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78 - Roughing It by Mark Twain · Roughing It

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  Speaker 1: This is chapter seventy eight of Roughing It. This is
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  Speaker 1: Roughing It by Mark Twain, Chapter seventy eight. After half
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  Speaker 1: a year's luxurious vagrancy in the Islands, I took shipping
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  Speaker 1: in a sailing vessel and regretfully returned to San Francisco,
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  Speaker 1: a voyage in every way delightful, but without an incident,
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  Speaker 1: unless lying two long weeks in a dead calm eighteen
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  Speaker 1: hundred miles from the nearest land may rank as an incident.
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  Speaker 1: Schools of whales grew so tame that day after day
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  Speaker 1: they played about the ship among the porpoises and the sharks,
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  Speaker 1: without the least apparent fear of us, and we pelted
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  Speaker 1: them with empty bottles for lack of better sport. Twenty
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  Speaker 1: four hours afterward, these bottles would be still lying on
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  Speaker 1: the glassy water under our noses, showing that the ship
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  Speaker 1: had not moved out of her place in all that time.
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  Speaker 1: The calm was absolutely breathless, and the surface of the
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  Speaker 1: sea absolutely without a wrinkle. For a whole day and
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  Speaker 1: part of a night we lay so close to another
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  Speaker 1: ship that had drifted to our vicinity, that we carried
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  Speaker 1: on conversations with her passengers, introduced each other by name,
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  Speaker 1: and became pretty intimately acquainted with people we had never
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  Speaker 1: heard of before and have never heard of, since this
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  Speaker 1: was the only vessel we saw during the whole lonely voyage.
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  Speaker 1: We had fifteen passengers. And to show how hard pressed
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  Speaker 1: they were at last for occupation and amusement, I will
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  Speaker 1: mention that the gentlemen gave a good part of their
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  Speaker 1: time every day during the calm to trying to sit
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  Speaker 1: on an empty champagne bottle, lying on its side and
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  Speaker 1: thread a needle without touching their heels to the deck
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  Speaker 1: or falling over. And the ladies sat in the shade
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  Speaker 1: of the mainsail and watched the enterprise with absorbing interest.
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  Speaker 1: We were at sea five Sundays, and yet but for
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  Speaker 1: the almanac, we never would have known but that all
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  Speaker 1: the other days were Sundays too. I was home again
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  Speaker 1: in San Francisco, without means and without employment. I tortured
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  Speaker 1: my brain for a saving scheme of some kind, and
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  Speaker 1: at last a public lecture occurred to me. I sat
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  Speaker 1: down and wrote one. In a fever of hopeful anticipation.
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  Speaker 1: I showed it to several friends, but they all shook
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  Speaker 1: their heads. They said nobody would come to hear me.
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  Speaker 1: I would make an humiliating failure of it. They said that,
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  Speaker 1: as I had never spoken in public, I would break
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  Speaker 1: down in the delivery. Anyhow, I was disconsolate now, but
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  Speaker 1: at last an editor slapped me on the back and
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  Speaker 1: told me to go ahead. He said, take the largest
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  Speaker 1: house in town and charge a dollar a ticket. The
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  Speaker 1: audacity of the proposition was charming. It seemed fraught with practical,
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  Speaker 1: worldly wisdom. However, the proprietor of the several theaters endorsed
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  Speaker 1: the advice and said I might have his handsome new
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  Speaker 1: opera house at half price fifty dollars. In sheer desperation,
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  Speaker 1: I took it on credit for sufficient reasons. In three
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  Speaker 1: days I did one hundred and fifty dollars worth of
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  Speaker 1: printing and advertising, and was the most distressed and frightened
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  Speaker 1: creature on the Pacific coast. I could not sleep. Who
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  Speaker 1: could under such circumstances. For other people, there was facetiousness
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  Speaker 1: in the last line of my posters, but to me
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  Speaker 1: it was plaintive with a pang when I wrote it,
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  Speaker 1: doors open at seven and a half, the trouble will
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  Speaker 1: begin at eight. That line has done good service since
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  Speaker 1: showmen have borrowed it frequently. I have even seen it
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  Speaker 1: appended to a newspaper advertisement reminding school pupils and vacation
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  Speaker 1: what time next term would begin. As those three days
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  Speaker 1: of suspense dragged by, I grew more and more unhappy.
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  Speaker 1: I had sold two hundred tickets among my personal friends,
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  Speaker 1: but I feared they might not come. My lecture, which
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  Speaker 1: had seemed humorous to me at first, grew steadily more
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  Speaker 1: and more dreary, till not a vestige of fun seemed left,
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  Speaker 1: and I grieved that I could not bring a coffin
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  Speaker 1: on the stage and turn the thing into a funeral.
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  Speaker 1: I was so panic stricken at last that I went
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  Speaker 1: to three old friends, giants in stature, cordial by nature,
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  Speaker 1: and stormy voiced and said, this thing is going to
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  Speaker 1: be a failure. The jokes in it are so dim
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  Speaker 1: that nobody will ever see them. I would like to
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  Speaker 1: have you sit in the parquet and help me through well,
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  Speaker 1: they said they would. Then I went to the wife
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  Speaker 1: of a popular citizen and said that if she was
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  Speaker 1: willing to do me a very great kindness, I would
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  Speaker 1: be glad if she and her husband would sit prominently
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  Speaker 1: in the left hand stage box, where the whole house
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  Speaker 1: could see them. I explained that I should need help
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  Speaker 1: and would turn toward her and smile as a signal
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  Speaker 1: when I had been delivered of an obscure joke. And
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  Speaker 1: then I added, don't wait to investigate, but respond. She
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  Speaker 1: promised down the street I met a man I never
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  Speaker 1: had seen before. He had been drinking and was beaming
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  Speaker 1: with smiles and good nature. He said, my name's Sawyer.
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  Speaker 1: You don't know me, but that don't matter. I haven't
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  Speaker 1: got a cent. But if you knew how bad I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to laugh, you'd give me a ticket. Come now,
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  Speaker 1: what do you say? Is your laugh hung on a
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  Speaker 1: hair trigger? That is? Is it critical? Or can you
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  Speaker 1: get it off easy? My drawling infirmity of speech so
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  Speaker 1: affected him that he laughed a specimen or two that
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  Speaker 1: struck me as being about the article I wanted, And
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  Speaker 1: I gave him a ticket and appointed him to sit
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  Speaker 1: in the second circle in the center and be responsible
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  Speaker 1: for that division of the house. I gave him minute
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  Speaker 1: instructions about how to detect indistinct jokes, and then went
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  Speaker 1: away and left him chuckling placidly over the novelty of
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  Speaker 1: the idea. I ate nothing. On the last of the
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  Speaker 1: three eventful days, I only suffered. I had advertised that
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  Speaker 1: on this third day the box office would be opened
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  Speaker 1: for the sale of reserved seats. I crept down to
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  Speaker 1: the theater at four in the afternoon to see if
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  Speaker 1: any sales had been made. The ticket seller was gone,
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  Speaker 1: the box office was locked up. I had to swallow
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  Speaker 1: suddenly or my heart would have got out no sails,
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  Speaker 1: I said to myself, I might have known it. I
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  Speaker 1: thought of suicide, pretended illness, flight. I thought of these
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  Speaker 1: things in earnest, for I was very miserable and scared.
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  Speaker 1: But of course I had to drive them away and
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  Speaker 1: prepare to meet my fate. I could not wait for
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  Speaker 1: half past seven. I wanted to face the horror and
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  Speaker 1: end it. Feeling of many a man doomed to hang
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  Speaker 1: no doubt, I went down back streets at six o'clock
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  Speaker 1: and entered the theater by the back door. I stumbled
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  Speaker 1: my way in the dark among the ranks of canvas scenery,
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  Speaker 1: and stood on the stage The house was gloomy and silent,
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  Speaker 1: and its emptiness depressing. I went into the dark among
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  Speaker 1: the scenes again, and for an hour and a half
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  Speaker 1: gave myself up to the horrors, wholly unconscious of everything else.
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  Speaker 1: Then I heard a murmur. It rose higher and higher,
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  Speaker 1: and ended in a crash, mingled with cheers. It made
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  Speaker 1: my hair rais it was so close to me and
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  Speaker 1: so loud. There was a pause, and then another. Presently
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  Speaker 1: came a third, and before I well knew what I
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  Speaker 1: was about, I was in the middle of the stage,
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  Speaker 1: staring at the sea of faces, bewildered by the fierce
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  Speaker 1: glare of the lights, and quaking in every limb with
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  Speaker 1: a terror that seemed like to take my life away.
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  Speaker 1: The house was full aisles, and all the tumult in
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  Speaker 1: my heart and brain and legs continued a full minute
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  Speaker 1: before I could gain any command over myself. Then I
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  Speaker 1: recognized the charity and the friendliness in the faces before me,
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  Speaker 1: and little by little, my fright melted away, and I
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  Speaker 1: began to talk. Within three or four minutes I was
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  Speaker 1: comfortable and even content. My three chief allies with three
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  Speaker 1: auxiliaries were on hand, and the parquette all sitting together,
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  Speaker 1: all armed with bludgeons and all ready to make an
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  Speaker 1: onslaught upon the feeblest joke that might show its head,
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  Speaker 1: And whenever a joke did fall, their bludgeons came down,
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  Speaker 1: and their faces seemed to split from ear to ear. Sawyer,
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  Speaker 1: whose hearty countenance was seen looming redly in the center
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  Speaker 1: of the second circle, took it up, and the house
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  Speaker 1: was carried handsomely. Inferior jokes never fared so royally before.
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  Speaker 1: Presently I delivered a bit of serious matter with impressive unction.
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  Speaker 1: It was my pet, and the audience listened with an
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  Speaker 1: absorbed hush that gratified me more than any applause. And
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  Speaker 1: as I dropped the last word of the clause, I
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  Speaker 1: happened to turn and catch missus m Her intent and
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  Speaker 1: waiting eye. My conversation with her flashed upon me, and
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  Speaker 1: in spite of all I could do, I smiled. She
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  Speaker 1: took it for the signal and promptly delivered a mellow
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  Speaker 1: laugh that touched off the whole audience, and the explosion
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  Speaker 1: that followed was the triumph of the evening. I thought
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  Speaker 1: that that honest man Sawyer would choke himself. And as
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  Speaker 1: for the bludgeons. They performed like pile drivers. But my
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  Speaker 1: poor little morsel of Pathos was ruined. It was taken
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  Speaker 1: in good faith as an intentional joke, and the prize
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  Speaker 1: one of the entertainment. And I wisely let it go
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  Speaker 1: at that. All the papers were kind. In the morning
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  Speaker 1: my appetite returned. I had an abundance of money. All's well,
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  Speaker 1: that ends well. End of Chapter seventy eight eight