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Lorsque Ie document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est filmA A partir de I'angle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant ie nombre d'imagee nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. y errata Id to nt le pelure, 9on d 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 THE £1.000,000 BANK-NOTE &c. I, * I THE ;^1,000,000 BANK-NOTE AND OTHER NEW STORIES BY MARK TWAIN (SAMUEL L. CLEMENS) TORONTO- THE MUSSON BOOK CO., LIMITED • LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS CONTENTS I The ^,000,000 Bank-notb ' Mental Tblboraphy . _ A Cube fob the Blues THEENEM.OoN.nEKKZ>;oB.LoVETHX.MlH.KX. About all Kinds op Ships . ^liATUJQ COURIEB The Gebman Ohioaoo . . ^ A Petition to the Queen op England \ \ A Majestic Literary Fossil PAOI 1 41 77 114 193 . 225 . 253 . 277 ' 287 THE £lfiOOfiOO BANK-NOTE When I was twenty-seven years old, I was a mining-broker's clerk in San Francisco, and an expert in all the details of stock traffic. I was alone in the world, and had nothing to depend upon but my wits and a clean reputation; but these wer^ setting my feet in the road to eventual fortune, and I was content with the prospect. My time was my own after the afternoon board, Saturdays, and I was accustomed to put it in on a little sail-boat on the bay. One day I ventured too far, and was carried out to sea. Just at nightfall, when hope was about gone, I was picked up by a small brig which was bound for London. It was a long and stormy voyage, and they made me work my passage without pay, as a common sailor. When I stepped ashore in London my clothes were ragged and shabby, and I had only a dollar In my pocket. This money fed and THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE sheltered me twenty-four hours. During the next twenty-four I went without food and shelter. About ten o'clock on the following morning, seedy and hungry, I was dragging myself along Portland Place, when a child that was passing, towed by a nursemaid, tossed a luscious big pear — minus one bite — into the gutter. I stopped, of course, and fastened my desiring eye on that muddy treasure. My mouth watered for it, my stomach craved it, my whole being begged for it. But every time I made a move to get it some passing eye detected my purpose, and of course I straightened up, then, and looked indifferent, and pretended that I hadn't been thinking about the pear at all. This same thing kept happening and happening, and I couldn't get the pear. I was just getting desperate enough to brave all the shame, and to seize it, when a window behind me was raised, and a gentleman spoke out of it, saying: * Step in here, please.* I was admitted by a gorgeous flunkey, and shown into a sumptuous room where a couple of elderly gentlemen were sitting. They sent away the servant, and made me sit down. They had just finished their breakfast, and the sight of the THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE % remains of it almost overpowered me. I oonld hardly keep my wits together in the presence of that food, but as I was not asked to sample it, I had to bear my trouble as best I could. Now, something had been happening there a little before, which I did not know anything about until a good many days afterwards, but I will tell you about it now. Those two old brothers had been having a pretty hot argument a couple of days before, and had ended by agreeing to decide it by a bet, which is the English way of settling every- thing. You will remember that the Bank of England once issued two notes of a million pounds each, to be used for a special purpose connected with some public transaction with a foreign country. For some reason or other only one of these had been used and cancelled ; the other still lay in the vaults of the Bank. WeU, the brothers, chatting along, happened to get to wondering what might be the fate of a perfectly honest and intelligent stranger who should be turned adrift in London without a friend, and with no money but that million-pound bank-note, and no way to account for his being in possession of it. Brother A said he would starve to death ; Brother B said he wouldn't. Brother A B a THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE \ » \ said he oonldn't offer it at a bank or anywhere else, because he would be arrested on the spot. So they went on disputing till Brother B said he would bet twenty thousand pounds that the man would live thirty days, any way, on that million, and keep out of jail, too. Brother A took him up. Brother B went down to the Bank and bought that note. Just like an Englishman, you see; pluck to the backbone. Then he dictated a letter, which one of his clerks wrote out in a beautiful round hand, and then the two brothers sat at the window a whole day watching for the right man to give it to. They saw many honest faces go by that were not intelligent enough ; many that were intelligent but not honest enough ; many that were both, but the possessors were not poor enough, or, if poor enough, were not strangers. There was always a defect, until I came along ; but they agreed that I filled the bill all around ; so they elected me unani- mously, and there I was, now, waiting to know why I was called in. They began to ask me questions about myself, and pretty soon they had my story. Finally they told me I would answer their purpose. I said I was sincerely glad, and asked what it was. Then one of them handed me an envelope, wA said I would find the explanation inside. I was going THE £1,000,000 BANKNOTE J to open it, but he said no ; take it to my lodgings, and look it over carefully, and not be hasty or rash. I was puzzled, and wanted to discuss the matter a little further, but they didn't ; so I took my leave, feeling hurt and insulted to be made the butt of what was apparently some kind of a practical joke, and yet obliged to put up with it, not being in cir- cumstances to resent afEronts from rich and strong folk. I would have picked up the pear, now, and eaten it before all the world, but it was gone ; so I had lost that by this unlucky business, and the thought of it did not soften my feeling towards those men. As soon as I was out of sight of that house I opened my envelope, and saw that it contained money ! My opinion of those people changed, I can tell you ! I lost not a moment, but shoved note and money into my vest-pocket, and broke for the nearest cheap eating-house. Well, how I did eat 1 When at last I couldn't hold any more, I took out my money and unfolded it, took one glimpse and nearly fainted. Five millions of dollars ! Why, it made my head swim. I must have sat there stunned and blinking at the note as much as a minute before I came rightly to myself again. The first thing I noticed, then, 6 THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE was the landlord. His eye was on the note, and he was petrified. He was worshipping, with all his body and soul, but he looked as if he conldn*t stir hand or foot. I took my cue in a moment, and did the only rational thing there was to do. I reached the note towards him, and said carelessly : ' Give me the change, please.' Then he was restored to his normal condition, and made a thousand apologies for not being able to break the bill, and I couldn't get him to touch it. He wanted to look at it, and keep on looking at it ; he couldn't seem to get enough of it to quench the thirst of his eye, but he shrank from touching it as if it had been something too sacred for poor common clay to handle. I said : 'I am sorry if it is an inconvenience, but I must insist. Please change it ; I haven't anything else.* But he said that wasn't any matter; he was quite willing to let the trifle stand over till another time. I said I might not be in his neighbourhood again for a good while ; but he said it was of no consequence, he could wait, and, moreover, I could have anything I wanted, any time I chose, and let the account run as long as I pleased. He said he hoped he wasn't afraid to trust as rich a gentleman THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE was ther lood no old let he an as I was, merely because I was of a merry dispo- sition, and chose to play larks on the public in the matter of dress. By this time another customer was entering, and the landlord hinted to me to put the monster out of sight ; then he bowed me all the way to the door, and I started straight for that house and those brothers, to correct the mistake which had been made before the police should hunt me up, and help me do it. I was pretty nervous, in fact pretty badly frightened, though, of course, I was no way in fault ; but I knew men well enough to know that when they find they've given a tramp a million-pound bill when they thought it was a one-pounder, they are in a frantic rage against him instead of quarrelling with their own near-sighted- ness, as they ought. As I approached the house my excitement began to abate, for all was quiet there, which made me feel pretty sure the blunder was not discovered yet. I rang. The same servant appeared. I asked for those gentlemen. * They are gone.' This in the lofty, cold way of that fellow's tribe. * Gone ? Gone where ? * * On a journey.* * But whereabouts ? * * To the Continent, I think.' I THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE « The Continent ? * 'Yes, sir.* ' Which way — by what route ? ' ' I can*t say, sir.' ' When will they be back ? * ' In a month, they said.' ' A month ! Oh, this is awful ! Give me iomt sort of idea of how to get a word to them. It's of the last importance.' *I can't, indeed. I've no idea where they've gone, sir.' < Then I must see some member of the family.' ' Family's away too ; been abroad months — in Egypt and India, I think.' ' Man, there's been an immense mistake made. They'll be back before night. Will you tell them I've been here, and that I will keep coming till it's all made right, and they needn't be afraid ? ' < I'll tell them, if l^ey come back, but I am not expecting them. They said you would be here in an hour to make inquiries, but I must tell you it's all right, they'll be here on time and expect you.' So I had to give it up and go away. What a riddle it all was! I was hke to lose my mind. They would be here ' on time.' What could that THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE not in |you )eot it a id. lat mean? Oh, the letter would explain, maybe. I had forgotten the letter ; I got it out and read it. This is what it said : * Tou are an intelligent and honest man, as one may see by your face. We conceive you to be poor and a stranger. Inclosed you will find a sum of money. It is lent to you for thirty days, without interest. Beport at this house at the end of that time. I have a bet on you. If I win it you shall have any situation that is in my gift-— any, that is, that you shall be able to prove yourself familiar with and competent to fill.' No signature, no address, no date. Well, here was a coil to be in ! You are posted on what had preceded all this, but I was not. It was just a deep, dark puzzle to me. I hadn't the least idea what the game was, nor whether harm was meant me or a kindness. I went into a park, and sat down to try to think it out, and to consider what I had best do. At the end of an hour, my reasonings had crystallised into this verdict. Maybe those men mean me well, maybe they mean me ill; no way to decide that — let it go. They've got a game, or a scheme, or an experiment of some kind on hand ; no way to determine what '11/ 10 THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE it is — let it go. There's a bet on me ; no way to find out what it is — let it go. That disposes of the indeterminable quantities; the remainder of the matter is tangible, solid, and may be classed and labelled with certainty. If I ask the Bank of England to place this bill to the credit of the man it belongs to, they'll do it, for they know him, although I don't; but they will ask me how I came in possession of it, and if I tell the truth, they'll put me in the asylum, naturally, and a lie will land me in jail. The same result would follow if I tried to bank the bill anywhere or to borrow money on it. I have got to carry this immense burden around until those men come back, whether I want to or not. It is useless to me, as useless as a handful of ashes, and yet I must take care of it, and watch over it, while I beg my living. I couldn't gfive it away, if I should try, for neither honest citizen nor highwayman would accept it or meddle with it for anything. Thc'se brothers are safe. Even if I lose their bill, or burn it, they are still safe, because they can stop payment, and the Bank will make them whole ; but meantime, I've got to do a month's suffering without wages or profit — unless I help win that bet, whatever it may be, and get that situation that I am promised. I THE llfiOOfiOO BANK-NOTE II %}mM like to get that; men of their sort have eituations in their gift that are worth having. I got to thinking a good deal about that situa- tion. My hopes began to rise high. Without doubt the salary would be large. It would begin in a month; after that I should be all right. Pretty soon I was feeling first-rate. By this time I was tramping the streets again. The sight of a tailor-shop gave me a sharp longing to shed my rags, and to clothe myself decently once more. Gould I afford it? No; I had nothing in the world but a million pounds. So I forced myself to go on by. But soon I was drifting back again. The temptation persecuted me cruelly. I must have passed that shop back and forth six times during that manful struggle. At last I gave in ; I had to. I asked if they had a misfit suit that had been thrown on their hands. The fellow I spoke to nodded his head towards another fellow, and gave me no answer. I went to the indicated fellow, and he indicated another fellow with Ui head, and no words. I went to him, and he said : * *Tend to you presently.' I waited till he was done with what he was at, then he took me into a back room, and overhauled a pile of rejected suits^ and selected the rattiest one 13 THE llfiOOfiOO BANK-NOTE for me. I put it on. It didn't fit, and wasn't in any way attractive, but it was new, and I was anxious to have it ; so I didn't find any fault, but said with some diffidence : ' It would be an accommodation to me if you could wait some days for the money. I haven't any s:^ 11 change about me.' T.M fellow worked up a most sarcastic expres- sion of countenance, and said : *0h, you haven't? Well, of course, I didn't expect it. I'd only expect gentlemen like you to carry large change.' I was nettled, and said : 'My friend, you shouldn't judge a stranger always by the clothes he wears. I am quite able to pay for !;his suit ; I simply didn't wish to put you to the trouble of changing a large note.' He modified his style a little at that, and said, though still with something of an air : ' I didn't mean any particular harm, but as long as rebukes are going, I might say it wasn't quite your affair to jump to the conclusion that we couldn't change any note that you might happen to be carrying around. On the contrary, we can* I handed the note to him, and said : * Oh, very well ; I apologise.' \ THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE «3 3n*t in I was lit, but if you laven't dxpres" didn't you to iranger ;e able to put said, [a long quite kt we ippen He received it with a smile, one of those large smiles which goes all around over, and has folds in it, and wrinkles, and spirals, and looks like the place where you have thrown a brick in a pond ; and then in the act of his taking a glimpse of the bill this smile froze solid, and turned yellow, and looked like those wavy, wormy spreads of lava which you find hardened on little levels on the side of Vesuvius. I never before saw a smile caught like that, and perpetuated. The man stood there holding the bill, and looking like that, and the proprietor hustled up to see what was the matter, and said briskly : ' Well, what's up ? what's the trouble ? what's wanting ? ' I said, ' There isn't any trouble. I'm waiting for my change.' 'Gome, come; get him his change. Tod; get him his change.' Tod retorted : ' Get him his change ! It's easy to say, sir ; but look at the bill yourself.' The proprietor took a look, gave a low, eloquent whistle, then made a dive for the pile of rejected clothing, and began to snatch it this way and that, talking all the time excitedly, and as if to himself : ' Sell an eccentrk millionaire such an unspeak- ( si i M THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE able snit as that ! Tod*B a fool — a born fool. Al- ways doing something like this. Drives every mil- lionaire away from this place, because he canH tell a millionaire from a tramp, and never could. Ah, here's the thing I'm after. Please get those things off, sir, and throw them in the fire. Do me the favour to put on this shirt and this suit ; it's just the thing, the very thing — plain, rich, modest, and just ducally nobby; made to order for a foreign prince — you may know him, sir, his Serene High- ness the Hospodar of Halifax ; had to leave it with us and take a mourning-suit because his mother was going to die — which she didn't. But that's all right ; we can't always have things the way we — that is, the way they — there 1 trousers all right, they fit you to a charm, sir ; now the waistcoat : aha, right again ! now the coat — lord ! look at that, now 1 Perfect, the whole thing 1 I never saw such a triumph in all my experience.' I expressed my satisfaction. ' Quite right, sir, quite right ; it'll do for a make- shift, I'm bound to say. But wait till you see what we'll get up for you on your own measure. Come, Tod, book and pen ; get at it. Length of leg, 82 ' — and so on. Before I could get in a word he had measured me, and was giving orders for dress-suits. THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE 15 . Al- y mil- d't tell . Ah, things ae the *fl just at, and foreign High- it with nother Lat's all ' we — right, tcoat : t that, IT such lake- what )ome, 5,82* had )uitS| morning suits, shirts, and all sorts of things. When I got a chance I said : 'But, my dear sir, I ccm*t give these orders, unless you can wait indefinitely, or change the biU.' * Indefinitely ! It's a weak word, sir, a weak word. Eternally — that's the word, sir. Tod, rush these things through, and send them to the gentle- man's address without any waste of time. Let the minor customers wait. Set down the gentleman's address and * * I'm changing my quarters. I will drop in and leave the new address.' * Quite right, sir, quite right. One moment- let me show you out, sir. There — good day, sir, good day.' Well, don't you see what was bound to happen ? I drifted naturally into buying whatever I wanted, and asking for change. Within a week I was sumptuously equipped with all needful comforts and luxuries, and was housed in an expensive private hotel in Hanover Square. I took my dinners there, but for breakfast I stuck by Harris's humble feeding-house, where I had got my first meal on my million-pound bill. I was the making of Harris. The fact had gone all abroad that the ir i i r |6 THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE foreign orank who carried million-pound bills in his vest-pocket was the patron saint of the place. That was enough. From being a poor, struggling, little hand-to-mouth enterprise, it had become celebrated, and overcrowded with customers. Harris was so grateful that he forced loans upon me, and would not be denied ; and so, pauper as I was, I had money to spend, and was living like the rich and the great. I judged that there was going to be a crash by and by, but I was in, now, and must swim across or drown. You see there was just that element of impending disaster to give a serious side, a sober side, yes, a tragic side, to a state of things which would otherwise have been purely ridiculous. In the night, in the dark, the tragedy part was always to the front, and always warning, always threatening ; and so I moaned and tossed, and sleep was hard to find. But in the cheerful daylight the tragedy element faded out and disappeared, and I walked on air, and was happy to giddiness, to intoxication, you may say. And it was natural ; for I had become one of the notorieties of the metropolis of the world, and it turned my head, not just a little, but a good deal. You could not take up a newspaper, English, Scotch, or Irish, without finding in it one or more THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE 17 )illB in place, ggling, )ecom6 omerB. 9 upon ler as I ike the B going )W, and ire was give a le, to a e been xk, the always ed and in the ed out id was say. one of dy and good iglish, more 'V references to the ' yest-po jket million-pounder ' and his latest doings and Hayings. A^t first, in these mentions, I was at the bott^im of the personal gossip column ; next, 1 was listed above the knights, next above the baronets, next above the barons, and so on, and so on, cUmbing steadily, as my notoriety augmented, until I reached the highest altitude possible, and there I remained, taking precedence of all dukes not royal, and of all ecclesiastics except the Primate of all England. But, mind, this was not fame ; as yet I had achieved only notoriety. Then came the climaxing stroke — the accolade, so to speak — which in a single instance transmuted the perishable dross of notoriety into the enduring gold of fame : ' Punch ' caricatured me 1 Tes, I was a made man, now : my place was established. I might be joked about still, but reverently, not hilariously, not rudely ; I could be smiled at, but not laughed at. The time for that had gone by. 'Punch' pictured me all a-flutter with rags, dickering with a beefeater for the Tower of London. Well, you can imagine how it was with a young fellow who had never been takei^ notice of before, and now all of a sudden couldn't say a thing that wasn't taken up and repeated everywhere ; couldn't stir abroad without con* I \ w \\l ! i8 THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE stantly overhearing the remark flying from lip to lip, * There he goes ; that's him ! ' couldn't take his breakfast withoni a crowd to look on ; couldn't ap- pear in an opera-box without concentrating there the fire of a thousand lorgnettes. Why, I just swam in glory all day long— that is the amount of it. You know, I even kept my old suit of rags, and every now and then appeared in them, so as to have the old pleasure of buying trifles, and being insulted, and then shooting the scoffer dead with the million-pound bill. But I couldn't keep that up. The illustrated papers made the outfit so familiar that when I went out in it I was at once recognised and followed by a crowd, and if I attempted a purchase the man would offer me his whole shop on credit before I could pull my note on him. About the tenth day of my fame I went to fulfil my duty to my flag by paying my respects to the American minister. He received me with the en- thusiasm proper in my case, upbraided me for being so tardy in my duty, and said that there was only one way to get his forgiveness, and that was to take the seat at his dinner-party that night made vacant by the illness of one of his guests. I said I THE £lyOOOyOOO BANK-NOTE 19 lip to nke his n*t ap- l there I just imoont gs, and as to a being id with ep that utfit so at once id if I me his ly note to fulfil to the bhe en- Ir being |as only I was to it made said I would, and we got to talking. It turned out that he and my father had been schoolmates in boy- hood, Tale students together later, and always warm friends up to my father's death. So then he required me to put in at his house all the odd time I might have to spare, and I was very willing, of course. In fact I was more than willing ; I was glad. When the crash should come, he might somehow be able to save me from total destruction ; I didn't know how, but he might think of a way, maybe. I couldn't venture to unbosom myself to him at this late date, a thing which I would have been quick to do in the beginning of this awful career of mine in London. No, I couldn't venture it now ; I was in too deep; that is, too deep for me to be risking revelations to so new a friend, though not clear be- yond my depth, as I looked at it. Because, you see, with all my borrowing, I was carefully keeping within my means — I mean within my salary. Of course I couldn't know what my salary was going to be, but I had a good enough basis for an esti- mate in the fact that, if I won the bet, I was to have choice of any situation in that rich old gentleman's gift provided I was competent — and I should cer- tainly prove competent ; I hadn't any doubt about s if ' in iii 20 THE £lfiOOfiOO BANK-NOTE f I \ that. And as to the bet, I wasn't worrying about that ; I had always been lucky. Now, my estimate of the salary was six hundred to a thousand a year ; say, six hundred for the first year, and so on up year by year, till I struck the upper figure by proved merit. At present I was only in debt for my first year's salary. Everybody had been trying to lend me money, but I had fought off the most of them on one pretext or another ; so this indebted- ness represented only :6300 borrowed money, the other :8800 represented my keep and my purchases. I believed my second year's salary would carry me through the rest of the month if I went on being cautious and economical, and I intended to look sharply out for that. My month ended, my em- ployer back from his journey, I should be all right once more, for I should at once divide the two years' salary among my creditors by assignment, and get right down to my work. It was a lovely dinner party of fourteen. The Duke and Duchess of Shoreditch, and their daughter the Lady Anne-Grace-Eleanor-Celeste-and-so-forth- and-so-forth-de-Bohun, the Earl and Countess of Newgate, Viscount Gheapside, Lord and Lady Blatherskite, some untitled people of both sexes, the minister and his wife and daughter, and his 6; THE £lfiOOfiOO BANK-NOTE 31 daughter's visiting friend, an English girl of twenty- two, named Portia Langham, whom I fell in love with in two minutes, and she with me — I could see it without glasses. There was still another guest, an American — but I am a little ahead of my story. "While the people were still in the drawing-room, whetting up for dinner, rnd coldly inspecting the late comers, the servant announced : * Mr. Lloyd Hastings.' The moment the usual civilities were over, Hast- mgs caught sight of me, and came straight with cordially outstretched hand; then stopped short when about to shake, and said with an embarrassed look: * I beg your pardon, sir, I thought I knew you.' * Why, you do know me, old fellow.' * No ! Are y(m the— the ? ' ' Vest-pocket monster ? I am, indeed. Don't be afraid to call me by my nickname ; I'm used to it.' * Well, well, well, this is a surprise. Once or twice I've seen your own name coupled with the nickname, but it never occurred to me that you could be the Henry Adams referred to. Why, it isn't six months since you were clerking away for Blake Hopkins in Frisco on a salary, and sitting up nights on an ex- tra allowance, helping me arrange and verify the ! M 23 THE llfiOOfiOO BANK-NOTE Gould and Curry Extension papers and statistics. The idea of your being in London, and a vast mil- lionaire, and a colossal celebrity ! Why, it's the Arabian Nights come again. Man, I can't take it in at all ; can't realise it ; give me time to settle the whirl in my head.' ' The fact is, Lloyd, you are no worse off than I am. I can't realise it myself.' * Dear me, it w stunning, now, isn't it ? Why, it's just three months to-day since we went to the Miners' restaurant * * No ; the What Cheer.' ' Bight, it wa% the What Cheer ; went there at two in the morning, and had a chop and coffee after a hard six hours' grind over those Extension papers, and I tried to persuade you to come to London with me, and offered to get leave of absence for you and pay all your expenses, and give you something over if I succeeded in making the sale ; and you would not listen to me, said I wouldn't succeed, and you couldn't afford to lose the run of business and be no end of time getting the hang of things again when you got back home. And yet here you are. How odd it all is ! How did you happen to come, and whatever did, give you this incredible start ? ' 'Oh, just an accident. It's a long story — a vifi tatistics. 'ast mil- it's the t take it lettle the ffthani ' Why, it to the khere at fee after papers, Ion with ou and ng over would nd you and be again |ou are. come, rt?' )ry— a THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE %% romance, a body may say. I'll tell you all about it, but not now. *When?' * The end of this month.* * That's more than a fortnight yet. It's too much of a strain on a person's curiosity. Make it a week.' ' I can't. You'll know why, by and by. But how's the trade getting along ? ' His cheerfulness vanished like a breath, and he said with a sigh : * You were a true prophet, Hal, a true prophet. I wish I hadn't come. I don't want to talk about it.' 'But you must. You must come and stop with me to-night, when we leave here, and tell me all about it.' * Oh, may I ? Are you in earnest ? ' and the water showed in his eyes. *Yes; I want to hear the whole story, every word.' 'I'm so grateful! Just to find a human interest once more, in some voice and in some eye, in me and affairs of mine, after what I've been through here — lord! I could go down on my knees for it ! ' ^\ liil III H THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE He gripped my hand hard, and braced up, and was all right and lively after that for the dinner — which didn't come off. No ; the usual thing hap- pened, the thing that is always happening under that vicious and aggravating EngUsh system — the matter of precedence couldn't be settled, and so there was no dinner. Englishmen always eat dinner before they go out to dinner, because they know the risks they are running ; but nobody ever warns the stranger, and so he walks placidly into the trap. Of course nobody was hurt this time, because we had all been to dinner, none of us being novices except Hastings, and he having been in- formed by the minister at the time that he invited him that in deference to the English custom he had not provided any dinner. Everybody took a lady and processioned down to the dining-room, because it is usual to go through the motions ; but there the dispute began. The Duke of Shoreditch wanted to take precedence, and sit at the head of the table, holding that he outranked a minister who represented merely a nation and not a mon- arch ; but I stood for my rights, and refused to yield. In the gossip column I ranked all dukes not royal, and said so, and claimed precedence of this one. It couldn't be settled, of course, struggle THE £lfiOOfiOO BANK-NOTE as ip, and nner — ig hap- under n — the and so ^ys eat ise they iy ever lly into 3 time, B being sen in- invited om he ook a room, but editch ead of nister mon- ed to iukes ice of iggle as we might and did, he finally (and injudiciously) trying to play birth and antiquity, and I * seeing * his Conqueror and 'raising' him with Adam, whose direct posterity I was, as shown by my name, while he was of a collateral branch, as shown by his^ and by his recent Norman origin ; so we all processioned back to the drawing-room again and had a perpendicular lunch — plate of sar- dines and a strawberry, and you group yourself and stand up and eat it. Here the religion of precedence is not so strenuous ; the two persons of highest rank chuck up a shilling, the one that wins has first go at his strawberry, and the loser gets the shilling. The next two chuck up, then the next two, and so on. After refreshment, tables were brought, and we all played cribbage, sixpence a game. The English never play any game for amusement. If they can't make something or lose something — they don't care which — they won't play. We had a lovely time ; certainly two of us had, Miss Langham and I. I was so bewitched with her that I couldn't count my hands if they went above a double sequence ; and when I struck home I never discovered it, and started up the outside row again, and would have lost the game every ; • 1 ! ; > 1 1 w 36 r//E £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE time, only the girl did the samei she being in jnst my condition, you see; and consequently neither of us ever got out, or cared to wonder why we didn't; we only just knew we were happy, and didn't wish to know anything else, and didn't want to be interrupted. And I told her — I did indeed — told her I loved her ; and she — well, she blushed till her hair turned red, but she liked it ; she said she did. Oh, there was never such an evening ! Every time I pegged I put on a postscript ; every time she pegged she acknowledged receipt of it, counting the hands the same. Why, I couldn't even say, * Two for his heels,' without adding, * My, how sweet you do look ! ' And she would say, ' Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, and a pair are eight, and eight are sixteen — do you think so ? ' peeping out aslant from under her lashes, you know, BO sweet and cunning. Oh, it was just too- too! Well, I was perfectly honest and square with her ; told her I hadn't a cent in the world but just the million-pound note she'd heard so much talk about, and it didn't belong to me ; and that started her curiosity, and then I talked low, and told her the whole history right from the start, and it nearly killed her, laughing. What in the nation she THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE 27 in jnst neither «rhy we }y, and I't want ideed — blushed ihe said ^ening ! ; every t of it, iouldn't gi * My, 'd say, a pair kso?' JS, you ISt tOO' with it just talk Itarted [d her learly she could find to laugh about, / couldn't see, but there it was ; every half minute some new detail would fetch her, and I would have to stop as much as a minute and a half to give her a chance to settle down again. Why, she laughed herself lame, she did indeed ; I never saw anything like it. I mean I never saw a painful story — a story of a person's troubles and worries and fears— produce juet that kind of effect before. So I loved her all the more, seeing she could be so cheerful when there wasn't anything to be cheerful about ; for I might soon need that kind of wife, you know, the way things looked. Of course I told her we should have to wait a couple of years, till I could catch up on my salary ; but she didn't mind that, only she hoped I would be as careful as possible in the matter of expenses, and not let them run the least risk of trenching on our third year's pay. Then she began to get a little worried, and wondered if we were making any mistake, and starting the salary on a higher figure for the first year than I would get. This was good sense, and it made me feel a little less confident than I had been feeling before ; but it gave me a good business idea, and I brought it frankly out. 'Portia, dear, would you mind going with A I" ii THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE me that day, when I confront those old gentle- men?* She shrank a little, hut said : ' N-o ; if my being with you would help hearten you. But — would it be quite proper, do you think ? • ' No, I don't know that it would ; in fact, I'm afraid it wouldn't; but, you see, there's so mwh dependent upon it that ' * Then I'll go anyway, proper or improper,* she said, with a beautiful and generous enthusiasm. < Oh, I shall be so happy to think I'm helping.' * Helping, dear ? Why, you'll be doing it all. You're so beautiful, and so lovely, and so winning, that with you there I can pile our salary up till I break those good old fellows, and they'll naer have the heart to struggle.' Sho! you should have seen the rich blood mount, and her happy eyes shine I * You wicked flatterer I There isn't a word of truth in what you say, but still I'll go with you. Maybe it will teach you not to expect other people to look with your eyes.' Were my doubts dissipated? Was my con- fidence restored? You may judge by this fact: privately I raised my salary to twelve hundred the THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE first year on the spot. But I didn't tell her ; I saved it for a surprise. All the way home I was in the clouds, Hastings talking, I not hearing a word. When he and I entered my parlour he brought me to myself with his fervent appreciations of my manifold comforts and luxuries. ' Let me just stand here a little and look my fill ! Dear me, it's a palace ; it's just a palace I And in it everything a body couW. desire, in- cluding cozy coal fire and supper standing ready. Henry, it doesn't merely make me realise how rich you are ; it makes me realise to the bone, to the marrow, how poor I am — how poor I am — and how miserable, how defeated, routed, annihilated ! * Plague take it ! this language gave me the cold shudders. It scared me broad awake, and made me comprehend that I was standing on a half-inch crust, with a crater underneath. I didn't know I had been dreaming — that is, I hadn't been allowing myself to know it for a while back ; but now — oh, dear ! Deep in debt, not a cent in the world, a lovely girl's happiness or woe in my hands, and nothing in front of me but a salary which might never — oh, wofM never — materialise ! Oh, oh, oh, I am ruined past hope ; nothing can save me ! ,1 ' ! 1 i '.^ t ■ II! IB T//E £1,000,000 BANKNOTE 'Henry, the mere unconBidced drippings of your daily income would * ' Oh, my daily income ! Here, down with this hot Scotch, and cheer up your soul. Here's with you I Or, no — you're hungry ; sit down and ' ' Not a bite for me ; I'm past it. I can't eat, these days; but I'll drink with you till I drop. Come ! ' 'Barrel for barrel, I'm with you! Beady! Here we go ! Now, then, Lloyd, unreel your story while I brew.' * Unreel it ? What, again ? ' ' Again ? What do you mean by that ? ' 'Why, I mean do you want to hear it ovtf again ? ' 'Do I want to hear it onw again? This if a puzzler. Wait; dont take any more of that liquid. You don't need it.' 'Look here, Henry, you alarm me. Didn't I tell you the whole story on the way here ? ' 'You?' ^ 'Yes, I.' ' I'll be hanged if I heard a word of it.' 'Henry, this is a serious thing. It troubles me. What did you take up yonder at the minister's ? ' THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE 31 Then it all flashed on me, and I owned up, like a man. 'I took the dearest girl in this world — prisoner ! ' So then he came with a rush, and we shook, and shook, and shook till our hands ached ; and he didn't blame me for not having heard a word of a story which had lasted while we walked three miles. He just sat down then, like the patient, good fellow he was, and told it all over again. Synop- sised, it amounted to this : He had come to England with what he thought was a grand opportunity ; he had an 'option' to sell the Gould and Gurry Extension for the ' locators ' of it, and keep all he could get over a million dollars. He had worked hard, had pulled every wire he knew of, had left no honest expedient untried, had spent nearly all the money he had in the world, had not been able to get a solitary capitalist to listen to him, and his option would run out at the end of the month. In a word, he was ruined. Then he jumped up and cried out : ' Henry, you can save me ! You can save me, and you're the only man in the universe that can. Will you do it ? WtyrCt you do it ? ' * Tell me how. Speak out, my boy.' ■ I I! ;i 32 THE £l,OOOyOOO BANK-NOTE * Give me a million aud my passage home for my * option ' 1 Don't, don't refuse ! * I was in a kind of agony. I was right on the point of coming out with the words, * Lloyd, I'm a pauper myself — absolutely penniless, and in debt ! * But a white-hot idea came flaming through my head, and I gripped my jaws together, and calmed myself down till I was as cold as a capitalist. Then I said, in a commercial and self-possessed way : ' I will save you, Lloyd ' ' Then I'm already saved ! God be merciful to you for ever ! If ever I * *Let me finish, Lloyd. I will save you, but not in that way ; for that would not be fair to you, after your hard work, and the risks you've run. I don't need to buy mines ; I can keep my capital moving, in a commercial centre like London, without that ; it's what I'm at, all the time ; but here is what I'll do. I know all about that mine, of course; I know its immense value, and can swear to it if anybody wishes it. You shall sell out inside of the fortnight for three millions cash, using my name freely, and we'll divide, share and share alike.* Do you know, he would have danced the furni- ture to kindling-wood in his insane joy, and broken THE £lfiOOfiOO BANK-NOTE 33 ome for on the I, I'm a idehtf* igh my calmed ;. Then ^ay: ciful to ou, but to you, ^e run. capital london, e; but mine, id can bU sell cash, ^e and Ifumi- Iroken everything on the place, if I hadn't tripped him up and tied him. Then he lay there, perfectly happy, saying : * I may use your name ! Your name — think of it ! Man, they'll flock in droves, these rich Lon- doners ; they'll Jight for that stock ! I'm a made man, I'm a made man for ever, and I'll never forget you as long as I live ! * , In less than twenty-four hours London was abuzz ! I hadn't anything to do, day after day, but sit at home, and say to all comers : * Yes ; I told him to refer to me. I know the man and I know the mine. His character is above reproach, and the mine is worth far more than he asks for it.' Meantime I spent all my evenings at the minister's with Portia. I didn't say a word to her about the mine; I saved it for a surprise. We talked salary; never anything but salary and love ; sometimes love, sometimes salary, sometimes love and salary together. And my! the interest the minister's wife and daughter took in our little affair, and the endless ingenuities they invented to save us from interruption, and to keep the minister in the dark and unsuspicious — well, it was just lovely of them I \ ! :: . I 34 THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE When the month was up, at last, I had a million dollars to my credit in the London and County Bank, and Hastings was fixed in the same way. Dressed at my level best, I drove by the house in Portland Place, judged by the look of things that my birds were home again, went on towards the minister's and got my precious, and we started back, talking salary with all our might. She was so excited and anxious that it made her just intolerably beautiful. I said : * Dearie, the way you're looking it's a crime to strike for a salary a single penny under three thousand a year.' * Henry, Henry, you'll ruin us ! * * Don't you be afraid. Just keep up those looks, and trust to me. It'll all come out right.' So, as it turned out, I had to keep bolstering up her courage all the way. She kept pleading with me, and saying : 'Oh, please remember that if we ask for too much we may get no salary at all ; and then what will become of us, with no way in the world to earn our Uving ? * We were ushered in by that same servant, and there they were, the two old gentlemen. Of course THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE 3S igup with too rhat learn and irse they were surprised to see that wonderful creature with me, hut I said : 'It's all right, gentlemen; she is my future stay and helpmate.* And I introduced them to her, and called them by name. It didn't surprise them ; they knew I would know enough to consult the directory. They seated us, and were very polite to me, and very solicitous to relieve her from embarrassment, and put her as much at her ease as they could. Then I said : * Gentlemen, I am ready to report.* * We are glad to hear it,* said my man, * for now we can decide the bet which my brother Abel and I made. If you have won for me, you shall have any situation in my gift. Have you the million- pound note ? * * Here it is, sir,* and I handed it to him. *I*ve won!' he shouted, and slapped Abel on the back. * Now what do you say, brother ? * *I say he did survive, and I've lost twenty thousand pounds. I never would have believed it.' ■ ' * I've a further report to make,' I said, * and a pretty long ono. I want you to let me come soon, and detail my whole month's history; and I D 9 A' U 36 THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE promise you it's worth hearing. Meantime, take a look at that.' 'What, man! Certificate of deposit for :fi200,000? Is it yours?' * Mine ! I earned it by thirty days' judicious use of that little loan you let me have. And the only use I made of it was to buy trifles and offer the bill in change.' 'Gome, this is astonishing! It's incredible, man! ' 'Never mind, I'll prove it. Don't take my word unsupported.' But now Portia's turn was come to be surprised. Her eyes were spread wide, and she said : * Henry, is that really your money ? Have you been fibbing to me ? ' ' I have indeed, dearie. But you'll forgive me, I know.* She put up an arch pout, and said : * Don't you be so sure. You are a naughty thing to deceive me so ! ' *0h, you'll get over it, sweetheart, you'll get over it ; it was only fun, you know. Come, let's be going.' ' But wait, wait ! The situation, you know. I want to give you the situation,' said my man. THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE 37 thing U get \t let's * Well/ I said, * I'm just as grateful as I can be, but really I don't want one.' ' But you can have the very choicest one in my gift.' ' Thanks again, with all my heart ; but I don't even want that one.' * Henry, I'm ashamed of you. You don't half thank the good gentleman. May I do it for you?' * Indeed you shall, dear, if you can improve it. Let us see you try.' She walked to my man, got up in his lap, put her arm round his neck, and kissed him right on the mouth. Then the two old gentlemen shouted with laughter, but I was dumfounded, just petrified, as you may say. Portia said : ' Papa, he has said you haven't a situation in your gift that he'd take ; and I feel just as hurt as ' * My darling t is that your papa ? ' ' Yes ; he's my step-papa, and the dearest one that ever was. You understand now, don't you, why I was able to laugh when you told me at the minister's, not knowing my relationships, what trouble and worry papa's and Uncle Abel's scheme was giving you ? ' If,, 38 THE £lfiOOfiOO BANK-NOTE Of course I spoke right ap, now, without any fooling, and went straight to the point. < Oh, my dearest dear sir, I want to take back what I said. Tou have got a situation open that I want.* * Name it.* * Son-in-law.' * Well, well, well ! But you know, if you haven't ever served in that capacity, you of course can't furnish recommendations of a sort to satisfy the conditions of the contract, and so * * Try me— oh, do, I beg of you ! Only just try me thirty or forty years, and if * ' Oh, well, all right ; it's but a little thing to ask. Take her along.* Happy, we too ? There are not words enough in the unabridged to describe it. And when London got the whole history, a day or two later, of my month's adventures with that bank-note, and how they ended, did London talk, and have a good time? Yes. My Portia's papa took that friendly and hos- pitable bill back to the Bank of England and cashed it; then the Bank cancelled it and made him a present of it, and he gave it to us at our wedding, and it has always hung in its frame in the sacredest THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE ^ place in our home, ever Bince. For it gave me my Portia. But for it I could not have remained in London, would not have appeared at the minister's, never should have met her. And so I always say, 'Yes, it*s a million-pounder, as you see; but it never made but one purchase in its life, and then got the article for only about a tenth part of its value.' ^' \\m *•. 41 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY A MANUSCRIPT WITH A HISTORY NoTB TO THB Editob. — By glancing over the enclosed bundle of rusty old manuscript, yon will perceive that I once made a great discovery : the discovery that certain sorts of things which, £rom the beginning of the world, had always been regarded as merely ' curious coincidences ' — that is to say, accidents — were no more accidental than is the sending and receiving of a telegram an accident. I made this discovery sixteen or seventeen years ago, and gave it a name — * Mental Telegraphy.' It is the same thing around the outer edges of which the Psychical Society of England began to grope (and play with) four or five yc ars ago, and which they named ' Telepathy.' Within the last two or three years they have penetrated towards the heart of the matter, however, and have found out that mind can act upon mind in a quite de* tailed and elaborate way over vast stretches of land and water. And they have succeeded in doing, by their great credit and infiuence, what I could never have done — ^they have convinced the world that mental telegraphy is not a jest, but a fact, and that it is a thing not rare, but exceedingly common. They have done our age a service—and a very great service, I think. In this old manuscript you will find mention of an extra* ordinary experience of mine in the mental telegraphic line, of date about the year 1874 or 1876 — the one concerning the i 11! hi M 4a MENTAL TELEGRAPHY il 1 1 1 III \ 1 H' ' ' ^^1 ^ . 1 ■ '^'1^9 1 1 mm 1 1 j^y^. Great Bonanza book. It was ihis experience that called my attention to the matter under consideration. I began to keep a record, after that, of such experiences of mine as seemed explicable by the theory that minds telegraph thoughts to each other. In 1878 I went to Germany and began to write the book called A Tramp Abroad, The bulk of this old batch of manuscript was written at that time and for that book. But I removed it when I came to revise the volume for the press ; for I feared that the public would treat the thing as a joke and throw it aside, whereas I was in earnest. At home, eight or ten years ago, I tried to creep in under shelter of an authority grave enough to protect the article from ridicule — the North American Review. But Mr. Met- calf was too wary for me. He said that to treat these mere 'coincidences' seriously was a thing which the Review couldn't dare to do ; that I must put either my name or my nom de plume to the article, and thus save the Review from harm. But I couldn't consent to that ; it would be the surest possible way to defeat my desire that the public should re- ceive the thing seriously, and be willing to stop and give it some fair degree of attention. 80 I pigeon-holed the MS., because I could not get it published anonymously. Now see how the world has moved since then. These small experiences of mine, which were too formidable at that time for admission to a grave magazine — if the magazine must allow them to appear as something above and beyond 'accidents' and 'coincidences' — are trifling and oonmion* place now, since the flood of light recently cast upon mental telegraphy by the intelligent labours of the Psychical Society. But I think they are worth publishing, just to show what harmless and ordinary matters were considered dangeroiis and incredible eight or ten years ago. As I have said, the bulk of this old manuscript was written in 1878 ; a later part was written from time to time, two, three, and four years afterwards. The ' Postscript ' I add to- day. MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 43 ftlled my n to keep seemed ughts to to write >Id batch at book. I for the thing as in under B article »lr. Met- se mere Beview e or my 3w from le surest ould re- give it e MS., These at that igazine Ibeyond nomon* Imental iooiety. what :eroti0 ritten ., two, Idto- May, 78. — Another of those apparently trifling things has happened to me which puzzle and per- plex all men every now and then, keep them think- ing an hour or two, and leave their minds barren of explanation or solution at last. Here it is — and it looks inconsequential enough, I am obliged to say. A few days ago I said: 'It must be that Frank Millet doesn't know we are in Germany, or he would have written long before this. I have been on the point of dropping him a line at least a dozen times during the past six weeks, but I always decided to wait a day or two longer, and see if we shouldn't hear from him. But now I will write.' And so I did. I directed the letter to Paris, and thought, * Now we shall hear from him before this letter is fifty miles from Heidelberg — it always happens so.' True enough ; but why should it ? That is the puzzling part of it. We are always talking about letters ' crossing ' each other, for that is one of the very commonest accidents of this Ufe. We call it ' accident,' but perhaps we misname it. We have the instinct a dozen times a year that the letter we are writing is going to ' cross ' the other person's letter ; and if the reader will rack his memory a little he will recall the fact that this presentiment ij r i Ii i! I I I ' 'Hi 1' I I' 44 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY had strength enough to it to make him cut his letter down to a decided briefness, because it would be a waste of time to write a letter which was going to ' cross/ and hence be a useless letter. I think that in my experience this instinct has generally come to me in cases where I had put off my letter a good while in the hope that the other person would write. Yes, as I was saying, I had waited five or six weeks ; then I wrote but three lines, because I felt and seemed to know that a letter from Millet would cross mine. And so it did. He wrote the same day that I wrote. The letters crossed each other. His letter went to Berlin, care of the American minister, who sent it to me. In this letter Millet said he had been trying for six weeks to stumble upon somebody who knew my German address, and at last the idea had occurred to him that a letter sent to the care of the embassy at Berlin might possibly find me. Maybe it was an ^ accident ' that he finally de- termined to write me at the same moment that I finally determined to write him, but I think not. With me the most irritating thing has been to wait a tedious time in a purely business matter, hoping that the other party will do the writing, and then sit down and do it myself, perfectly satisfied MENTAL TELEGRAPHy 45 is letter id be a Ding to ak that 7 come a good would I or six 3 1 felt ; would me day . His nister, he had ebody e idea ) oare me. y de- hat I ot. en to itter, :,and isfied that that other man is sitting down at the same moment to write a letter which will * cross ' mine. And yet one must go on writing, just the same ; be- cause if you get up from your table and postpone, that other man will do the same thing, exactly as if you two were harnessed together like the Siamese twins, and must duplicate each other's movements. Several months before I left home a New York firm did some work about the house for me, and did not make a success of it, as it seemed to me. When the bill came, I wrote and said 1 wanted the work perfected before I paid. They replied that they were very busy, but that as soon as they could spare the proper man the thing should be done. I waited more than two months, enduring as patiently as possible the companionship of bells which would fire away of their own accord sometimes when no- body was touching them, and at other times wouldn't ring though you struck the button with a sledge- hammer. Many a time I got ready to write and then postponed it ; but at last I sat down one even- ing and poured out my grief to the extent of a page or so, and then cut my letter suddenly short, be- cause a strong instinct told me that the firm had begun to move in the matter. When I came down to breakfast next morning the postman had not yet •( • ! ii ', ^ 46 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY taken my letter away, but the electrical man had been there, done his work, and was gone again ! He had received his orders the previous evening from his employers, and had come up by the night train. If that was an ' accident,' it took about three months to get it up in good shape. One evening last summer I arrived in Washing- ton, registered at the Arlington Hotel, and went to my room. I read and smoked until ten o'clock ; then, finding I was not yet sleepy, I thought I would take a breath of fresh air. So I went forth in the rain, and tramped through one street after another in an aimless and enjoyable way. I knew that Mr. , a friend of mine, was in town, and I wished I might run across him ; but I did not propose to hunt for him at midnight, especially as I did not know where he was stopping. Towards twelve o'clock the stieots had become so deserted that I felt lonesome ; so I stepped into a cigar shop far up the Avenue, and remained there fifteen minutes listening to some bummers discussing national poli- tics. Suddenly the spirit of prophecy came upon me, and I said to myself, ' Now I will go out at this door, turn to the left, walk ten steps, and meet Mr. face to face.' I did it, too 1 I could not see MENTAL TELEGRAPHY m his face, because he had an umbrella before it, and it was pretty dark, anyhow, but he interrupted the man he was walking and talking with, and I recog- nised his voice and stopped him. That I should step out there and stumble upon Mr. was nothing, but that I should know be- forehand that I was going to do it was a good deal. It is a very cuiious thing when you come to look at it. I stood far within the cigar shop when I de- livered my prophecy ; I walked about five steps to the door, opened it, closed it after me, walked down a flight of three steps to the sidewalk, then turned to the left and walked four or five more, and found my man. I repeat that in itself the thing was nothing ; but to know it would happen so beforehand, wasn't that really curious ? I have criticised absent people so often, and then discovered, to my humiliation, that I was talking with their relatives, that I have grown superstitious about that sort of thing and dropped it. How like an idiot one feels after a blunder Uke that ! We are always mentioning people, and in that very instant they appear before us. We laugh, and say, * Speak of the devil,' and so forth, and there we drop it, considering it an * accident.' It is a cheap and convenient way of disposing of a grave li 48 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 1: and very puzzling mystery. The fact is, it does seem to happen too often to be an accident. Now I come to the oddest thing that ever hap- pened to me. Two or three years ago I was lying in bed, idly musing, one morning — it was the 2nd of March — when suddenly a red-hot new idea came whistling down into my camp, and exploded with such comprehensive effectiveness as to sweep the vicinity clean of rubbishy reflections, and fill the air with their dust and flying fragments. This idea, stated in simple phrase, wa^it that the time was ripe and the market ready for a certain book ; a book which ought to be written at once ; a book which must command attention and be of peculiar interest — to wit, a book about the Nevada silver mines. The ' Great Bonanza ' was a new wonder then, and everybody was talking about it. It seemed to me that the person best qualified to write this book was Mr. William H. Wright, a journalist of Virginia, Nevada, by whose side I had scribbled many months when I was a reporter there ten or twelve years be- fore. He might be alive still ; he might be dead ; I could not tell ; but I would write him, anyway. I began by merely and modestly suggesting t^at he make such a book ; but my interest grew as I went on, and I ventured to map out wh»t I thought ought MENTAL TELEGRAPHY m t it does b. 76Y hap- ras lying the 2nd lea came led with 7eep the U the air bis idea, was ripe a book k which interest mines. en, and Id to me ook was irginia, months ars be- dead; •nyway. It^at he I went It ought to be the plan of the work, he being an old friend, and not given to taking good intentions for ill. I even dealt with details, and suggested the order and sequence which they should follow. I was about to put the manuscript in an envelope, when the thought occurred to me that if this book should be written at my suggestion, and then no publisher happened to want it, I should feel uncomfortable ; so I con- cluded to keep my letter back until I should have secured a publisher. I pigeon-holed my document, and dropped a note to my own publisher, asking him to name a day for a business consultation. He was out of town on a far journey. My note re- mained unanswered, and at the end of three or four days the whole matter had passed out of my mind. On the 9th of March the postman brought three or four letters, and among them a thick one whose superscription was in a hand which seemed dimly familiar to me. I could not ' place ' it at first, but presently I succeeded. Then I said to a visiting relative who was present : *Now I will do a miracle. I will tell you everything this letter contains — date, signature, and all — without breaking the seal. It is from a Mr. Wright, of Virginia, Nevada, and is dated March 2, — seven days ago. Mr. Wright proposes U I i V m m Ui hv imi III, 2 ,' Hi I,: 50 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY to make a book about the silver mines and the Great Bonanza, and asks what I, as a friend, think of the idea. He says his subjects are to be so-and-so, their order and sequence so-and-so, and he will close with a history of the chief feature of the book, the Great Bonanza.' I opened the letter, and showed that 1 had stated the date and : ie contents correctly. Mr. Wright's letter simply contained what my own letter, written on the same date, contained, and mine still lay in its pigeon-hole, where it had been lying during the seven days since it was written. There was no clairvoyance about this, if I rightly comprehend what clairvoyance is. I think the clairvoyant professes to actually see concealed writing, and read it off word for word. This was not my case. I only eeemed to know, and to know absolutely the contents of the letter in detail and due order, but I had to word them myself. I translated them, so to speak, out of Wright's language into my own. Wright's letter and the one which I had written to him but never sent were in substance the same. Necessarily this could not come by accident; such elaborate accidents cannot happen. Chance might have duplicated one or two of the details, but MENTAL TELEGRAPHY %\ e Great k of the 30, their U close )ok, the d stated Vright's written [1 lay in ring the is, if I I thmk )ncealed !his was to know ail and self. I right's Iwritten same. ;ident ; Chance lils, but she would have broken down on the rest. I could not doubt — there was no tenable reason for doubt- ing — that Mr. Wright's mind and mine had been in close and crystal-clear communication with each other across three thousand miles of mountain and desert on the morning of March 2. I did not consider that both minds originated that succes- sion of ideas, but that one mind originated them, and simply telegraphed them to the other. I was curious to know which brain was the telegrapher and which the receiver, so I wrote and asked for particulars. Mr. Wright's reply showed that his mind had done the originating and telegraphing and mine the receiving. Mark that significant thing, now ; consider for a moment how many a splendid 'original' idea has been unconsciously stolen from a man three thousand miles away 1 If one should question that this is so, let him look into the Cyclopaedia, and con once more that curious thing in the history of inventions which has puzzled everyone so much — that is, the frequency with which the same machine or other contriv&nce has been invented at the same time by several persons in different quarters of the globe. The world was without an electric telegraph for several thousand years ; then Professor Henry, the American, Wheat- ■ 2 M S2 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY stone in England, Morse on the sea, and a German in Munich, all invented it at the same time. The discovery of certain ways of applying steam was made in two or three countries in the same year. Is it not possible that inventors are constantly and unwittingly stealing each other's ideas whilst they stand thousands of miles asunder ? Last spring a literary friend of mine,^ who lived a hundred miles away, paid me a visit, and in the course of our talk he said he had made a discovery — conceived an entirely new idea — one which cer- tainly had never been used in literature. He told me what it was. I handed him a manuscript, and said he would find substantially the same idea in that — a manuscript which I had written a week be- fore. The id da had been in my mind since the pre- vious November ; it had only entered his while I was putting it on paper, a week gone by. He had not yet written his ; so he left it unwritten, and gracefully made over all his right and title in the idea to me. The following statement, which I have clipped from a newspaper, is true. I had the facts from Mr. Howells's lips when the episode was new : ^ A remarkable story of a literary coincidence is » W. D. Howell^. I MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 53 German I. The jn was le year, tly and 1st they ho lived I in the scovery Lch cer- He told ipt, and idea in yeek be- the pre- while I e had in, and in the [clipped )mMr. ience is told of Mr. Howells's <* Atlantic Monthly '* serial, ** Dr. Breen's Practice." A lady of Eochester, New York, contributed to the magazine, after '' Dr. Breen's Practice '* was in type, a short story which so much resembled Mr. Howells's that he felt it necessary to call upon her and explain the situation of affairs in order that no charge of plagiarism might be preferred against him. He showed her the proof- sheets of his story, and satisfied her that the simi- larity between her work and his was one of those strange coincidences which have from time to time occurred in the literary world.' I had read portions of Mr. Howells's story, both in manuscript and in proof, before the lady offered her contribution to the magazine. Here is another case. I clip it from a news- paper : < The republication of Miss Alcott's novel "Moods" recalls to a writer in the Boston 'Pot.t a singular coincidence which was brought to light before the book was first published : " Miss Anna M. Crane, of Baltimore, published ' Emily Chester,' a novel which was pronounced a very striking and strong story. A comparison of this book with ' Moods ' showed that the two writers, though entire strangers to each other, and living hundreds of miles 54 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY apart, had both chosen the same subject for their novels, had followed almost the same line of treatment up to a certain point, where the parallel ceased, and the denouements were entirely opposite. And even more curious, the leading characters in both books had identically the same names, so that the names in Miss Alcott's novel had to be changed. Then the book was published by Loring." ' Four or five times within my recollection there has been a lively newspaper war in this country over poems whose authorship was claimed by two or three different people at the same time. There was a war of this kind over * Nothing to Wear,* 'Beautiful Snow,' *Rock Me to Sleep, Mother,' and also over one of Mr. Will Garleton's early bal- lads, I think. These were all blameless cases of unintentional and unwitting mental telegraphy, I judge. A word more as to Mr. Wright. He had had his book in his mind some time ; consequently he, and not I, had originated the idea of it. The subject was entirely foreign to my thoughts ; I wl:.s wholly absorbed in other things. Yet this friend, whom I had not seen and had hardly thought of for eleven years, was able to shoot his thoughts at me across three thousand miles of country, and fill MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 5S their .tment d, and ieven books names len the \ there 9untry )y two There Wear/ other,' lybal- ses of phy, I .d had ly he, The IWLLS riend, ;ht of hts at dfill my head with them, to the exclusion of every other interest, in a single moment. He had begun his letter after finishing his work on the morning paper — a little after three o'clock, he said. When it was three in the morning in Nevada it was about six in Hartford, where I lay awake thinking about nothing in particular ; and just about that time his ideas came pouring into my head from across the con- tinent, and I got up and put them on paper, under the impression that they were my own original thoughts. I have never seen any mesmeric or clairvoyant performances or spiritual manifestations which were in the least degree convincing— a fact which is not of consequence, since my opportunities have been meagre ,* but I am forced to believe that one human mind (still inhabiting the flesh) can com- municate with another, over any sort of a distance, and without any artificial preparation of ' sym- pathetic conditions ' to act as a transmitting agent. I suppose that when the sympathetic conditions happen to exist the two minds communicate with each other, and that otherwise they don't ; and I suppose that if the sympathetic conditions could be kept up right along, the two minds would continue to correspond without limit as to time. 56 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY I ' Now there is that curious thing which happens to everybody : suddenly a succession of thoughts or sensations flock in upon you, which startles yon with the weird idea that you have ages ago experi- enced just this succession of thoughts or sensations in a previous existence. The previous existence is possible, no doubt, but I am persuaded that the solution of this hoary mystery lies not there, but in the fact that some far-off stranger has been tele- graphing his thoughts and sensations into your consciousness, and that he stopped because some counter-current or other obstruction intruded and broke the line of communication. Perhaps they seem repetitions to you because they (we repetitions got at second hand from the other man. Possibly Mr. Brown, the * mind-reader,' reads other people's minds, possibly he does not; but I know of a surety that I have read another man's mind, and therefore I do not see why Mr. Brown shouldn't do the like also. I wrote the foregoing about three years ago, in Heidelberg, and laid the manuscript aside, purpos- ing to add to it instances of mind-telegraphing from time to time as they should fall under my experi- ence. Meantime the ' crossing ' of letters has been so frequent as to become monotonous. However, I MENTAL TELEGRAPHY JO, in rpos- from peri- been <^er,I have managed to get something useful out of this bint ; for now» when I get tired of waiting upon a man whom I very much wish to hear from, I sit down and compel him to write, whether he wants to or not ; that is to say, I sit down and write him, and then tear my letter up, satisfied that my act has forced him to write me at the same moment. I do not need to mail my letter — the writing it is the only essential thing. Of course I have grown superstitious about this letter-crossing business — this was natural. We stayed awhile in Venice after leaving Heidelberg. One day I was going down the Grand Canal in a gondola, when I heard a shout behind me, and looked around to see what the matter was; a gondola was rapidly following, and the gondolier was making signs to me to stop. I did so, and the pursuing boat ranged up alongside. There was an American lady in it — a resident of Venice. She was in a good deal of distress. She said : * There's a New York gentleman and his wife at the Hotel Britannia who arrived a week age, expecting to find news of their son, whom they have heard nothing about during eight months. There was no news. The lady is down sick with despair ; the gentleman can't sleep or eat. Their 58 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY son arrived at San Francisco eight months ago, and announced the fact in a letter to his parents the same day. That is the last trace of him. The parents have been in Europe ever since ; but their trip has been spoiled, for they have occupied their time simply in drifting restlessly from place to place, and writing letters everywhere and to every- body, begging for news of their son; but the mystery remains as dense as ever. Now the gentleman wants to stop writing and go to cabling. He wants to cable San Francisco. He has never done it before, because he is afraid of — of he doesn't know what — death of his son, no doubt. But he wants somebody to admit him to cable — wants me to do it. Now I simply can't ; for if no news came that mother yonder would die. So I have chased you up in order to get you to support me in urging him to be patient, and put the thing off a week or two longer ; it may be the saving of this lady. Gome along ; let's not lose any time.' So I went along, but I had a programme of my own. When I was introduced to the gentleman I said : ' I have some superstitions, but they are worthy of respect. If you will cable San Francisco immediately, you will hear news of your son inside of twenty-four hours. I don't know that you will MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 59 get the news from San Francisco, but you will get it from somewhere. The only necessary thing is to cahle — that is all. The news will come within twenty-four hours. Cable Pekin, if you prefer ; there is no choice in this matter. This delay is all occasioned by your not cabling long ago, when you were first moved to do it.* It seems absurd that this gentleman should have been cheered up by this nonsense, but he was ; he brightened up at once, and sent his cable- gram ; and next day, at noon, when a long letter arrived from his lost son, the man was as grateful to me as if I had really had something to do with the hurrying up of that letter. The son had shipped from San Francisco in a sailing vessel, and his letter was written from the first port he touched at, months afterwards. This incident argues nothing, and is valueless. I insert it only to show how strong is the super- stition which ' letter-crossing ' has bred in me. I was so sure that a cablegram sent to any place, no matter where, would defeat itself by * crossing * the incoming news, that my confidence was able to raise up a hopeless man, and make him cheery and hopeful. But here are two or three incidents which come ', .\ 6o MENTAL TELEGRAPHY jii ' !-. \ Hi strictly under the head of mind-telegraphing. One Monday morning, aboat a year ago, the mail came in, and I picked up one of the letters, and said to a friend : * Without opening this letter I will tell you what it says. It is from Mrs. , and she says she was in New York last Saturday, and was pur- posing to run up here in the afternoon train and surprise us, but at the last moment changed her mind and returned westward to her home.' I was right; my details were exactly correct. Yet we had had no suspicion that Mrs. was coming to New York, or that she had even a remote intention of visiting us. I smoke a good deal — that is to say, all the time—so, during seven years, I have tried to keep a box of matches handy, behind a picture on the mantelpiece; but I have had to take it out in trying, because George (coloured), who makes the fires and lights the gas, always uses my matches and never replaces them. Commands and per- suasions have gone for nothing with him all these seven years. One day last summer, when our family had been away from home several months, I said to a member of the household : ' Now, with all this long holiday, and nothing in the way to interrupt * ^ i? ifl MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 6i