, we must
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: have some more of the writings. So he began to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: plan to that end, and now we had an idea.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Wicklow never went to the post office. Perhaps the deserted
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: stable was his post office. We sent for my confidential clerk,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: a young German named Stern, who was a sort of
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: natural detective, and told him all about the case and
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: ordered him to go to work on it. Within the
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: hour we got word that Wicklow was writing again. Shortly
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: afterward word came that he had asked to leave to
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: go out into the town. He was detained awhile, and
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: meantime Sterne hurried off and concealed himself in the stable.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: By and by he saw Wicklow, sawt her In look
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: about him, then hide something under some rubbish in a corner,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: and take leisurely leave again. Stern pounced upon the hidden
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: article a letter, and brought it to us. It had
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: no superscription and no signature. It repeated what we had
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: already read, and then went on to say, we think
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: it best to postpone till the two companies are gone.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I mean the four inside think so have not communicated
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: with the others afraid of attracting attention. I say four
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: because we have lost two. They had hardly enlisted and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: got inside when they were shipped off to the front.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: It will be absolutely necessary to have two in their places.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: The two that went were the brothers from thirty mile point.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I have something of the greatest importance to reveal, but
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: must not trust it to this method of communication. We'll
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: try the other the little scoundrel, said Webb, who could
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: have supposed he was a spy. However, never mind about that.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Let us add up our particulars, such as they are,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: and see how the case stands to date. First, we've
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: got a rebel spy in our mits, whom we know. Secondly,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: we've got three more in our mits whom we don't know. Thirdly,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: these spies have been introduced among us through the simple
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: and easy process of enlisting as soldiers in the Union Army. Inevidently,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: two of them have got sold at it and been
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: shipped off to the front. Fourthly, there are assistant spies
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: outside number indefinite. Fifthly, Wicklow has very important matter which
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: he is afraid to communicate by the present method, will
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: try the other. That is the case as it now stands.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Shall we caller Wicklow and make him confess? Or shall
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: we catch the person who removes the letters from the
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: stable and make him tell? Or shall we keep still
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: and find out more? We decided upon the last course.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: We judged that we did not need to proceed to
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: summary measure now, since it was evident that the conspirators
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: were likely to wait till those two light infantry companies
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: were out of the way. We fortified Stern with pretty
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: ample powers and told him to use his best endeavors
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: to find out Wicklow's other method of communication. We meant
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: to play a bold game, and to this end we
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: proposed to keep the spies in an unsuspecting state as
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: long as possible. So we ordered Stern to return to
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: the stable immediately, and if he found the coast clear,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: to conceal Wicklow's letter where it was before and leave
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: it there for the conspirators to get the night closed
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: down without further event. It was cold and dark and sleety,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: with a raw wind blowing still. I turned out of
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: my warm bed several times during the night and went
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the rounds in person to see that all was right,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: and that every century was on the alert. I always
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: found them wide awake and watchful. Evidently whispers of mysterious
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: dangers been floating about, and the doubling of the guards
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: had been a kind of endorsement of those rumors. Once
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: toward morning I encountered Webb breasting his way against the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: bitter wind, and learned then that he also had been
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the round several times to see that all was going right.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Next day's events hurried things up somewhat. Wicklow wrote another letter.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Stern preceded him to the stable and saw him deposit it,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: captured it as soon as Wicklow was out of the way,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: then slipped out and followed the little spy at a distance,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: with a detective in plain clothes at his own heels,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: for we thought it judicious to have the laws assistance
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: handy in case of need. Wicklow went to the railroad
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: station and waited around till the train from New York
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: came in. Then stood scanning the faces of the crowd
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: as they poured out of the cars. Presently, an aged
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: gentleman with green goggles and a cane came limping along,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: stopped in Wicklow's neighborhood and began to look about him expectantly.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: In an instant, Wicklow darted forward, thrust an envelope into
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: his hand, then glided away and disappeared in the throng.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: The next instant, Sterne had snatched the letter, and as
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: he hurried past the detective, he said, follow the old gentleman,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: don't lose sight of him. Then Sterne scurried out with
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the crowd and came straight to the fort. We sat
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: with closed door and instructed the guard outside to allow
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: no interruption. First we opened the letter captured at the stable.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: It read as follows Holy Alliance found in the usual gun.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Commands from the Master left there last night, which set
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: aside the instructions heretofore received from the subordinate quarter. Have
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: left in the gun the usual indication that the commands
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: reached the proper hand. Webb interrupting, isn't the boy under
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: constant surveillance now? I said, yes. He had been under
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: strict surveillance ever since the capturing of his former letter. Then,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: how could he put anything into a gun or take
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: anything out of it and not get caught? Well, I said,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: I don't like the look of that very well. I
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: don't either, said Webb. It simply means that there are
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: conspirators among the very sentinels. Without their connivance in some
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: way or other, the thing couldn't have been done. I
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: sent for Rayburn and ordered him to examine the batteries
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and see what he could find. The reading of the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: letter was then resumed. The new commands are peremptory and
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: require that the M M M M shall be f
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: F F FF at three o'clock tomorrow morning. Two hundred
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: will arrive in small parties by train and otherwise from
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: various directions, and will be at appointed place at right time.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I will distribute the sign to day. Success is apparently sure,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: though something must have got out, for the centuries have
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: been doubled, and the chiefs went the rounds last night
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: several times. WW comes from southerly today and will receive
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: secret orders by the other method. All six of you
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: must be in one six six at sharp two a m.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: You will find E B there, who will give you
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: detailed instructions. Password same as last time, only reversed. Put
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: first syllable last and last syllable first. Remember x x
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: x X, do not forget be of good heart. Before
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the next sun rises, you will be heroes. Your fame
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: will be permanent. You will have added a deathless page
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: to history. Amen, thunder in Mars, said Webb. But we
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: are getting into mighty hot quarters. As I look at it,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I said, There was no question but that things were
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: beginning to wear a most serious aspect, said I. A
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: desperate enterprise is on foot. That is plain enough. Tonight
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: is the time set for that? Also is plain exact
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: nature of the enterprise, I mean, the manner of it
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: is hidden away under those blind bunches of m's and f's.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: But the end, and aim, I judge, is the surprise
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: and capture of the post. We must move quick and
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: sharp now, I think nothing can be gained by continuing
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: our clandestine policy. As regards Wicklow. We must know, and
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: as soon as possible too, where one six six is located,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: so that we can make a descent upon the gang
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: there at two a m. And doubtless the quickest way
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: to get that information will be to force it out
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: of that boy but first of all, and before we
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: make any important move, I must lay the facts before
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the War Department and ask for plenary powers. The despatch
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: was prepared in cipher to go over the wires. I
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: read it, approved it, and send it along. We presently
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: finished discussing the letter which was under consideration, and then
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: opened the one which had been snatched from the lame gentleman.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: It contained nothing but a couple of perfectly blank sheets
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: of note paper. It was a chilly check to our hot,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: eagerness and expectancy. We felt as blank as the paper
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: for a moment, and twice as foolish. But it was
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: for a moment only, for, of course, we immediately afterwards
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: thought of sympathetic ink. We held the paper close to
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: the fire and watched for the characters to come out
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: under the influence of the heat. But nothing appeared but
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: some faint tracings which we could make nothing of. We
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: then called in the surgeon and sent him off with
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: orders to apply every test he was acquainted with till
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: he got the right one, and report the contents of
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the letter to me the instant he brought them to
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: the surface. This check was a confounded annoyance and We
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: naturally chafed under the delay, for we had fully expected
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: to get out of that letter. Some of the most
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: important secrets of the plot. Now appeared. Sergeant Rayburn and
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: drew from his pocket a piece of twine string about
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: a foot long, with three knots tied in it, and
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: held it up. I got it out of a gun
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: on the water front, said he. I took the tompions
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: out of all the guns and examined close. This string
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: was the only thing that was in any gun. So
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: this bit of string was Wicklow's sign to signify that
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: the master's commands had not miscarried. I ordered that every
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: sentinel who had served near that gun during the past
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours be put in confinement at once and separately,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: and not allowed to communicate with anyone without my privity
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: and consent. A telegram now came from the Secretary of War.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: It read as follows, suspend habeas corpus, put town under
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: martial law, make necessary arrests, act with vigor and promptness,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: keep the department informed. We were now in a shape
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: to go to work. I sent out and had the
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: lame gentleman quietly arrested, and as quickly brought into the
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: fort I played him under arrest and for bad speech
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: to him or from him. He was inclined to bluster
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: at first, but he soon dropped that next came word
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: that Wicklow had been seen to give something to a
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: couple of our new recruits, and that as soon as
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: his back was turned, these had been seized and confined.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Upon each was found a small bit of paper bearing
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: these words and signs in pencil Eagles third flight remember
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: x x x x one sixty six, end of Part
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: one of A Curious Experience by Mark Twain. This is
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: section two of Mark Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two. This
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain's Journal Writings,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Volume two, Curious Experience, Section two, read by John Greenman.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: In accordance with instructions, I telegraphed to the department in
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: cipher the progress made, and also described the above ticket.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: We seemed to be in a strong enough position now
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: to venture to throw off the mask as regarded Wicklow,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: so I sent for him. I also sent for and
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: received back the letter written in sympathetic ink, the surgeon,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: accompanying it with the information that thus far it had
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: resisted his tests, but that there were others he could
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: apply when I should be ready for him to do so. Presently,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Wicklow entered. He had a somewhat worn and anxious look,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: but he was composed and easy, and if he suspected anything,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: it did not appear in his face or manner. I
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: allowed him to stand there a moment or two. Then
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I said, pleasantly, my boy, why do you go to
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: that old old stable so much? He answered, with simple
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: demeanor and without embarrassment. Well, I hardly know, sir. There
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: isn't any particular reason except that I like to be alone,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and I amuse myself there. You amuse yourself there, do you? Yes, sir?
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: He replied, as innocently and simply as before. Is that
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: all you do there? Yes, sir, he said, looking up
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: with childlike wonderment and his big soft eyes. You are sure, yes, sir. Sure.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: After a pause, I said Wicklow, why do you write
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: so much? I do not write much, sir. You don't, no, sir, Oh,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: if you mean scribbling. I do scribble some for amusement.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: What do you do with your scribblings? Nothing, sir? Throw
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: them away? Never send anybody, no, sir, I suddenly thrust
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: before him the letter to the colonel. He started slightly,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: but immediately composed himself. A slight tinge spread itself over
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: his cheek. How came you to send this piece of scribbling? Then?
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: I ne never meant any harm, sir, never meant any harm.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: You betray the armament and condition of the post, and
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: mean no harm by it. He hung his head and
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: was silent. Come speak up and stop lying. Whom was
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: this letter intended for? He showed signs of distress now,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: but quickly collected himself and replied, in a tone of
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: deep earnestness. I will tell you the truth, sir, the
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: whole truth. The letter was never intended for anybody at all.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I wrote it only to amuse myself. I see the
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: error and foolishness of it now, but it is the
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: only offense, sir, upon my honor. Ah, I am glad
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: of that. It is dangerous to be writing such letters.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I hope you are sure this is the only one
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: you wrote, yes, sir, perfectly sure. His hardihood was stupefying.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: He told that lie with as sincere a countenance as
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: any creature ever wore. I waited a moment to soothe
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: down my rising temper, and then said, Wicklow, jog your
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: memory now, and see if you can help me with
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: two or three little matters which I wished to inquire about.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: I will do my very best, sir. Then to begin
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: with who is the Master? It betrayed him into darting
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: a startled glance at her faces, but that was all.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: He was serene again in a moment, and tranquility answered
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I do not know, sir. You do not know. I
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: do not know. You are sure you do not know.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: He tried hard to keep his eyes on mine, but
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: the strain was too great. His chin sunk slowly towards
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: his breast, and he was silent. He stood there nervously
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: fumbling with a button, an object to command one's pity
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: in spite of his base acts. Presently, I broke the
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: stillness with a question, who are the Holy Alliance? His
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: body shook visibly, and he made a slight, random gesture
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: with his hands, which to me was like the appeal
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: of a despairing creature for compassion. But he made no sound.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: He continued to stand with his face bent toward the ground.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: As we sat gazing at him, waiting for him to speak.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: We saw the big tears begin to row down his cheeks,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: but he remained silent. After little I said, you must
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: answer me, my boy, and you must tell me the truth.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Who are the Holy Alliance? He wept on in silence. Presently,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: I said, somewhat sharply, answer that question. He struggled to
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: get command of his voice, and then, looking up appealingly,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: forced the words out between his sobs. Oh, have pity
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: on me, sir. I cannot answer it, for I do
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: not know what indeed, Sir, I am telling the truth.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I never have heard of the Holy Alliance till this moment.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: On my honor, Sir, this is so good heavens. Look
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: at the second letter of yours. There? Do you see
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: those words Holy Alliance? What do you say now? He
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: gazed up into my face with the hurt look of
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: one upon whom a great wrong has been wrought, then
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: said feelingly, this is some cruel joke, sir, And how
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: could they play it upon me, who have tried all
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: I could to do right and have never done harm
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: to anybody. If someone has counterfeited my hand, I never
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: wrote a line of this. I have never seen this
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: letter before, Oh, unspeakable liar, here, What do you say
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: of to this? And I snatched the sympathetic ink letter
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: from my pocket and thrust it before his eyes. His
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: face turned white, as white as a dead person's. He
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: wavered slightly in his tracks and put his hand against
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: the wall to steady himself. After a moment, he asked,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: in so faint a voice that it was hardly audible?
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Have you read it? Our faces must have answered the
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: truth before my lips could get out the false yes,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: For I distinctly saw the courage come back into that
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: boy's eyes. I waited for him to say something, but
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: he kept silent. So at last I said, well, what
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: have you to say as to the revelations in this letter?
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: He answered, with perfect composure, nothing except that they are
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: entirely harmless and innocent. They can hurt nobody. I was
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: in something of a corner now, as I couldn't disprove
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: his assertion. I did not exactly know how to proceed. However,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: an idea came to my relief, and I said, you
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: are sure you know nothing about the Master and the
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Holy Alliance and did not write the letter which you
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: say is a forgery. Yes, sir, sure. I slowly drew
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: out the knotted twine string and held it up without speaking.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: He gazed at it indifferently, then looked at me inquiringly.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: My patience was sorely taxed. However, I kept my temper
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: down and said, in my usual voice, Wicklow, do you
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: see this, Yes, sir, what is it? It seems to
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: be a piece of string. Seems it is a piece
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: of string. Do you recognize it? No, sir, he replied,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: as calmly as the words could be uttered. His coolness
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: was perfectly wonderful. I paused now for several seconds, in
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: order that the silence might add impressiveness to what I
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: was about to say. Then I rose and laid my
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: hand on his shoulder and said, gravely, it will do
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: you no good, poor boy, None in the world. This
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: sign to the master. This knotted string found in one
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: of the guns on the water front. Found in the gun.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, do not say in the gun,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: but in a crack in the tompion. It must have
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: been in the crack. And down he went on his
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: knees and clasped his hands and lifted up a face
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: that was pitiful to see, so ashy it was, and
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: so wild with terror. No, it was in the gun.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Oh something has gone wrong. My god, I am lost.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: And he sprung up and darted this way and that,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: dodging the hands that were put out to catch him,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: and doing his best to escape from the place, but
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: of course escape was impossible. Then he flung himself on
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: his knees again, crying with all his might, and clasped
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: me around the legs. And so he clung to me
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: and begged and pleaded, saying, Oh, have pity on me, Oh,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: be merciful to me, Do not betray me. They would
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: not spare my life for a moment, protect me, save me.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I will confess everything. It took us some time to
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: quiet him down and modify his fright and get him
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: into something like a rational frame of mind. Then I
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: began to question him, he answering humbly with downcast eyes,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: and from time to time swabbing away his constantly flowing tears.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: So you are at heart a rebel, yes, sir, and
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: a spy, yes, sir, and have been acting under distinct
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: order from outside, yes, sir, willingly, yes, sir, gladly. Perhaps, yes, sir.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: It would do no good to deny it. The South
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: is my country. My heart is southern, and it is
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: all in her cause. Then the tale you told me
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: of your wrongs and the persecution of your family was
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: made up for the occasion. They they told me to
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: say it, sir, and you would betray and destroy those
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: who pitied and sheltered you. Do you comprehend how base
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: you are, you poor misguided thing? He replied with sobs, only, well,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: let that pass to business. Who is the colonel and
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: where is he? He began to cry hard and tried
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: to beg off from answering. He said he would be
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: killed if he told. I threatened to put him in
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: the dark cell and lock him up if he did
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: not come out with the information. At the same time,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: I promised to protect him from all harm if he
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: made a clean breast. For all answer, he closed his
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: mouth firmly and put on a stubborn air which I
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: could not bring him out of. At last I started
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: with him, but a single glance into the dark cell
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: converted him. He broke into a passion of weeping and supplicating,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: and declared he would tell everything. So I brought him back,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: and he named the colonel and described him. Particularly said
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: he would be found at the Principal Hotel in the
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: town in citizen's dress. I had to threaten him again
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: before he would describe and name the master. Said the
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: master would be found at number fifteen Bond Street, New York,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: passing under the name of R. F. Gaillard. A telegraphed
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: name and description to the Chief of Police of the
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: Metropolis and asked that Galard be arrested and held till
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: I could send for him. Now, said I, it seems
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: that there are several of the conspirators outside, presumably in
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: New London. Name and describe them. He named and described
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: three men and two women, all stopping at the Principal Hotel.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I sent out quietly and had them and the colonel
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: arrested and confined in the fort. Next, I want to
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: know all about your three fellow conspirators who are here
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: in the fort. He was about to dodge me with
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: a falsehood, I thought, But I produced the mysterious bits
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: of paper which had been found on two of them,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: and this had a salutary effect upon him. I said,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: we had possession of two of the men, but he
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: must point out the third. This frightened him badly, and
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: he cried out, oh, please, don't beat me, he would
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: kill me on the spot. I said that that was
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: all nonsense. I would have somebody near by to protect him.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: And besides, the men should be assembled without arms. I
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: ordered all the raw recruits to be mustard. And then
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the poor trembling little wretch went out and stepped along
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: down the line, trying to look as indifferent as possible.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: Finally he spoke a single word to one of the men,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: and before he had gone five steps, the man was
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: under arrest. As soon as Wicklow was with us again,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: I had those three men brought in. I made one
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: of them stand forward and said, now, Wicklow, mind not
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: a shade's divergence from the exact truth. Who is this man?
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: And what do you know about him being in for it?
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: He cast consequences aside, fastened his eyes on the man's face,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: and spoke straight along without hesitation to the following effect.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: His real name is George Bristow. He is from New Orleans.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Was second mate of the Coast Packet Capital two years ago.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Is a desperate character and has served two terms for manslaughter,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: one for killing a deckhand named Hyde with a capstan
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: bar and one for killing a roustabout for refusing to
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: heave the lead, which is no part of a roustabout's business.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: He is a spy and was sent here by the
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Colonel to act in that capacity. He was third mate
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: of the Saint Nicholas when she blew up in the
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: neighborhood of Memphis in fifty eight and came near being
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: lynched for robbing the dead and wounded while they were
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: being taken ashore in an empty wood boat, and so
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: forth and so on. He gave the man's biography in full.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: When he had finished, I said to the man, what
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: have you to say to this? Barring your presence, sir,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: it is the infernoless lie that ever was spoke. I
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: sent him back into confinement and called the others forward
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: in turn same result. The boy gave a detailed history
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: of each without hesitating for a word or a fact.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: But all I could get out of either Rascal was
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: the indignant assertion that it was all a lie. They
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: would confess nothing. I returned them to captivity and brought
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: out the rest of my prisoners one by one. Wicklow
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: told all about them, what towns in the South they
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: came from, and every detail of their connection with the conspiracy.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: But they all denied his facts, and not one of
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: them confessed a thing. The men raged, the women cried.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: According to their stories, they were all innocent people from
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: out west and loved the Union above all things in
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: this world. I locked the gang up in disgust and
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: fell to catechizing Wicklow once more. Where is number one
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: sixty six and who is B B? But there he
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: was determined to draw the line. Neither coaxing nor threats
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: had any effect upon him. Time was flying, it was
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: necessary to institute sharp measures, so I tied him up
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: a tip by the thumbs. As the pain increased, it
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: wrung screams from him, which were almost more than I
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: could bear. But I held my ground, and pretty soon
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: he shrieked out, oh, please let me down. I will tell. No,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: you'll tell before I let you down. Every instant was
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: agony to him now. So out it came number one
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: sixty six Eagle Hotel, naming a wretched tavern down by
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: the water, a resort of common laborers, longshoreman, and less
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: reputable folk. So I released him, and then demanded to
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: know the object of the conspiracy to take the fort tonight,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: said he doggedly, and sobbing. Have I got all the
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: chiefs of the conspiracy? No, you've got all except those
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: that are to meet at one sixty six? What does
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: remember x x x x mean? No reply? What is
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: the password for number one sixty six? No reply? What
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: do those bunches of letters mean? F F F F
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: F and m m m m answer or you will
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: catch it again? I never will answer. I will die first.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Now do what you please? Think what you are saying? Wicklow?
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Is it final? He answered, steadily and without a quiver
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: in his voice. It is final. And as sure as
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I love my wronged country and hate everything this northern
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: sun shines on, I will die before I will reveal
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: those things. I traced him up by the thumbs again
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: when the agony was full upon him. It was heartbreaking
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: to hear the poor thing shrieks, but we got nothing
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: else out of him. To every question, he screamed the
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: same reply, I can die, and I will die, but
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: I will never tell. Well, we had to give it up.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: We were convinced that he certainly would die rather than confess,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: so we took him down and imprisoned him under strict guard.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Then for some hours we busied ourselves with sending telegrams
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: to the War Department, and with making preparations for a
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: descent upon number one sixty six. It was stirring times
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: that black and bitter night things had leaked out, and
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: the whole garrison was on the alert. The sentinels were trebled,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: and nobody could move outside or in without being brought
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: to a stand with a musket leveled at his head. However,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Webb and I were less concerned now than we had
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: previously been, because of the fact that the conspiracy must
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: necessarily be in a pretty crippled condition, since so many
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: of its principles were in our clutches. I determined to
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: be at number one sixty six in good season, capture
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: and gag Bb, and be on hand for the rest.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: When they arrived at about a quarter past one in
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: the morning, I crept out of the fortress with half
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: a dozen stalwart and gamey u s Regus at my heels,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: and a boy Wicklow with his hands tied behind him.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: I told him we were going to one six six,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: that if I found he had lied again and was
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: misleading us, he would have to show us the right
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: place or suffer the consequences. We approached the tavern stealthily
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: and reconnoitered. A light was burning in the small bar room.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: The rest of the house was dark. I tried the
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: front door. It yielded, and we softly entered, closing the
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: door behind us. Then we removed our shoes and I
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: led the way to the bar room. The German landlord
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: sat there asleep in his chair. I woke him gently
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: and told him to take off his boots and precede us,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: warning him at the same time to utter no sound.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: He obeyed without a murmur, but evidently he was badly frightened.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: I ordered him to lead the way to one six six.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: We ascended two or three flights of stairs as softly
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: as a file of cats, and then, having arrived near
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: the farther end of a long hall, we came to
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: a door through the glazed transom of which we could
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: discern the glow of a dim light from within. The
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Landlord felt for me in the dark and whispered me
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: that that was one six sixth. I tried the door.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: It was locked on the inside. I whispered an order
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: to one of my biggest soldiers. We set our ample
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: shoulders to the door, and with one heave, we burst
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: it from its hinges. I caught a half glimpse of
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: a figure in a bed, saw its head dart toward
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: the candle. Out went the light, and we were in
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: pitch darkness with one big bound. I lit on that
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: bed and pinned its occupant down with my knees. My
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: prisoners struggled fiercely, but I got a grip on his
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: throat with my left hand, and that was a good
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: assistance to my knees in holding him down. Then I
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: snatched out my revolver, cocked it and laid the cold
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: barrel warningly against his cheek. Now, somebody strike a light,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: said I I've got him safe. It was done. The
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: flame of the match burst up. I looked at my captive,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: and by George, it was a young woman. I let
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: go and got off the bed, feeling pretty sheepish. Everybody
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: stared stupidly at his neighbor. Nobody had any wit or
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: sense left. So sudden and overwhelming had been the surprise.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: The young woman began to cry and covered her face
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: with the sheet. The landlord said, meekly, my daughter, she
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: has been doing something that is not right. Ni's vat
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: your daughter? Is she your daughter. Oh, yes, she is
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: my daughter. She is just to night come home from Cincinnati.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: A little bit sick, confound it that boy has lied again.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: This is not the right one six six, This is
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: not b B. Now Wicklow, you will find the correct
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: one six six for us? Or oh where's that boy gone?
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: As sure as guns? And what is more, we failed
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: to find a trace of him. Here was an awkward predicament.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: I cursed my stupidity in not tying him to one
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: of the men, but it was no use to bother
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: about that. Now what should I do under the present circumstances?
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: That was the question. That girl might be b B?
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: After all, I did not believe it, But it still
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: would not answer to take unbelief for proof. So I
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: finally put my men in a vacant room across the
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: hall from one six six and told them to capture
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: anybody and everybody that approached the girl's room, and to
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: keep the landlord with them and under strict watch until
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: further orders. Then I hurried back to the fort to
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: see if all was right there. Yet, Yes, all was right,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: and all remained right. I stayed up all night to
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: make sure of that nothing happened I was unspeakably glad
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: to see the dawn come again and be able to
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: telegraph the department that the stars and stripes still floated
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: over Fort Trumbull. An immense pressure was lifted from my breast.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: Still I did not relax vigilance, of course, nor effort either.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: The case was too grave for that. I had up
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: my prisoners one by one and harried them by the hour,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: trying to get them to confess, But it was a failure.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: They only gnashed their teeth and tore their hair, and
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: revealed nothing. About noon came tidings of my missing boy.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: He had been seen on the road, tramping westward, some
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: eight miles out. At six in the morning, I started
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: a cavalry lieutenant and a private on his track. At
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: once they came in sight of him twenty miles out.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: He had climbed a fence and was wearily dragging himself
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: across a slushy field toward a large, old fashioned mansion
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: in the edge of a village. They rode through a
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: bit of woods, made a detour and closed up on
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: the house from the opposite side, then dismounted and scurried
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: into the kitchen. Nobody there They slipped into the next room,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: which was also unoccupied. The door from that room into
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: the front or sitting room was opened. They were about
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: to step through it when they heard a low voice.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: It was somebody praying, so they halted reverently, and the
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: lieutenant put his head in and saw an old man
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: and an old woman kneeling in the corner of that
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: sitting room. It was the old man that was praying,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: And just as he was finishing his prayer, the wicklow
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: boy opened the front door and stepped in. Both of
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: those people sprang at him, smothering him with embraces, shouting,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: our boy, our darling, God be praised, The lost is found.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: He that was dead is alive again. Well, sir, what
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: do you think that young imp was born and reared
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: on that homestead and had never been five miles away
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: from it in all his life till the fortnight before
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: he loafed into my quarters and gulled me with that
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: maudelin yarn of his. It's as true as gospel. That
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: old man was his father, a learned, old retired clergyman,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: and that old lady was his mother. Let me throw
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: in a word or two of explanation concerning that boy
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: in his performances. It turned out that he was a
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: ravenous devour of dime novels and sensational story papers. Therefore, dark,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: mysterious and gaudy heroisms were just in his line. Then
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: he had read newspaper reports of the stealthy goings and
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: comings of rebel spies in our midst and of their
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: lurid purposes and their two or three startling achievements, till
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: his imagination was all aflame on that subject. His constant
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: comrade for some months had been a Yankee youth of
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: much tongue and lively fancy, who had served for a
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: couple of years as mud clerk that his subordinate purser
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: on certain of the packet boats plying between New Orleans
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: and points two or three hundred miles up the Mississippi,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: hence his easy faculty in handling the names and other
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: details pertaining to that region. Now, I had spent two
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: or three months in that part of the country before
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: the war, and I knew just enough about it to
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: be easily taken in by that boy, Whereas a born
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Louisianian would probably have caught him tripping before he had
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: talked fifteen minutes. Do you know the reason he said
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: he would rather die than explain certain of his treasonable
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: enigmas simply because he couldn't explain them. They had no meaning.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: He had fired them out of his imagination without forethought
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: or after thought, and so upon sudden call he wasn't
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: able to invent an explanation of them. For instance, he
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: couldn't reveal what was hidden in the sympathetic ink letter
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: for the ample reason that there wasn't anything hidden in it.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: It was blank paper. Only he hadn't put anything into
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: a gun, and had never intended to, for his letters
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: were all written to imaginary persons. When he hid one
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: in the stable, he always removed the one he had
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: put there the day before. So he was not acquainted
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: with that knotted string since he was seeing it for
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: the first time when I showed it to him. But
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: as soon as I had let him find out where
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: it came from, he straightway adopted it in his romantic
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: fashion and got some fine effects out of it. He invented,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: mister Gaylord. There wasn't any fifteen Bond Street just then.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: It had been pulled down three months before he invented
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: the Colonel he invented the glib histories of those unfortunates
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: whom I captured and confronted with him. He invented b B.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: He invented number one sixty six, one may say, for
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: he didn't know there was such a number in the
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: Eagle Hotel until we went there. He stood there ready
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: to invent anybody or anything whenever it was wanted. If
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: I called for outside spies, he promptly described strangers whom
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: he had seen at the hotel and whose names he
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: had happened to hear. Ah. He lived in a gorgeous, mysterious,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: romantic world during those few stirring days, and I think
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: it was real to him, and that he enjoyed it
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: clear down to the bottom of his heart. But he
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: made trouble enough for us, and just no end of humiliation.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: You see, on account of him, we had fifteen or
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: twenty people under arrest and confinement in the fort, with
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: sentinels before their door. A lot of the captives were
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: soldiers and such, and to them I didn't have to apologize.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: But the rest were first class citizens from all over
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: the country, and no amount of apologies were sufficient to
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: satisfy them. They just fumed and raged and made no
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: end of trouble. And those two ladies, one was an
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: Ohio congressman's wife, the other a Western bishop's sister. Well,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: the scorn and ridicule and angry tears they poured out
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: on me made up a keepsake that was likely to
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: make me remember them for a considerable time. And I
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: shall that old lame gentleman with the goggles was a
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: college president from Philadelphia who had come up to attend
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: his nephew's funeral. He had never seen young Wicklow before.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: Of course, well he had not only missed the funeral
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: and got jailed as a rebel spy. But Wicklow had
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: stood up there in my quarters and coldly described him
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: as a counterfeitter, nigger trader, horse thief, and a firebug
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: from the most notorious rascal nest in Galveston. And this
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: was a thing which that poor old gentleman couldn't seem
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: to get over at all. And the War Department, but oh,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: my soul, let's draw the curtains over that part. Note.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: I showed my manuscript to the Major, and he said,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: your unfamiliarity with military matters has betrayed you into some
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: little mistakes. Still they are picturesque ones. Let them go.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: Military men will smile at them. The rest won't detect them.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: You've got the main facts of the history right and
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: have set them down just about as they occurred. M.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: T And of a Curious Experience by Mark Twain, read
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: by John Greenman. This is section three of Mark Twain's
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Journal Writings, Volume two. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: public domain. Mark Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two. The Heart
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: of a Humorist by Mark Twain, read by John Greenman.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: The following extracts are from a letter to the Secretary
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: of the London Anti Vivisection Society. Here, Sir, I believe
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: that are profitable to the human race, or doesn't. To
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: know that the results are profitable to the race would
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: not remove my hostility to it. The pains which it
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: the enmity without looking further. It is so distinctly a
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: matter of feeling with me, and is so strong and
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: deep rooted in my make and constitution that I am
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: sure I could not even see a vivisector vivisected with
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: anything more than a sort of qualified satisfaction. I do
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: not say I should not go go and look on.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: I only mean that I should almost surely fail to
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: get out of it the degree of contentment which it ought,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: of course, to be expected to furnish. I have tried
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: to understand why it should be considered a kind of
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: credit and a handsome thing to belong to a human
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: race that has vivisectors in it. And I have also
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: tried to imagine what would become of the race if
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: it had to be saved by my practicing vivisection. On
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: the French plan, let me quote. Vivisectors possess a drug
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: called kurrare, which, given to an animal, effectually prevents any
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: struggle or cry. A horrible feature of kurrare is that
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: it has no anesthetic effect, but on the contrary, it
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: intensifies the sensibility to pain. The animal is perfectly conscious,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: suffers doubly, and is able to make no sign. I
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: am not desirous of shocking you by reciting the atrocities
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: of vivisection. But since the apologists tried to deceive the
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: public by vague statements that vivisectors would not and do
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: not perpetrate cruelty, I wish to say sufficient to disprove
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: their assertions. Professor Brooke says, Lectures on Physiology, volume two,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: page seventy six. The first sign that the trigeminus is
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: divided is a loud, piercing shriek from the animal. Rabbits
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: we know are not very sensitive, but in this operation
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: they invariably send forth a prolonged shriek. I could quote
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: still more shameful vivisection records from this paper, but I
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: lack the stomach for it. Very truely, Yours, Mark Twain.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: And of the Heart of a Humorist by Mark Twain,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: read by John Greenman. This is section four of Mark
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two, by Mark Twain. This LibriVox
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain's Journal Writings,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: Volume two. How Tom Sawyer got his fence whitewashed read
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: by John Greenman. Tom Sawyer, having offended his sole guardian
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: aunt Polly, is by that sternly affectionate dame punished by
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: being sent to whitewash the fence in front of the garden.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: The world seemed a hollow mockery to Tom, who had
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: planned fun for that day, and he knew that he
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: would be the laughing stock of all the boys as
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: they came past and saw him set to work like
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: a nigger. But a great inspiration burst upon him, and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: he went tranquility to work. What that inspiration was will
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: appear from what follows. One of the boys, Ben Rogers,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: comes by and pauses eating a particularly fine apple. Tom
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: does not see him. Ben stared a moment and then said, hayee,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: you're a stump, ain't you no answer? Tom surveyed his
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: last touch with the eye of an artist. Then he
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: gave another gentle sweep and surveyed the result as before.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said, hello, Chap,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: you got to work? Eh? Why it's you Ben? I
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: wasn't noticing, say I'm going in a swimming' i am.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd rather work,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you? Course you would. Tom contemplated the boy a
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: bit and said, what do you call work? Why ain't
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: that work? Tom resumed his whitewashing and answered carelessly, Well,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: maybe it is, maybe it ain't. All I know? Is
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: it suits? Tom? So I'll come now. You don't mean
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: to let on that you like it? The brush continued
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: to move like it. But I don't see why I
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: to whitewash a fence every day? That put the thing
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: in a new light? Then stop nibbling his apple. Tom
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: swept his brush daintily back and forth, stepped back to
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: note the effect, added a touch here and there, criticized
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: the effect again. Ben watching every move and getting more
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: say Tom, let me whitewash a little. Tom considered, was
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: about to consent, but he altered his mind. No, No,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: I reckon it wouldn't hardly do Ben. You see, Aunt
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Polly's awful particular about this fence right here on the street,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: you know, But if it was the back fence, I
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: wouldn't mind, and she wouldn't. Yeah, she's awful particular about
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: this fence to be done very carefully. I reckon, there
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand. I
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: can do it in the way it's got to be done.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: No is that so? Oh? Come on, now, let me
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: just try, only just a little. I'd let you if
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: you was me, Tom, Ben, I'd like to honest engine,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: but Aunt Polly Well Jim wanted to do it, but
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't let him. Sid wanted to do it, but
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't let Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed?
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: If you was to tackle this fence and anything was
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: to happen, Ah, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: let me try. Say, I'll give you the core of
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: my apple. Well here, no, Ben, now, don't I'm a feued.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: I'll give you all of it. Tom gave up the
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: brush with reluctance in his face but alacrity in his heart.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: And while Ben worked and sweated in the sun, the
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: retired artist sat on a barrel in the shape close by,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: dangling his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: of more innocence. There was no lack of material. Boys
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: happened along every little while. They came to jeer, but
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: a kite in good repair, and when he played out,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: Johnny Miller bought it for a dead rat and a
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: string to swing it with, and so on and so on,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: hour after hour, and when the middle of the afternoon
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: came from being a poor, poverty stricken boy in the morning,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had besides the
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: things I have mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jew's harp,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: a piece of blue bottled glass to look through, a
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: a couple of tadpoles, six firecrackers, a kitten with only
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: one eye, a brass door knob, a dog collar but
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: no dog, the handle of a knife, four pieces of
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: orange peel, and a dilapidated old window sash. He had
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: had a nice, good, idle time all the while, plenty
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: of company, and the fence had three coats of whitewash
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: on it. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, he
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: would have bankrupted every boy in the village. Tom said
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: to himself that it was not such a hollow world.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: After all, he had discovered a great law of human
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: action without knowing it, namely that in order to make
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: a man or a boy covet a thing, it is
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: only necessary to make it difficult to attain. Mark Twain,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: and of how Tom Sawyer got his fence whitewashed, read
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: by John Greenman. This is section five of Mark Twain's
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: Journal Writings, Volume two. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: public domain. Jim Smiley's Frog by Mark Twain, read by
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: John Greenman. Wow, this year Smiley had rat tiers and
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: chicken cocks and all of them kind of things until
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: to bet on, but he'd match you. He catched a
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: frog one day and took him home and said he
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: calculated to educate him. And so he never done nothing
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: for three months but set in his backyard and learned
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: that frog to jump. And you bet he did learn
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: him too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: the next minute you'd see that frog whirling into the
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: air like a donut. See him turn one summerset, or
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: maybe a couple if he got a good start and
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: come down flat footed and all right like a cat.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: He got him up so in the matter of catching flies,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: and kept him in practice so constant that he'd nail
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: a fly every time as far as he could see him.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: Smiley said, all a frog wanted was education, and he
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: could do most anything. And I believe him, why I've
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: seen him set Daniel Webster down here on this floor.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: Daniel Webster was the name of the frog, and sing
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: out flies, Daniel flies, and quicker you could wink. He'd
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: spring straight up and snake a fly off on the
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: counter there, and flop down on the floor again, as
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: the side of his head with his hind foot, as
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: indifferent as if he had no idea he'd been doing
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: any more than any frog might do. You never see
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: a frog so modest and straightforward as he was. For
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: all he was so gifted, And when it came to
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: get over more ground at one straddle than any animal
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: level was his strong suit, you understand. And when it
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: come to that Smiley would anty up money on him
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: as long as he had her red. Smiley was monstrous
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: proud of his frog, and well he might be. For
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: fellers that had traveled and been everywhere, all said he
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: laid over any frog that ever they see. Well, Smiley
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: used to fetch him down town sometimes and lay for
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: a bet. One day a feller, a stranger in the
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: camp he was, came across him with his box and says,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: what might it be that you've got in the box?
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: And Smiley says, sort of indifferent, like it might be
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: a parrot, or it might be a canary maybe, but
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: it ain't. It's only just frog. And the feller took
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: it and looked at it careful and turned it around
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: this way and that and says, hmm, so tis well,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: what's he good for? Well, Smiley says, easy and careless.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: He's good enough for one one thing. I should judge.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: He can out jump any frog in Calver's County. The
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: fella took the box again and took another long, particular
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: look and gave it back to Smiley and says, very deliberate, Well,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: I don't see no pints about that frog that's any
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: better than any other frog. Maybe you don't, Smiley says,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: maybe you understand frogs, and maybe you don't understand them,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: amateur as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: I'll risk forty dollars that he can out jump any
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: frog in Calver's County. And the feller studied a minute
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: and then says kinder sad like, well, I'm only a
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: stranger here and I ain't got no frog, but if
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: I had a frog, i'd bet you. Then Smiley says,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: that's all right, that's all right. If you'll hold my
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: And so the fella took the box and put up
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: his forty dollars along with smileies, and set down to wait.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: So he sat there a good while, thinking and thinking
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: to himself, and then he got the frog out and
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: prized his mouth open and took a tea spoon and
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: filled him up full of quail shot, filled him pretty
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: near up to his chin, and set him on the floor.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: the mud for a long time, and finally he catched
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: a frog and fetched him in and gave him to
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: this feller and says, now, if you're ready, set him
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: alongside of Daniel with his fore paws just even with Daniel's,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: and i'll give the word. Then he says one, two three, jump,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: and the new frog hopped off, But Daniel gave a
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: heave and hoisted up his shoulders so like a Frenchman.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't no use. He couldn't budge. He was
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: more stir than he was anchored out. Smiley was a
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: didn't have no idea what the matter was. Of course,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: the fowler took the money and started away, and when
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: he was going out at the door, he sort of
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: jerked his thumb over his shoulders this way at Daniel
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: and says, again, very deliberate, Well, I don't see no
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: pants about that frog. That's any better an any other frog. Smiley.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: He stood scratching his head and looking down at Daniel
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: a long time, And at last he says, I do
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: wonder what in the nation that frog throwed off? For?
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: I wonder if there ain't somethin the matter with him
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: appears to look mighty baggy somehow. And he catched Daniel
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: by the nape of the neck and lifted him up
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: and says, why blame my cats if he don't weigh
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: five pound, and turned him upside down, and he belched
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: out a double handful of shot. And then he see
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: how it was. He was the maddest man. He set
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: the frog down and took out after that feller, but
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: he never catched him. End of Jim Smiley's Frog by
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: Mark Twain, read by John Greenman. This is section six
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: of Mark Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two. This LibriVox recording
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Mark Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: Luck by Mark Twain, read by John Greenman. Note this
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: is not a fancy sketch. I got it from a
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: clergyman who was an instructor at Woolwich forty years ago
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: and who vouched for its truth. M t. It was
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: at a banquet in London in honor of one of
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: the two or three conspicuously illustrious English military names of
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: this generation. For reasons which will presently appear, I will
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: withhold his real name and titles and call him Lieutenant General,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: Lord Arthur Scooresby. Why s CA c B et cetera,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. What a fascination there is in
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: a renowned name. There sat the man in actual flesh,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: whom I had heard of so many thousands of times
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: since that day thirty years before, when his name shot
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: suddenly to the zenith from a crimean battlefield, to remain
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: forever celebrated. It was food and drink to me to
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: look and look and look at that demigod, scanning, searching,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: noting the quietness, the reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: the simple honesty that expressed itself all over him, the
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: sweet unconsciousness of his greatness, unconsciousness of the hundreds of
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: admiring eyes fastened upon him, unconsciousness of a deep, loving,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: sincere worship welling out of the breasts of those people
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: and flowing toward him. The clergyman at my left was
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: an old acquaintance of mine, clergyman now, but had spent
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: the first half of his life in the camp and field,
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: and as an instructor in the military school at Woolwich.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: Just at the moment I had been talking about, a
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: veiled and singular light glimmered in his eyes, and he
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: leaned down and muttered confidentially to me, indicating the hero
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: of the banquet with a gesture privately, his glory is
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: an accident, just a product of incredible luck. This verdict
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: was a great surprise to me. If its subject had
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: been Napoleon, or Socrates or Solomon, my astonishment could not
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: have been greater. Two things. I was well aware of
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: that the Reverend was a man of strict veracity, and
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: that his judgment of men was good. Therefore, I knew,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: beyond doubt or question that the world was mistaken about
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: this hero. He was a fool. So I meant to
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: find out at a convenient moment how the Reverend, all
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: solitary and alone, had discovered the secret. Some days later
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: came the explanation of this strange remark. And this is
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: what the Reverend told me about forty years ago. I
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: was an instructor in the Military Academy at Woolwich. I
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: was present in one of the sections when young scoresby
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: underwent his preliminary examination. I was touched to the quick
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: with pity, for the rest of the class answered up
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: brightly and handsomely, while he why, dear me, he didn't
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: know anything, so to speak, he was evidently good and sweet,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: and lovable and guileless. And so it was exceedingly painful
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: to see him stand there, as serene as a graven image,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: and deliver himself of answers which were veritably miraculous for
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: stupidity and ignorance. All the compassion in me was aroused
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: in his behalf. I said to myself, when he comes
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: to be examined again, he will be flung over, of course,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: so it will be a simple, harmless act of charity
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: to ease his fall as much as I can. I
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: took him aside and found that he knew a little
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: of Caesar's history, and as he didn't know anything else,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: I went to work and drilled him like a galley
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: slave on a certain line of stock questions concerning Caesar,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: which I knew would be used. If you'll believe me,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: he went through with flying colors. On examination day. He
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: went through on that purely superficial cram and got compliments too,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: while others who knew a thousand times more than he
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: got plucked by some strangely lucky accident, an accident not
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: likely to happen twice in a century. He was asked
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: no question outside of the narrow limits of his drill.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: It was stupefying. Well, all through his course I stood
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: by him with something of the sentiment which a mother
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: feels for a crippled child, and he always saved himself
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: just by miracle. Apparently. Now, of course, the thing that
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: would expose him and kill him at last was mathematics.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: I resolved to make his death as easy as I could.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: So I drilled him and crammed him, and crammed him,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: and drilled him just on a line of questions which
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: the examiner would be most likely to use, and then
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: launched him on his fate. Well, sir, try to conceive
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: of the result. To my consternation, he took the first prize,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: and with it he got a perfect ovation in the
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: way of compliments. Sleep. There was no more sleep for
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: me for a week. My conscience tortured me day and night.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: What I had done I had done purely through charity,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: and only to ease the poor youth's fall. I never
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: had dreamed of any such preposterous result as the thing
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: that had happened. I felt as guilty and miserable as
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: the creator of franken Stine. Here was a wooden head
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: whom I had put in the way of glittering promotions
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: and prodigious responsibilities, And but one thing could happen. He
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: and his responsibilities would all go to ruin together at
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: the first opportunity. The Crimean war had just broken out.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: Of course there had to be a war. I said
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: to myself, we couldn't have peace and give this donkey
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: a chance to die before he is found out. I
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: waited for the earthquake. It came, and it made me
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: real when it did come. He was actually gazetted to
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: a captaincy in a marching regiment. Better men grow old
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: and gray in the service before they climbed to a
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: sublimity like that. And who could ever have foreseen that
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: they would go and put such a load of responsibility
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: on such green and inadequate shoulders. I could just barely
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: have stood it if they had made him a cornet,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: but a captain. Think of it, I thought my hair
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: would turn white. Consider what I did, I who so
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: loved repose, and in action, I said to myself, I
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: am responsible to the country for this, and I must
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: go along with him and protect the country against him
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: as far as I can. So I took my poor
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: little capital that I had saved up through years of
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: work and grinding economy, and went with a sigh and
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: bought a cornetcy in his regiment. And away we went
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: to the field. And there, oh dear, it was awful blunders.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: Why he never did anything but blunder. But you see,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: nobody was in the fellow's secret. Everybody had him focused
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: wrong and necessarily misinterpreted his performance every time. Consequently, they
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: took his idiotic blunders for inspirations of genius. They did, Honestly,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: his mildest blunders were enough to make a man in
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: his right mind cry. And they did make me cry
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: and rage and rave too privately. And the thing that
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: kept me always in a sweat of apprehension was the
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: fact that every fresh blunder he made in preast the
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: luster of his reputation. I kept saying to myself, he'll
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: go so high that when discovery does finally come, it
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: will be like the sun falling out of the sky.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: He went right along up from grade to grade, over
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: the dead bodies of his superiors, until at last, in
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: the hottest moment of the Battle of Blank down went
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: our colonel, and my heart jumped into my mouth, for
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: Scoresby was next in rank. Now, for it, said I,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: we'll all land in Shoal in ten minutes. Sure, the
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: battle was awfully hot. The Allies were steadily giving way
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: all or over the field. Our regiment occupied a position
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: that was vital. A blunder now must be destruction. At
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: this critical moment. What does this immortal fool do but
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: detach the regiment from its place and order a charge
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: over a neighboring hill where there wasn't a suggestion of
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: an enemy. There you go, I said to myself, this
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: is the end at last, And away we did go,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: and were over the shoulder of the hill before the
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: insane movement could be discovered and stopped. And what did
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: we find? An entire and unsuspected Russian army in reserve.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: And what happened? We were eaten up. That is necessarily
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: what would have happened in ninety nine cases out of
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: a hundred. But no, those Russians argued that no single
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: regiment would come browsing around there at such a time,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: it must be the entire English army, and that the
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: sly Russian game was detected and blocked. So they turned
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: tail and away they went pell mell over the hill
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: and down into the field in wild confusion, and we
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: after them. They themselves broke the solid Russia center in
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: the field and tore through, and in no time there
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: was the most tremendous route you ever saw, and the
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: defeat of the Allies was turned into a sweeping and
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: splendid victory. Marshal Ke and Robert looked on Dizzy with astonishment,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: admiration and delight, and sent right off for Scoresby and
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: hugged him and decorated him on the field and presence
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: of all the armies. And what was Scoresby's blunder that time,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: merely the mistaking his right hand from his left. That
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: was all. An order had come to him to fall
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: back and support our right, and instead he fell forward
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: and went over the hill to the left. But the
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: name he won that day as a marvelous military genius,
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: filled the world with his glory, and that glory will
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: never fade. While history books. Last. He is just as
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: good and sweet and lovable and unpretending as a man
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: can be. But he doesn't know enough to come in
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: when it rains. Now, that is absolutely true. He is
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: the supremest ass in the universe, and until half an
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: hour ago nobody knew it but himself and me. He
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: has been pursued day by day and year by year
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: by a most phenomenal and astonishing luckiness. He has been
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: a shining soldier in all our wars for half a generation.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: He has littered his military life with blunders, and yet
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: has never committed one that didn't make him a knight
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: or a baronet, or a lord or something. Look at
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: his breast. Why he is just closed? In domestic and
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: foreign decorations, Well, sir, every one of them is a
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: record of some shouting stupidity or other, and taken together,
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: they are proof that the very best thing in all
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: this world that can befall a man is to be
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: born lucky. I say again as I said at the banquet,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: Scoresby's an absolute fool. End of luck by Mark Twain,
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: read by John Greenman. This is section seven of Mark
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: the public domain. A Dog's Tale by Mark Twain, Chapter
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: one read by John Greenman. My father was a Saint Bernard,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: my mother was a Collie. But I am a Presbyterian.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: This is what my mother told me. I do not
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: know these nice distinctions myself. To me, they are only
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: fine large words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: for such. She liked to say them and see other
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: so much education. But indeed it was not real education.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: It was only show. She got the words by listening
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: in the dining room and drawing room when there was company,
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: and by going with the children to Sunday school and
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: listening there. And whenever she heard a large word, she
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: said it over to herself many times, and so was
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: able to keep it until there was a dogmatic gathering
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. Then she would get it off and
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: surprise and distress them all, from pocket pup to mastiff,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: which rewarded her for all her trouble. If there was
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: a stranger, he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: when he got his breath again, you would ask her
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: what it meant, and she always told him. He was
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: never expecting this, but thought he would catch her, so
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: when she told him, he was the one that looked ashamed,
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: whereas he had thought it was going to be. She
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: the others were always waiting for this, and glad of
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: it and proud of her, for they knew what was
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: going to happen, because they had had experience when she
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: told the meaning of a big word. They were all
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: so taken up with admiration that it never occurred to
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: any dog to doubt if it was the right one.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: And that was natural, because for one thing, she answered
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: up so promptly that it seemed like a dictionary speaking,
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: And for another thing, where could they find out whether
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: it was right or not? For she was the only
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: cultivated dog there was, By and by, when I was older,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: she brought home the word unintellectual one time and worked
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: it pretty hard all the week at different gatherings, making
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: much unhappiness and despondency. And it was at this time
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: that I noticed that during that week she was asked
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: for the meaning at eight different assemblages and flashed out
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: of fresh definition every time, which showed me that she
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: had more presence of mind than culture, though I said nothing.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: Of course, she had one word which she always kept
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: on hand and ready, like a life preserver, a kind
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: of emergency word to strap on when she was likely
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: to get washed overboard in a sudden way. That was
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: the word synonymous. When she happened to fetch out a
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: long word which had had its day weeks before and
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: its prepared meanings gone to her dump pile. If there
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: was a stranger there, of course, it knocked him groggy
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: for a couple of minutes. Then he would come too,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: and by that time she would be away down wind
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: on another tack and not expecting anything. So when he'd
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: hail and ask her to cash in, I, the only
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: dog on the inside of her game, could see her
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: canvas flicker a moment, but only just a moment. Then
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: it would belly out, taut and full, and she would say,
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: as calm as a summer's day, it's synonymous with supererogation,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: or some godless long reptile of a word like that,
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack,
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: and embarrassed. And the initiated slatting the floor with their
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: tails in unison and their faces transfigured with a holy joy.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: And it was the same with phrases. She would drag
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: home a whole phrase, if it had a grand sound,
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: and play it six nights and two matinees, and explain
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: it a new way every time, which she had to,
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: for all she cared for was the phrase. She wasn't
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: interested in what it meant, and knew those dogs hadn't
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: wit enough to catch her anyway. Yes, she was a daisy,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: she got so she wasn't afraid of anything. She had
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: such confidence in the ignorance of those creatures. She even
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: brought anecdotes that she had heard the family and the
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: dinner guests laugh and shout over. And as a rule,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: she got the nub of one chestnut hitched on to
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: another chestnut, where of course it didn't fit and hadn't
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: any point. And when she delivered the nub, she fell
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: over and rolled on the floor and laughed and barked
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: in the most insane way, while I could see that
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: she was wondering to herself why it didn't seem as
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: funny as it did when she first heard it. But
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: no harm was done. The others rolled and barked too, privately,
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: ashamed of themselves for not seeing the point and never
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: suspecting that the fault was not with them, And there
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: wasn't any to see. You can see by these things
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: that she was of a rather vain and frivolous character.
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: Still she had virtues and enough to make up. I
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: think she had a kind heart and gentle ways, and
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: never harbored resentments for injuries done her, but put them
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: easily out of her mind and forgot them. And she
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: taught her children in her kindly way. And from her
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: we learned also to be brave and prompt in time
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: of danger, and not to run away, but face the
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: peril that threatened friend or stranger, and help him the
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: best we could, without stopping to think what the cost
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: might be to us. And she taught us not by
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: words only, but by example. And that is the best way,
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: and the surest and the most lasting. Why the brave
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: things she did, the splendid things, she was just a soldier,
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: and so modest about it. Well, you couldn't help admiring her,
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: and you couldn't help imitating her. Not even a King
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: Charles Spaniel could remain entirely despicable in her society. So
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: as you see, there was more to her than her education.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: Chapter two. When I was well grown, at last I
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: was sold and taken away, and I never saw her again.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: She was broken hearted, and so was I, and we cried.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: But she comforted me as well as she could, and said,
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: we were sent into this world for a wise and
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: good purpose, and must do our duties without repining, take
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: our life as we might find it, live it for
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: the best good of others, and never mind about the results.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: They were not our affair, she said. Men who did
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: like this would have a noble and beautiful reward by
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: and by in another world. And although we animals would
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: not go there, to do well and write without reward,
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: would give to our brief lives a worthiness and dignity,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: which in itself would be a reward. She had gathered
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: these things from time to time when she had gone
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: to the Sunday school with the children, and had laid
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: them up in her memory more carefully than she had
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: done with those other words and phrases, and she had
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: studied them deeply for her good and ours. One may
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: see by this that she had a wise and thoughtful
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: head for all. There was so much lightness and vanity
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: in it. So we set our farewells and looked our
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: last upon each other through our tears. And the last
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: thing she said, keeping it for the last, to make
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: me remember it the better, I think, was in memory
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: of me. When there is a time of danger to another,
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: do not think of yourself, think of your mother, and
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: do as she would do. Do you think I could
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: forget that? No? Chapter three. It was such a charming home,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: my new one, a fine great house with pictures and
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: delicate decorations and rich furniture, and no gloom anywhere, but
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding sunshine,
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: and the spacious grounds around it, and the great garden
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: howl green sword, and noble trees and flowers, no end.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: And I was the same as a member of the family.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: And they loved me and petted me, and did not
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: give me a new name, but called me by my
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: old one that was dear to me, because my mother
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: had given it me a lean of woornine. She got
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: it out of a song, and the Grays knew that
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: song and said it was a beautiful name. Missus Gray
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: was thirty and so sweet and so lovely you cannot
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: imagine it. And Sadie was ten and just like her mother,
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: just a darling, slender little copy of her, with auburned
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: tails down her back and short frocks. And the baby
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: was a year old and plump and dimpled and fond
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: of me, and never could get enough of hauling on
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: my tail and hugging me and laughing out its innocent happiness.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: And mister Gray was thirty eight and tall and slender
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: his movements, business like prompt, decided unsentimental, and with that
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: kind of trim chiseled face that just seems to glint
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: and sparkle with frosty intellectuality. He was a renowned scientist.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: I do not know what the word means, but my
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: mother would know how to use it and get effects.
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: She would know how to depress a rat terrier with
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: it and make a lap dog look sorry he came.
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: But that is not the best one. The best one
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: was laboratory. My mother could organize a trust on that
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: one that would skin the tax collars off the whole herd.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: The laboratory was not a book or a picture, or
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: a place to wash your hands in. As the college
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: president's dog said, no, that is the lavatory. The laboratory
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: is quite different, and is filled with jars and bottles
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: and electrics and wires and strange machines. And every week
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: other scientists came there and sat in the place and
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: used the machines and disgust and made what they called
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: experiments and discoveries. And often I came too, and stood
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: around and listened and tried to learn for the same
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: of my mother, and in loving memory of her, although
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: it was a pain to me as realizing what she
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: was losing out of her life, and I gaining nothing
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: at all, for try as I might, I was never
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: able to make anything out of it at all. Other
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: times I lay on the floor in the mistress's work
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: room and slept, she gently using me for a footstool,
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: knowing it pleased me, for it was a caress. Other
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: times I spent an hour in the nursery and got well,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: tossled and made happy. Other times I watched by the
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: crib there when the baby was asleep and the nurse
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: out for a few minutes on the baby's affairs. Other
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: times I romped and raced through the grounds and the
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: garden with Sadie till we were tired out. Then slumbered
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: on the grass in the shade of a tree while
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: she read her book. Other times I went visiting among
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: the neighbor dogs, for there were some most pleasant ones
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: not far away, and one very handsome and courteous and graceful,
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: one a curly haired iris utter by the name of
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: Robin Adair, who was a Presbyterian like me, and belonged
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: to the Scotch Minister. The servants in our house were
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: all kind to me and were fond of me, And
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: so as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: could not be a happier dog than I was, nor
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: a gratefuller one. I will say this for myself, for
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: it is only the truth. I tried in all ways
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: to do well and write, and honor my mother's memory
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: and her teachings, and earn the happiness that had come
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: to me as best I could. By and by came
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: my little puppy, and then my cup was full. My
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: happiness was perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing,
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: and so smooth and soft and velvety, and had such
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: cunning little awkward paws, and such affectionate eyes, and such
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: a sweet and innocent face. And it made me so
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: proud to see how the children and their mother adored
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: it and fondled it and exclaimed over every little wonderful
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: thing it did. It did seem to me that life
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: was just too lovely to Then came the winter. One
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: day I was standing a watch in the nursery. That
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: baby was asleep in the crib, which was alongside the bed,
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: on the side next to the fireplace. It was the
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it,
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: made of gauzy stuff that you can see through. The
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: nurse was out and we two sleepers were alone. A
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: spark from the wood fire was shot out, and it
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: lit on the slope of the tent. I suppose a
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: quiet interval followed. Then a scream from the baby awoke me,
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: and there was that tent flaming up toward the ceiling.
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: Before I could think, I sprang to the floor in
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: my fright, and in a second was half way to
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: the door. But in the next half second my mother's
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: farewell was sounding in my ears, and I was back
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: on the bed again. I reached my head through the
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: flames and dragged the baby out by the waistband and
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: tugged it along, and we fell to the floor together
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: in a cloud of smoke. I snatched a new hold
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: and dragged the screaming little creature along and out at
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: the door and around the bend of the hall, and
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: was still tugging away, all excited and happy and proud,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: when the master's voice shouted, be gone, you curse it, beast,
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: and I jumped to save myself, but he was wonderfully
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: quick and chased me up, striking furiously at me with
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: his cane. I dodging this way and that in terror,
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: and at last a strong blow fell upon my left
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: fore leg, which made me shriek and fall for the
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: moment helpless. The cane went up for another blow, but
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: never descended, for the nurse's voice rang wildly out, the
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: nurseries on fire, and the Master rushed away in that direction,
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: and my other bones were saved. The pain was cruel,
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: but no matter. I must not lose any time. He
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: might come back at any moment, so I limped on
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: three legs to the other end of the hall, where
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: there was a dark little stairway leading up into a garret,
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: where old boxes and such things were kept, as I
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: had heard say, and where people seldom went. I managed
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: to climb up there. Then I searched my way through
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: the dark among the piles of things, and hid in
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: the secretest place I could find. It was foolish to
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: be afraid there, Yet still I was so afraid that
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: I held in and hardly even whimpered, though it would
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: have been such a comfort to whimper, because that ease
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: is the pain, you know. But I could lick my leg,
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: and that did me some good. For half an hour
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: there was a commotion downstairs, and shoutings and rushing footsteps,
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: and then there was quiet again, quiet for some minutes,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: and that was grateful to my spirit. For then my
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: fears began to go down. And fears are worse than pains,
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: oh much worse. Then came a sound that froze me.
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: They were calling me, call me by name, hunting for me.
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: It was muffled by distance, but that could not take
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: the terror out of it. And it was the most
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: went all about everywhere down there, along the halls, through
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: all the rooms in both stories, and in the basement
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: and the cellar, then outside and farther and farther away,
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: then back, and all about the house again, and I
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: thought it would never, never, stop. But at last it did,
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: had long ago been blotted out by black darkness. Then
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: in that blessed stillness, my terrors fell little by little away,
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: and I was at peace and slept. It was a
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: good rest I had, but I woke before the twilight
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable, and I
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: could think out a plan. Now. I made a very
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: good one, which was to creep down all the way
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: down the back stairs and hide behind the cellar door,
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: and slip out and escape when the iceman came at
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: dawn while he was inside filling the refrigerator. Then I
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: would hide all day and start on my journey when
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: night came, my journey to well anywhere where they would
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: not know me and betray me to the master. I
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: was feeling almost cheerful now. Then suddenly I thought, why
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: what would life be without my puppy? That was despair.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: There was no plan for me I saw that I
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: must stay where I was, stay and wait and take
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: what might come. It was not my affair. That was
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: what life is, my mother had said it. Then well,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: then the calling began again. All my sorrows came back.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: I said to myself, the Master will never forgive. I
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: did not know what I had done to make him
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: so bitter and so unforgiving. Yet I judged it was
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: something a dog could not understand, but which was clear
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: to a man, and dreadful. They called and called, days
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: and nights. It seemed to me so long that the
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: that I was getting very weak. When you are this way,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: you sleep a great deal, and I did. Once I
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: woke in an awful fright. It seemed to me that
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: the calling was right there in the garret, and so
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: it was. It was Sadie's voice, and she was crying.
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: My name was falling from her lips, all broken, poor thing.
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: And I could not believe my ears for the joy
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: of it. When I heard her say, come back to us, Oh,
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: come back to us, and forgive. It is all so
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: sad without our I broke in with such a grateful
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: little yelp, and the next moment Sadie was plunging and
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: stumbling through the darkness and the lumber and shouting for
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: the family to hear. She's found, She's found. The days
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: that followed, well, they were wonderful, the mother and Sadie
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: and the servants. Why they just seemed to worship me.
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: They couldn't seem to make me a bed that was
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: fine enough, and as for food, they couldn't be satisfied
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: with anything but game and delicacies that were out of season.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: And every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: hear about my heroism. That was the name they called
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: it by, and it means agriculture. I remember my mother
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: pulling it on a kennel once and explaining it in
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: that way, but didn't say what agriculture was, except that
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: it was synonymous with intramural incandescence. And a dozen times
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: a day, missus Gray and Sadie would tell the tale
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: to newcomers and say I risked my life to save
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: the babies, and both of us had burns to prove it,
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: And then the company would pass me around and pet
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: me and exclaim about me, and you could see the
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother. And
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: when the people wanted to know what made me limp,
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: they looked ashamed and changed the subject. And sometimes when
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: people hunted them this way and that way with questions
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: about it, it looked to me as if they were
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: going to cry. And this was not all the glory. No,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: the Master's friends came a whole twenty of the most
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: distinguished people and had me in the laboratory and discussed
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: me as if I was a kind of discovery. And
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: some of them said it was wonderful in the dumb beast,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: the finest exhibition of instinct they could call to mind.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: But the Master said, with vehemence, it's far above instinct.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: It's reason. And many a man privileged to be saved
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: and go with you and me to a better world
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: by right of its possession, has less of it than
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: this poor, silly quadruped that's fordeigned to perish. And then
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: he laughed and said, why look at me, I'm a sarcasm.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: Bless you with all my grand intelligence. The only thing
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: I inferred was that the dog had gone mad and
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: was destroying the child. Whereas but for the beast's intelligence.
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: It's reason, I tell you, the child would have perished.
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: They disputed and disputed, and I was the very center
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: of subject of it all, and I wished my mother
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: could know that this grand honor had come to me.
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: It would have made her proud. Then they discussed optics,
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: as they called it, and whether a certain injury to
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: the brain would produce blindness or not. But they could
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: not agree about it, and said they must test it
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: by experiment, by and by, and next they discussed plants,
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: and that interested me because in the summer Sadie and
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: I had planted seeds. I helped her dig the holes,
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: you know, And after days and days a little shrub
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: or a flower came up there. And it was a
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: wonder how that could happen, but it did. And I
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: wished I could talk. I would have told those people
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: about it and shown them how much I knew, and
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: been all alive with the subject. But I didn't care
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: for the optics. It was dull, and when they came
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: back to it again, it bored me, and I went
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: to sleep pretty soon. And it was spring and sunny
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: and pleasant and lovely, and the sweet mother and the
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: children patted me, and the puppy good bye, and went
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: away on a journey in a visit to their kin.
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: And the master wasn't any company for us. But we
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: played together and had good times, and the servants were
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: kind and friendly. So we got along quite happily and
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: counted the days and waited for the family. And one
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: day those men came again and said, now for the test,
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: and they took the puppy to the laboratory, and I
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: limped three leggedly along too, feeling proud, for any attention
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: shown to the puppy was a pleasure to me. Of course,
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: they discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy shrieked,
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: and they set him on the floor, and he went
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: staggering around with his head all bloody, and the Master
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: clapped his hands and shouted, there, I've won, confess it.
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: He's as blind as a bat. And they all said,
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: it's so you've proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: you a great debt from henceforth, and they crowded around
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: him and wrung his hand cordially and thankfully and praised him.
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: ran at once to my little darling and snuggled close
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: to it where it lay, and licked the blood, and
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: it put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: knew in my heart it was a comfort to it
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: in its pain and troubled to feel its mother's touch,
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: though it could not see me. Then it dropped down presently,
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: and its little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: it was still and did not move any more. Soon
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: the master stopped discussing a moment and rang in the
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: footman and said, bury it in the far corner of
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: the garden, and then went on with the discussion. And
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: I trotted after the footman, very happy and grateful, for
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: I knew the puppy was out of its pain now
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: because it was asleep. We went far down the garden
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: to the farthest end where the children and the nurse
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: and the puppy and I used to play in the summer,
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: in the shade of a great elm, And there the
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: to plant the puppy, and I was glad because it
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: would grow and come up a fine handsome dog like
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for the family
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: when they came home. So I tried to help him dig.
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: But my lame leg was no good being stiff, you know,
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: and you have to have two or it is no use.
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: When the footman had finished and covered little Robin up,
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: he patted my head and there were tears in his eyes,
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: and he said, poor little doggie, you saved his child.
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come up.
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: This last week of fright has been stealing upon me.
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: I think there is something terrible about this. I do
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick,
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: and I cannot eat, though the servants bring me the
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: best of food, and they pet me so and even
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: come in the night and cry and say, poor doggie,
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: do give it up and come home. Don't break our hearts.
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: And all this terrifies me the more and makes me
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: sure something has happened. And I am so weak since
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: yesterday I cannot stand on my feet any more. And
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: within this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: it was sinking out of sight and the night chill
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: coming on, said things I could not understand, but they
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: carried something cold to my heart. Those poor creatures. They
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: do not suspect. They will come home in the morning
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: and eagerly ask for the little doggie that did the
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: brave deed, and who of us will be strong enough
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: to say the truth to them? The humble little friend
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: is gone? Where go the beasts that perish? The End
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: of a Dog's Tail by Mark Twain, read by John Greenman.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: This is section eight of Mark Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two.
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain's
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: Journal Writings, Volume two. Lost in the Snow by Mark Twain,
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: read by John Greenman. We mounted and started. The snow
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: lay so deep on the ground that there was no
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: sign of a road perceptible, and the snow fall was
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: so thick that we could not see more than a
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: hundred yards ahead. Else we could have guided our course
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: by the mountain ranges. The case looked dubious, but Ollendorff
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: said his instinct was as sensitive as any compass, and
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: that he could strike a bee line for Carson City
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: and never diverge from it. He said that if he
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: were to straggle a single point out of the true line,
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: his instinct would assail him like an outraged conscience. Consequently,
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: we dropped into his wake, happy and content. For half
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: an hour we poked along warily enough, but at the
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: end of that time we came upon a fresh trail,
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: and Ollendorff shouted proudly, I knew I was as dead
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: certain as a compass. Boys, here we are right in
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: somebody's tracks that will hunt the way for us without
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: any trouble. Let's hurry up and join company with a party.
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: So we put the horses into as much of a
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: trot as the deep snow would allow, and before long
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: it was evident that we were gaining on our predecessors,
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: for the tracks grew more distinct. We hurried along, and
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: at the end of an hour the tracks looked still
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: newer and fresher. But what surprised us was that the
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: number of travelers in advance of us seemed to steadily increase.
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: We wondered how so large a party came to be
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: traveling at such a time and in such a solitude.
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: Somebody suggested that it must be a company of soldiers
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: from the fort, and so we accepted that solution and
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: jogged along a little faster still, for they could not
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: be far off now. But the tracks still multiplied, and
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: we began to think the platoon of soldiers was miraculously
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: expanding into a regiment. Blue said they had already increased
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: to five hundred. Presently, he stopped his horse and said, boys,
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: these are our own tracks, and we've actually been circusing
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: round and round in a circle for more than two
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: hours out here in his blind desert by Georges, as
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: perfectly hydraulic, and the old man waxed, wraths and abusive.
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: He called Ollendorff all manner of hard names, so that
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: he never saw such a lurid fool as he was,
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: and ended with a peculiarly venomous opinion that he did
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: not know as much as a logarithm. We certainly had
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: been following our own tracks. Ollendorff and his mental compass
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: were in disgrace from that moment. After all our hard travel,
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: here we were on the bank of the stream again,
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: with the inn beyond dimly outlines through the driving snowfall.
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: While we were considering what to do, the young Swede
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: landed from the canoe and took his pedestrian way Carson Words,
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: singing his same tiresome song about his sister and his
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: brother and the child in the grave with its mother,
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: and in a short minute faded and disappeared in the
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: white oblivion. He was never heard of again. He no
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: doubt got bewildered and lost, and fatigue delivered him over
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: to sleep, and sleep betrayed him to death. Possibly he
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: followed our treacherous tracks till he became exhausted and dropped. Presently,
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: the overland stage forded the now fast receding stream and
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: started toward Carson, on its first trip since the flood came.
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: We hesitated no longer now, but took up our march
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: in its wake and trotted merrily along, for we had
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: good confidence in the driver's bump of locality, but our
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: horses were no match for the fresh stage team. We
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: were soon left out of sight, but it was no matter,
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: for we had the deep ruts the wheels made for
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: a guide. By this time it was three in the afternoon,
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: and consequently it was not very long before night came,
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: and not with a lingering twilight, but with a sudden
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: shutting down like a cellar door, as is its habit
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: in that country. The snow fall was still as thick
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: as ever, and of course we could not see fifteen
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: steps before us, but all about us, the white glare
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: of the snow bed enabled us to discern the smooth
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: sugar loaf mounds made by the covered sage bushes, and
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: just in front of us the two faint crews which
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: we knew were the steadily filling and slowly disappearing wheel tracks.
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: Now those sage bushes were all about the same height,
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: three or four feet. They stood just about seven feet apart,
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: all over the vast desert. Each of them was a
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: mere snow mound. Now, in any direction that you proceeded
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 1: the same in a well laid out orchard, you would
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: find yourself moving down a distinctly defined avenue with a
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: row of these snow mounds on either side of it,
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: an avenue the customary width of a road, nice and
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: level in its breadth, and rising at the sides in
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: the most natural way by reason of the mounds. But
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: we had not thought of this. Then, imagine the chilly
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: thrill that shot through us when it finally occurred to
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: us far in the night, that, since the last faint
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: trace of the wheel tracks had long ago been buried
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: from sight, we might now be wandering down a mere
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: sage brush avenue. Miles away from the road, and diverging
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: further and further away from it, all the time, having
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: a cake of ice slipped down one's back as placid
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: comfort compared to it. There was a sudden leap and
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: stir of blood that had been asleep for an hour,
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: and as sudden arousing of all the drowsing activities in
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: our minds and bodies. We were alive and awake at once,
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: and shaking and quaking with consternation. Too. There was an
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: instant halting and dismounting, a bending low, and an anxious
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: scanning of the road bed useless, of course, for if
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: a faint depression could not be discerned from an altitude
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: of four or five feet above it, it certainly could
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: not with one's nose nearly against it. We seemed to
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: be in a road, but that was no proof. We
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: tested this by walking off in various directions. The regular
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: snow mounds and the regular avenues between them convinced each
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: man that he had found the true road, and that
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: the others had found only false ones. Plainly, the situation
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: was desperate. We were cold and stiff, and the horses
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: were tired. We decided to build a sage brush fire
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: and camp out till morning. This was wise, because if
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: we were wandering from the right road and the snow
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: storm continued another day, our case would be the next
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: thing to hopeless if we kept on. All agreed that
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: a camp fire was what would come nearest to saving
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: us now, and so we set about building it. We
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: could find no matches, and so we tried to make
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: shift with the pistols. Not a man in the party
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: had ever tried to do such a thing before, But
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: not a man in the party doubted that it could
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: be done and without any trouble, because every man in
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: the party had read about it in books many a time,
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: and had naturally come to believe it with trusting simplicity,
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: just as he had long ago accepted and believed that
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: other common book fraud about Indians and lost hunters making
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: a fire by rubbing two dry sticks together. We huddled
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: together on our knees in the deep snow, and the
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: horses put their noses together and bowed their patient heads
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: over us, And while the feathery flakes eddied down and
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: turned us into a group of white statuary, we proceeded
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: with the momentous experiment. We broke twigs from a sage
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: brush and piled them on a little cleared place in
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: the shelter of our bodies. In the course of ten
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: or fifteen minutes, all was ready. And then, while conversation
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: ceased and our pulses beat low with anxious suspense, Ollendorf
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: applied his revolver, pulled the trigger, and blew the pile
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: clear out of the county. It was the flattest failure
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: that ever was. This was distressing, but it paled before
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: a greater horror. The horses were gone. I had been
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: appointed to hold the bridles, but in my absorbing anxiety
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: over the pistol experiment, I had unconsciously dropped them, and
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: the released animals had walked off in the storm. It
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: was useless to try to follow them, for their footfalls
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: could make no sound, and one could pass within two
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: yards of the creatures and never see them. We gave
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: them up without an effort at recovering them, and cursed
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: the lying books that said horses would stay by their
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: masters for protection and companionship. In a distressful time like ours.
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: We were miserable enough before, we felt still more forlorn.
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: Now patiently, but with blighted hope. We broke more sticks
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: and piled them, and once more the Prussian shot them
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: into annihilation. Plainly, to light a fire with a pistol
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: was an art requiring practice and experience, and the middle
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: of a desert at midnight in a snowstorm was not
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: a good place or time for the acquiring of the accomplishment.
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: We gave it up and tried the other. Each man
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: took a couple of sticks and fell to chafing them together.
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: At the end of half an hour we were thoroughly chilled,
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: and so were the sticks. We bitterly execrated the Indians,
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: the hunters, and the books that had betrayed us with
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: a silly device, and wondered dismally what was next to
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: be done. At this critical moment, mister Blue fished out
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: four matches from the rubbish of an overlooked pocket. To
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: have found four gold bars would have seemed poor and
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: cheap good luck. Compared to this, one cannot think how
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: good a match looks under such circumstances, or how lovable
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: and precious and sacredly beautiful to the eye. This time
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: we gathered sticks with high hopes, and when mister Below
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: prepared to light the first match, there was an amount
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: of interest centered upon him that pages of writing could
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: not describe. The match burnt hopefully a moment, and then
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: went out. It could not have carried more regret with
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: it if it had been a human life. The next
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: match simply flashed and died. The wind puffed the third
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: one out, just as it was on the imminent verge
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: of success. We gathered together closer than ever and developed
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: a solicitude that was rapt and painful. As mister Blue
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: scratched our last hope on his leg, it lit, burned
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: blue and sickly, and then butted into a robust flame,
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: shading it with his hands. The old gentleman bent gradually down,
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: and every heart went with him, everybody too, for that matter,
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: and blood and breath stood still. The flame touched the
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: sticks at last, took gradual hold upon them, hesitated, took
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: a stronger hold. Hesitated again, held its breath five heart
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: breaking seconds, then gave a sort of human gasp and
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: went out. Nobody said a word for several minutes. It
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: was a solemn sort of silence. Even the wind put
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: on a stealthy, sinister quiet, and made no more noise
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: than the falling flakes of snow. Finally, a sad voiced
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: conversation began, and it was soon apparent that in each
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: of our hearts lay the conviction that this was our
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: last night with the living. I had so hoped that
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: I was the only one who felt so. When the
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: others calmly acknowledged their conviction, it sounded like the summons itself.
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: Ollendorff said, brothers, let us die together, and let us
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: go without one hard feeling towards each other. Let us
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: forget and forgive. By gones, I know that you have
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: felt hard towards me for turning over the canoe and
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: for knowing too much and leading you round and round
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: in the snow. But I meant well forgive me. I
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: acknowledge freely that I have had hard feelings against mister
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: Belou for abusing me and calling me a logarithm, which
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: is a thing I do not know what, but no doubt,
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: a thing considered disgraceful and unbecoming in America. And it
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: has scarcely been out of my mind and has hurt
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: me a great deal. But let it go. I forgive
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: mister Beleeu with all my heart and poor Ollendorff broke down,
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: and the tears came. He was not alone, for I
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: was crying too. And so mister below Ollendorf got his
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: voice again and forgave me for things I had done,
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: and said. Then he got out his bottle of whiskey
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: and said that whether he lived or died, he would
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: never touch another drop. He said he had given up
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: all hope of life, and although ill prepared, was ready
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: to submit humbly to his fate. That he wished he
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: could be spared a little longer, and not for any
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: selfish reason, but to make a thorough reform in his character,
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: and by devoting himself to helping the poor, nursing the sick,
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: and pleading with the people to guard themselves against the
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: evils of intemperance, make his life a beneficent example to
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: the young, and lay it down at last with the
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: precious reflection that it had not been lived in vain.
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: He ended by saying that his reform should begin at
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: this moment, even here, in the presence of death, since
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: no longer time was to be vouchsafed, wherein to prosecute
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: it to men's help and benefit. And with that he
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: threw away the bottle of whiskey. Mister Belloo made remarks
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: of similar purport, and began the reform he could not
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: live to continue by throwing away the ancient pack of
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: cards that had solaced our captivity during the flood and
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: made it bearable. He said he never gambled, but still
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: was satisfied that the meddling with cards in any way
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: was immoral and injurious, and no man could be wholly
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: pure and blemishless without essuwing them, And therefore continued he.
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: In doing this act, I already feel more in sympathy
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: with that spiritual saturnalia necessary to entire and obsolete reform.
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: These rolling syllables touched him as no intelligible eloquence could
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: have done, and the old man sobbed with a mournfulness
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: not unmingled with satisfaction. My own remarks were of the
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 1: same tenor as those of my comrades, and I know
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: that the feelings that prompted them were heartfelt and sincere.
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: We were all sincere, and all deeply moved and earnest,
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: for we were in the presence of death and without hope.
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: I threw away my pipe, and in doing it felt
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: that at last I was free of a hated vice,
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: and one that had ridden me like a tyrant all
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: my days. While I yet talked, the thought of the
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: good I might have done in the world, and the
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 1: still greater good I might now do, with these new
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: incentives and higher and better aims to guide me, if
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: I could only be spared a few years longer. Overcame me,
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: and the tears came again. We put our arms about
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: each other's necks and awaited the warning drowsiness that precedes
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: death by freezing. It came, stealing over us presently, and
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: then we bat each other a last farewell. A delicious
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: dreaminess wrought its web about my yielding senses, while the
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: no flakes wove a winding sheet about my conquered body.
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: Oblivion came. The battle of life was done. I do
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 1: not know how long I was in a state of forgetfulness,
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 1: but it seemed an age. A vague consciousness grew upon
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 1: me by degrees, and then came a gathering anguish of
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: pain in my limbs and through all my body. I shuddered.
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: The thought flitted through my brain, this is death, this
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: is the Hereafter then came a white upheaval at my side,
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: and a voice said, with bitterness, will some gentleman be
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: so good as to kick me behind? It was blue,
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 1: at least, it was a tousled snow image in a
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 1: sitting posture. With Balue's voice, I rose up, and there,
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 1: in the gray dawn, not fifteen steps from us were
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: the frame buildings of a stage station, and under a
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: shed stood our still saddled and bridled horses. An arched
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: snow drift broke up now, and Ollendorff emerged from it,
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: and the three of us sat and stared at the
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: houses without speaking a word. We really had nothing to say.
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: We were like the profane man who could not do
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: the subject justice. The whole situation was so painfully ridiculous
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: and humiliating that words were tame, and we did not
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: know where to commence. Anyhow, the joy in our hearts
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: at our deliverance was poisoned, while nigh dissipated. Indeed, we
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: presently began to grow pettish by degrees and sullen, and
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: then angry at each other, angry at ourselves, angry at
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: everything in general. We moodily dusted the snow from our clothing,
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: and in unsociable single file, plowed our way to the horses,
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: unsaddled them, and sought shelter in the station. I have
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: scarcely exaggerated a detail of this curious and absurd adventure.
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 1: It occurred almost exactly as I have stated it. We
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: actually went into camp and a snow drift in a
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 1: desert at midnight, in a storm, forlorn and hopeless, within
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: fifteen steps of a comfortable inn. For two hours, we
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: sat apart in the station and ruminated in disgust. The
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: mystery was gone now, and it was plain enough why
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: the horses had deserted us, without a doubt. They were
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: under that shed a quarter of a minute after they
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: had left us, and they must have overheard and enjoyed
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: all our confessions and lamentations. After breakfast, we felt better,
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: and the zest of life soon came back. The world
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: looked bright again, and existence was as dear to us
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: as ever. Presently, an uneasiness came over me, grew upon me,
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: assailed me without ceasing alas my regeneration was not complete.
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: I wanted to smoke, resisted with all my strength, but
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: the flesh was weak. I wandered away alone and wrestled
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: with myself. An hour I recalled my promise of reform,
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: and preached to myself persuasively, upbraidingly, exhaustively. But it was
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: all in vain. I shortly found myself sneaking among the snowdrifts,
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: hunting from my pipe. I discovered it after a considerable search,
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: and crept away to hide myself and enjoy it. I
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: remained behind the barn a good while, asking myself how
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: I would feel if my braver, stronger, truer comrades should
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: catch me in my degradation. At last, I lit the pipe,
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: and no human being can feel meaner and baser than
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: I did. Then I was ashamed of being in my
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: own pitiful company. Still dreading discovery, I felt that perhaps
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: the further side of the barn would be somewhat safer,
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: and so I turned the corner. As I he turned
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: one corner, smoking, Ollendorff turned the other with his bottle
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: to his lips, and between us sat unconscious, blue deep
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: in a game of Solitaire with the old greasy cards.
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: End of Lost in the Snow by Mark Twain, read
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: by John Greenman. This is section nine of Mark Twain's
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: Journal Writings, Volume two. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: public domain. Mark Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two, Mark Twain
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: on Overspeeding read by John Greenman. Equal laws for all.
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: It is good in theory, and I believe it would
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: prove good in practice if fairly and dispassionately tried. The
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: law dresses a convict in a garb, which makes him
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: easily distinguishable from any moving thing in the world at
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty five yards except a zebra. If
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: he escapes in those clothes, he cannot get far. Could
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: not this principle be extended to include his brother criminal,
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: the overspeeder, thus making the pair fairly and righteously equal
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: before the law. Every day throughout America, the overspeeder runs
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: over somebody and escapes. That is the way it reads.
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: At present. The mobile numbers are so small that ordinary
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 1: eyes cannot read them upon a swiftly receding machine at
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: a distance of a hundred feet, a distance which the
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: machine has covered before the spectator can adjust his focus.
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: I think I would amend the law. I would enlarge
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: the figures and make them readable at a hundred yards.
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: For overspeeding first offense, I would enlarge the figures again
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: and may make them readable at three hundred yards. This
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: is in place of a fine, and as a warning
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: to pedestrians to climb a tree. This enlargement to continue
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: two months, with privilege of resuming these smaller figures after
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: the first thirty days upon payment of five hundred dollars
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: for each subsequent offense. Re enlargement for six months, with
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: privilege of resuming the smaller figures upon payment of one
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars at the end of three With auto numbers
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: readable as far as one could tell a convict from
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: a barber pole, none of these criminals could run over
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 1: a person and escape. Two months ago, a touring mobile
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: came within an indeterminable fraction of killing a member of
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: my family, and its number was out of sight range
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: before the sharpest eyes present could make it out. It
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: was so small and the spectators so dazed by momentary fright.
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: I have had two narrow escapes in New York, and
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 1: so has everybody else. None of us has succeeded in
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: capturing the auto number. I feel a sort of personal
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: interest in this suggested reform. End of Mark Twain on overspeeding,
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: reprinted from Harper's Weekly in Life magazine of November thirtieth
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: nineteen o five, read by John Greenman. This is chapter
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: ten of Mark Twain's Journal Writings, Volume two. This LibriVox
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain's Journal Writings,
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: Volume two. A medieval romance read by John Greenman. We
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 1: voyaged by steamer down the Lago de Leccho, through wild
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: mountain scenery and by hamlets and villas, and disembarked at
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 1: the town of Lecco. They said it was two hours
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: by carriage to the ancient city of Beergamo, and that
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: we should arrive there in good season for the railway train.
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: We got an open barouche and a wild, boisterous driver
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: and set out. It was delightful. We had a fast
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: team and a perfectly smooth road. There were towering cliffs
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: on our left and a pretty Lagodi Leccho on our right,
• 2:24:23
  Speaker 1: and every now and then it rained on us. Just
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: before starting, the driver picked up in the street a
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: stump of cigar an inch long, and put it in
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: his mouth. When he had carried it thus for about
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: an hour, I thought it would be only Christian charity
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: to give him a light. I handed him my cigar,
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: which I had just lit, and he put it in
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: his mouth and returned his stump to his pocket. We
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: saw interior Italy. Now the houses were of solid stone,
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 1: and not often in good repair. The peasants and their
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: children were idle as a general thing, and the donkeys
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 1: and chickens made themselves at home in drawing room and
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 1: bed chamber, and were not molested. The drivers of each
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: and every one of the slow moving market carts we
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: met were stretched in the sun upon their merchandise, sound asleep.
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: Every three or four hundred yards seemed to me we
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: came upon the shrine of some saint or other, a
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: rude picture of him built into a cross or a
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: stone pillar by the roadside. Some of the pictures of
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: the Savior were curiosities in their way. They represented him
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: stretched upon the cross, his countenance distorted with agony, from
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: the wounds of the crown of thorns, from the pierced side,
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: from the mutilated hands and feet, from the scarged body,
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: from every hand breadth of his person, streams of blood
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: were pouring. Such a gory, ghastly spectacle would frighten the
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: children out of their senses. I should think there were
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: some unique auxiliaries to the painting, which added to the effect.
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: These were genuine wooden and iron implements, and were prominently
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: disposed about the figures, a bundle of nails, the hammer
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 1: to drive them, the sponge, the reed that supported it,
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: the cup of vinegar, the ladder for the ascent of
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: the cross, the spear that pierced the savior's side. The
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: crown of thorns was made of real thorns, and was
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 1: nailed to the sacred head. In some of the Italian
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: church paintings, even by the old masters, the Savior and
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: the Virgin wear silver or gilded crowns that are fastened
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: to the pictures heads with nails. The effect is as
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: grotesque as it is incongruous. Here and there, in the
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: fronts of roadside inns we found huge, coarse frescoes of
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: suffering martyrs, like those in the shrines. It could not
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: have diminished their sufferings any to be so uncouthly represented.
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 1: We were in the heart and home of priestcraft, of
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 1: a happy, cheerful, contented ignorance, superstition, degradation, poverty, indolence, and everlasting,
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: unaspiring worthlessness. And we said, fervently it suits these people, precisely,
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 1: let them enjoy it along with other animals, and Heaven
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: forbid that they be molested. We feel no malice towards them.
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: We pass through the strangest, funniest undreamt of old towns,
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 1: wedded to the customs, and steeped in the sleep of
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: the older ages, and perfectly unaware that the world turns round,
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: and perfectly indifferent too, as to whether it turns round
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 1: or stands still. They have nothing to do but to
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: eat and sleep, and sleep and eat, and toil a
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: little when they can get a friend to stand by
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: and keep them awake. They are not paid for thinking.
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 1: They are not paid to fret about the world's concerns.
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 1: They were not respectable people. They were not worthy people.
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: They were not learned and wise and brilliant people. But
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: in their breasts, all their stupid lives long rested a
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: peace that passeth all understanding. How can men calling themselves
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: men consent to be so degraded and happy? We whisked
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: by many a gray, old medieval castle, clad thick with ivy,
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: that swung its green banners down from towers and turrets
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: where once some old crusader's flag had floated. The driver
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 1: pointed to one of these ancient fortresses, and said, I translate.
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 1: Do you see that great iron hook that projects from
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: the wall just under the highest window in the ruined tower.
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: We said, we could not see it at such a distance,
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: but had no doubt it was there. Well, he said,
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: there is a ledge and connected with that iron hook.
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: Nearly seven hundred years ago that castle was the property
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: of the noble Count Luigi Gennaro Guido ALFONSEI de Genova.
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: What was his other name, said one of the party.
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: He had no other name. The name I have spoken
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 1: of was all the name he had. He was the
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: son of Blank. Never mind the particulars go on with
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: the legend. The legend well, then, all the world at
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: that time was in a wild excitement about the Holy Sepulcher.
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: All the great feudal lords in Europe were pledging their
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: lands and pawning their plate to fit out men at
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: arms so that they might join the grand armies of
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: Christendom and win renown in the Holy Wars. The Count
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: Luigi raised money like the rest, and one mild September morning,
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: armed with battle axe with Barbican cressette, portcullis enfield rifle,
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: Prussia needle gun and thundering culverin. He rode through the
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: greaves of his dongeon keep, with as gallant a troop
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: of Christian bandits as ever stepped in Italy. He had
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 1: his sword Excalibur with him. His beautiful countess and her
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: young daughter waved him a tearful adieu from the battering
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: rams and buttresses of the fortress, and he galloped away
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: with a happy heart. He made a raid on a
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 1: neighboring baron and completed his outfit. With the booty secured.
• 2:30:30
  Speaker 1: He then raised the castle to the ground, massacred the family,
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: and moved on. They were hardy fellows in the grand
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: old days of chivalry. Alas those days will never come again.
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: Count Luigi grew high in fame in the Holy Land.
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 1: He plunged into the carnage of a hundred battles, but
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 1: his good Excalibur always brought him out alive, albeit often
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: sorely wounded. His face became browned by exposure to the
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 1: Syrian sun. In long marches, he suffered hunger and thirst.
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 1: He pined in prisons, he languished in loathsome plague hospitals,
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 1: and many and many a time he thought of his
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 1: loved ones at home, and wondered if all was well
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 1: with them, But his heart said, peace is not thy brother,
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: watching over thy household forty two years waxed and waned.
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: The good fight was on. Godfrey reigned in Jerusalem. The
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: Christian hosts reared the banner of the cross above the
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: Holy Sepulcher. Twilight was approaching. Fifty harlequins in flowing robes
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 1: approached this castle wearily, for they were on foot, and
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: the dust upon their garments showed that they had traveled far.
• 2:31:48
  Speaker 1: They overtook a peasant and asked him if it was
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: likely they could get food and a hospitable bed there
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: for love of Christian charity, and if perchance a moral
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: parlor and atainment might meet with generous countenance. For they said,
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: this exhibition hath no feature that could offend the most fastidious.
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 1: Marry quoth the peasant, an it please your worships. Ye
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: had better go many a good road, hence with your
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: juggling circus, than trust your bones in yonder castle. How now,
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: Sarah exclaimed the chief monk, explain thy rivaled speech, Or,
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 1: my lady, it shall go hard with thee peace good mountebank.
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: I did but utter the truth that was in my heart.
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: San Pablo, be my witness that did ye but find
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: the stout Count Leonardo on his cups sheer from the
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: castle's topmost battlements. Would he hurl ye all alackaday. The
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 1: good Lord Luigi reigns not here in these sad times.
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: The good Lord Luigi aye none other please your worship.
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: In his day, the poor rejoiced in plenty, and the
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 1: rich he did opress. Taxes were not known. The fathers
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: of the church waxed fat upon his bounty. Travelers went
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: and came with none to interfere. Whosoever would might tarry
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: in his halls in cordial welcome, and eat his bread
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 1: and drink his wine withal, But woe is me. Two
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 1: and forty years agone, the good Count rode away to
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: fight for the Holy Cross. And many a year has
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 1: flown since word or token was had of him. Men
• 2:33:30
  Speaker 1: say his bones lie bleaching in the fields of Palestine.
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: And now now God mercy, the cruel Leonardo lords it
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 1: in the castle. He wrings taxes from the poor. He
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: robs all travelers that journey by his gates. He spends
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: his days in feuds and murders, and his knights in
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 1: revel and debautch. He roasts the fathers of the Church
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 1: upon his kitchen's spits, and enjoyeth the same, calling it
• 2:34:00
  Speaker 1: past time. These thirty years Luigi's countess hath not been
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 1: seen by any in all this land. And many whisper
• 2:34:10
  Speaker 1: that she pines in the dungeons of the castle, for
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 1: that she will not wed with Leonardo, saying that she
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 1: will die ere she prove false to him. They whisper
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 1: likewise that her daughter is a prisoner as well. Nay,
• 2:34:24
  Speaker 1: good jugglers, seek ye refreshments otherwares. Twere better that ye
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: perished in a Christian war than that ye plunged from
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: off yon dizzy tower. I give ye good day, God
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: keep ye gentle youth farewell. But heedless of the peasant's warning,
• 2:34:43
  Speaker 1: the players moved straightway towards the castle. Word was brought
• 2:34:48
  Speaker 1: to Count Leonardo that a company of Mountebanks besought his hospitality.
• 2:34:53
  Speaker 1: Tis well dispose of them in the customary manner. Yet
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: stay I have need of them, Let them come hither
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: there later cast them from the battlements. Or how many
• 2:35:04
  Speaker 1: priests have ye on hand? The day's results are meager good,
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: my lord an abbot and a dozen beggarly friars, as
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 1: all we have hell and furies? Is the state going
• 2:35:15
  Speaker 1: to secede? Send hither the mountebanks, afterwards broil them with
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 1: the priests. The robed and closed, cowled harlequins entered the
• 2:35:27
  Speaker 1: grim Leonardo sate in state, at the head of his
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: council board, ranged up and down the hall on either hand,
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: stood near a hundred men at arms have villains? Quoth
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: the count, what can ye do to earn the hospitality
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: ye crave? Dread Lord, and mighty crowded audiences have greeted
• 2:35:47
  Speaker 1: our humble efforts with rapturous applause. Among our body count
• 2:35:51
  Speaker 1: we the versatile and talented Ugolino, the justly celebrated Rodolfo,
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: the infant phenomenon Senor Hippo, the Palestine pet Zelina, the
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: gifted and accomplished Rodrigo. The management have spared no pains
• 2:36:09
  Speaker 1: and expense, stath, what can ye do? Curb thy prating tongue? Good,
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: my Lord? In acrobatic feats, in practice with the dumb bells,
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: in balancing and ground and lofty tumbling, are we versed?
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 1: And sith your Highness asked me I venture here to
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 1: publish that in the truly marvelous and entertaining Zampileiro station.
• 2:36:33
  Speaker 1: Gag him, throttle him body of Bacchus. Am I a
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: dog that I am to be assailed with polysyllable blasphemy
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 1: like this? But hold, Lucretia Isabel, stand forth, Sarah. Behold
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: this dame, this weeping wench. The first I marry within
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: the hour, the other shall dry her tears or feed
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: the vultures. Thou and thy vagabonds shall crown the wedding
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: with thy merrymakings. Fetch hither the priest. The dame sprang
• 2:37:05
  Speaker 1: toward the chief player. Oh, save me, she cried, Save
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: me from a fate far worse than death. Behold these
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: sad eyes, these shrunken cheeks, this withered frame. See thou,
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: this wreck, this fiend hath made. And let thy heart
• 2:37:23
  Speaker 1: be moved with pity. Look upon this damsel, Note her
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 1: wasted form, her halting step, her bloodless cheek, where youth
• 2:37:31
  Speaker 1: should flush and happiness exalt in smiles. Hear us, and
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: have compassion. This monster was my husband's brother. He should
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: have been our shield against all harm. Hath kept us
• 2:37:45
  Speaker 1: shut within the noisome dungeon of his castle for low
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: these thirty years, for what crime none other than I
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 1: would not belie my troth. Root out my strong love
• 2:37:58
  Speaker 1: for him who marches with the legions of the Cross
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 1: in holy land, for oh, he is not dead, and
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 1: wed with him. Save us, Oh, save thy persecuted supplicants.
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: She flung herself at his feet and clasped his knees.
• 2:38:13
  Speaker 1: Ha ha, shouted the brutal Leonardo priest to thy work,
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 1: and he dragged the weeping dame from her refuge. Say
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: once for all will you be mine? For by my halidom,
• 2:38:27
  Speaker 1: that breath that uttereth thy refusal shall be thy last
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 1: on earth. Never then die. And the sword leaped from
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: its scabbard, quicker than thought, quicker than the lightning's flash.
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 1: Fifty Monkish habits disappeared, and fifty knights in splendid armor
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: stood revealed. Fifty falchions gleamed in air above the men
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: at arms, and brighter, fiercer than them, all flamed Excalibur
• 2:38:54
  Speaker 1: aloft and cleaving downward, struck the brutal Leonardo's weapon from
• 2:38:59
  Speaker 1: his grasp. Count Luigi bound his usurping brother hand and foot.
• 2:39:06
  Speaker 1: The practiced knights from Palestine made holiday sport of carving
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 1: the awkward men at arms to chops and steaks. The
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 1: victory was complete, happiness reigned. Everybody married somebody else. But
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 1: what did they do with the wicked brother? Oh? Nothing,
• 2:39:26
  Speaker 1: Only hanged him on that iron hook I was speaking
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 1: of by the chin? How passed it up through into
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 1: his mouth? How long couple of years? Count Luigi? Is
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 1: he dead six hundred and fifty years ago? Or such
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 1: a matter? Splendid legend Drive on end of a medieval
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: Romance by Mark Twain, read by John Greenman,