The Complete Satires & Essays of Mark Twain. Марк Твен
probably passed under my nose on its way to lose three weeks traveling to America and back, and gave me a whiff of its contents as it went along. Letters often act like that. Instead of the thought coming to you in an instant from Australia, the (apparently) unsentient letter imparts it to you as it glides invisibly past your elbow in the mail-bag.
Next incident. In the following month — March — I was in America. I spent a Sunday at Irvington-on-the-Hudson with Mr. John Brisben Walker, of the Cosmopolitan magazine. We came into New York next morning, and went to the Century Club for luncheon. He said some praiseful things about the character of the club and the orderly serenity and pleasantness of its quarters, and asked if I had never tried to acquire membership in it. I said I had not, and that New York clubs were a continuous expense to the country members without being of frequent use or benefit to them.
“And now I’ve got an idea!” said I. “There’s the Lotos — the first New York club I was ever a member of — my very earliest love in that line. I have been a member of it for considerably more than twenty years, yet have seldom had a chance to look in and see the boys. They turn gray and grow old while I am not watching. And my dues go on. I am going to Hartford this afternoon for a day or two, but as soon as I get back I will go to John Elderkin very privately and say: ‘Remember the veteran and confer distinction upon him, for the sake of old times. Make me an honorary member and abolish the tax. If you haven’t any such thing as honorary membership, all the better — create it for my honor and glory.’ That would be a great thing; I will go to John Elderkin as soon as I get back from Hartford.”
I took the last express that afternoon, first telegraphing Mr. F. G. Whitmore to come and see me next day. When he came he asked: “Did you get a letter from Mr. John Elderkin, secretary of the Lotos Club, before you left New York?”
“Then it just missed you. If I had known you were coming I would have kept it. It is beautiful, and will make you proud. The Board of Directors, by unanimous vote, have made you a life member, and squelched those dues; and, you are to be on hand and receive your distinction on the night of the 30th, which is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the club, and it will not surprise me if they have some great times there.”
What put the honorary membership in my head that day in the Century Club? for I had never thought of it before. I don’t know what brought the thought to me at that particular time instead of earlier, but I am well satisfied that it originated with the Board of Directors, and had been on its way to my brain through the air ever since the moment that saw their vote recorded.
Another incident. I was in Hartford two or three days as a guest of the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell. I have held the rank of Honorary Uncle to his children for a quarter of a century, and I went out with him in the trolley-car to visit one of my nieces, who is at Miss Porter’s famous school in Farmington. The distance is eight or nine miles. On the way, talking, I illustrated something with an anecdote. This is the anecdote:
Two years and a half ago I and the family arrived at Milan on our way to Rome, and stopped at the Continental. After dinner I went below and took a seat in the stone-paved court, where the customary lemon-trees stand in the customary tubs, and said to myself, “Now this is comfort, comfort and repose, and nobody to disturb it; I do not know anybody in Milan.”
Then a young gentleman stepped up and shook hands, which damaged my theory. He said, in substance:
“You won’t remember me, Mr. Clemens, but I remember you very well. I was a cadet at West Point when you and Rev. Joseph H. Twichell came there some years ago and talked to us on a Hundredth Night. I am a lieutenant in the regular army now, and my name is H. I am in Europe, all alone, for a modest little tour; my regiment is in Arizona.”
We became friendly and sociable, and in the course of the talk he told me of an adventure which had befallen him — about to this effect:
“I was at Bellagio, stopping at the big hotel there, and ten days ago I lost my letter of credit. I did not know what in the world to do. I was a stranger; I knew no one in Europe; I hadn’t a penny in my pocket; I couldn’t even send a telegram to London to get my lost letter replaced; my hotel bill was a week old, and the presentation of it imminent — so imminent that it could happen at any moment now. I was so frightened that my wits seemed to leave me. I tramped and tramped, back and forth, like a crazy person. If anybody approached me I hurried away, for no matter what a person looked like, I took him for the head waiter with the bill.
“I was at last in such a desperate state that I was ready to do any wild thing that promised even the shadow of help, and so this is the insane thing that I did. I saw a family lunching at a small table on the veranda, and recognized their nationality — Americans — father, mother, and several young daughters — young, tastefully dressed, and pretty — the rule with our people. I went straight there in my civilian costume, named my name, said I was a lieutenant in the army, and told my story and asked for help.
“What do you suppose the gentleman did? But you would not guess in twenty years. He took out a handful of gold coin and told me to help myself — freely. That is what he did.”
The next morning the lieutenant told me his new letter of credit had arrived in the night, so we strolled to Cook’s to draw money to pay back the benefactor with. We got it, and then went strolling through the great arcade. Presently he said, “Yonder they are; come and be introduced.” I was introduced to the parents and the young ladies; then we separated, and I never saw him or them any m — -
“Here we are at Farmington,” said Twichell, interrupting.
We left the trolley-car and tramped through the mud a hundred yards or so to the school, talking about the time we and Warner walked out there years ago, and the pleasant time we had.
We had a visit with my niece in the parlor, then started for the trolley again. Outside the house we encountered a double rank of twenty or thirty of Miss Porter’s young ladies arriving from a walk, and we stood aside, ostensibly to let them have room to file past, but really to look at them. Presently one of them stepped out of the rank and said:
“You don’t know me, Mr. Twichell; but I know your daughter, and that gives me the privilege of shaking hands with you.”
Then she put out her hand to me, and said:
“And I wish to shake hands with you too, Mr. Clemens. You don’t remember me, but you were introduced to me in the arcade in Milan two years and a half ago by Lieutenant H.”
What had put that story into my head after all that stretch of time? Was it just the proximity of that young girl, or was it merely an odd accident?
THE INVALID’S STORY
I seem sixty and married, but these effects are due to my condition and sufferings, for I am a bachelor, and only forty-one. It will be hard for you to believe that I, who am now but a shadow, was a hale, hearty man two short years ago, a man of iron, a very athlete! — yet such is the simple truth. But stranger still than this fact is the way in which I lost my health. I lost it through helping to take care of a box of guns on a two-hundred-mile railway journey one winter’s night. It is the actual truth, and I will tell you about it.
I belong in Cleveland, Ohio. One winter’s night, two years ago, I reached home just after dark, in a driving snowstorm, and the first thing I heard when I entered the house was that my dearest boyhood friend and schoolmate, John B. Hackett, had died the day before, and that his last utterance had been a desire that I would take his remains home to his poor old father and mother in Wisconsin. I was greatly shocked and grieved, but there was no time to waste in emotions; I must start at once. I took the card, marked “Deacon Levi Hackett, Bethlehem, Wisconsin,” and hurried off through the whistling storm to the railway station. Arrived there I found the long white-pine box which had been described to me; I fastened the card to it with some tacks, saw it put safely aboard the express car, and then ran