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] 
 
 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 
 
 BY MARK TWAIN. 
 
 "Tom Brown" and "Tom Bailey" are, among 
 bovB, in books, alone deserving to be named with 
 " Tom Sawyei." — Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 Old Times on the Mississippi, 
 
 BY MARK TWAIN. 
 
 " We must express our sense of their delicious 
 humour, tnxthful local delineation, and original 
 insights, of which we could the better judge from 
 personal reminiscences of our own childhood in the 
 Mississippi Valley." — Canadian Illustrated News. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers, on trains, or mailed 
 post paid on receipt of price, by 
 
 ROSE-BELFORD PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 60 YORK STREET. TORONTO. 
 
 (.VTH 
 
 TP- 
 
BAMBLIJSTG- :^OTES 
 
 or AN 
 
 IDLE EXCURSIOi^ 
 
 Br 
 
 MAEK TWAIlSr, 
 
 ^WTHOR OF '• AnVBNTURES OF TOM 8..WTBR," "OLD TIMBS OS TM HI88» 
 SIPPI," " INNOCENTS ABBOAD." MO. ra«. MISSIS- 
 
 tSmtttAtii 
 
 ROSE-BELFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 MDCCCLXXVIII, 
 

 HUNTEB, BOSK & CO., 
 
 PUOrTBRa AND BIKDUM 
 rORONTO. 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 • ♦• 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I i 
 
 f, 
 
 LL the journeyings I had ever done had been purely 
 in the way of business. The pleasant May weather 
 suggested a novelty, namely, a trip for pure recre- 
 ation, the bread-and-butter element left out. The Re\ er- 
 end said he would go, too : a good man, one of the best of 
 men, although a clergyman. By eleven at night we were 
 in New Haven, and on board the New York boat. We 
 bought our tickets, and then went wandering around here 
 And there, in the solid comfort of being free and idle, and 
 of putting distance between ourselves and the mails and 
 telegraphs. 
 
 After a while I went to my state-room and undressed, 
 but the night was too enticing for bed. We were moving 
 down the bay now, and it was pleasant to stand at the 
 window and take the cool night-breeze and watch the 
 gliding lights on shore. Presently, two elderly men sat 
 down under that window, and began a conversation. 
 Their talk was properly no business of mine, yet I was 
 feeling friendly toward the whole world and willing to be 
 entertained. I soon gathered that they were brothers, 
 that they were from a small Connecticut village, and that 
 the matter in hand concerned the cemetery. Said one, — 
 ; ' Now, John, we talked it all over amongst ourselves, 
 
6 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 and this is what we've done. You see, everybody v^as a • 
 movin' from the old buryin'-ground, and our folks wis 
 most about left to theirselves, as you may say. They were 
 crowded, too, as you know ; lot wa'n't big enough in the 
 first place; and last year, when Seth's wife died, wo 
 couldn't hardly tuck her in. She sort o' overlaid Deacon 
 Shorb's lot, and he soured on her, so to speak, and on the 
 rest of us, too. So we talked it over, and I was for a lay- 
 out in the new simitery on the hill. They wa'n't unwill- 
 ing, if it was cheap. Well, the two best and biggest plots 
 was No. 8 and No. 9 — both of a size ; nice comfortable 
 room for twenty-six, — twenty-six full-grown that is \ but 
 you reckon in children and other shorts, and strike an 
 average, and I should say you might lay in thirty, or may 
 be thirty-two or three, pretty genteel, — no crowdin' to 
 signify.' 
 ' That's a plenty, William. Which one did you buy ? ' 
 
 * Well, I'm a comin' to that, John. You see No. 8 wa.*^ 
 thirteen dollars. No. 9 fourteen' — 
 
 * I see. So's't you took No. 8.' 
 
 ' You wait. I took No. 9 ; and I'll tell you for why 
 In the first place. Deacon Shorb wanted it. Well, after 
 the way he'd gone on about Seth's wife overlappin' his 
 prem'ses, I'd a beat him out o' that No. 9 if I'd 'a' had to 
 stand two dollars extra, let alone one. That's the way I 
 felt about it. Says I, v/hat's a dollar, any way ? Life's 
 on'y a pilgrimage, says I ; we ain't here for good, and we 
 can't take it with us, says I. So I just dumped it down, 
 knowin' the Lord don't suffer a good deed to go for no- 
 thin*, and cal'latin to take it out o' somebody in the course 
 o' trade. Then there was another reason. John. No. 9's 
 
 ? 
 
 n 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 7 
 
 ?' 
 
 I i 
 
 V 
 
 a long way t!ie handiest lot in the sirtiitery, and the like- 
 liest for situation. It lies right on top of a knoll in the 
 dead centre of the buryin' -ground ; and you can see Mill- 
 port from there, and Tracy's, and Hopper Mount, and a 
 raft o' farms, and so on. There a'int no better outlook 
 from a buryin'-plot in the State. Si Higgins says so, and 
 I reckon he ought to know. Weil, and that ain't all. 
 Course Shorb had to take No. 8 ; wa'n't no help for't. 
 Now, No. 8 joins on to No. 9, but it's on the slope of the 
 hill, and every time it rains it'll soak right down on to the 
 Shorbs. Si Higgins says't when the deacon's time comes, 
 he'd better take out fire and marine insurance both on his 
 remains/ 
 
 Here there was the sound of a low, placid, duplicate 
 chuckle of appreciation and satisfaction. 
 
 * Now, John, here's a little rough draft of the ground, 
 that I've made on a piece of paper. Up here, in the left 
 hand corner, we've bunched the departed ; took them from 
 ihe old grave-yard and stowed them one alongside o' 
 t'other, on a first-come-first-served plan, no partialities, 
 with gTan'ther Jones for a starter on'y because it hap- 
 pened so, and windin' up indiscriminate with Seth's twins. 
 A little crowded towards the end of the lay-out, may be, 
 but we reckoned't wa'n't best to scatter the twins. Well, 
 next comes the livin'. Here, where it's marked A, we're 
 goin' to put Mariar and her family, when they're called ; 
 B, that's for brother Hosea and his'n ; C, Calvan and 
 tribe. What's left is these two lots liere, — just the gem 
 of the whole patch for general style and outlook ; they're 
 for me and my folks and you and yourn. Which of them 
 'would you rather be buried in ? ' 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 * I swan you've took me mighty unexpected, William ! 
 It sort of started the shivers. Fact is, I was thinkin* ao 
 busy about makin* things comfortable for the others, I 
 hadn't thought about being buried myself.' 
 
 ' Life's on'y a fleeting show, John, as the sajdn' is. 
 We've all got to go, sooner or later. To go with a cloun 
 record 's the main thing. Fact is, it's the on'y way worth 
 strivin' for, John.' 
 
 * Yes, that's so, William, that's so ; there ain't no gettin' 
 round it. Which of these lots would you recommend V 
 
 ' Well, it depends, John. Are you particular about out- 
 look ? • 
 
 ' I don't say I am, William ; I don't say I ain't. Reely, 
 I don't know. But mainly, I reckon, I'd set store by a 
 south exposure.' 
 
 * That's easy fixed, John ; they're both south exposure. 
 They take the sun and the Shorbs get the shade.* 
 
 * How about sile, William ? ' 
 
 * D's a sandy sile, E's mostly loom.' 
 
 * You may jimme E, then, William; a sandy silo caves 
 in more or less, and costs for repairs.* 
 
 * AU right ; set your name down here, John, under E. 
 Now, if you don't mind payin' me your share]of the four- 
 teen dollars, John, while we're on the business, every- 
 thing's fixed.' 
 
 After some higgling and sharp bargaining the money 
 was paid, and John bade his brother good-night and took 
 his leave. There was a silence for some moments, then a 
 soft chuckle welled up from the lonely William, and he 
 muttered : ' I declare for't if I haven't made a mistake ! 
 
 I 
 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 9 
 
 f 
 
 i 
 
 It's D that mostly loom, not E ; and John's booked for a 
 sandy sile after all.' 
 
 There was another soft chuckle, and William depaHcd 
 to his rest also. 
 
 The next day, in New York, was a hot one ; still we 
 managed to get more or less entertainment out of it. To- 
 ward the middle of the afternoon we arrived on board the 
 staunch steamship * Bermuda,' with bag and baggage, and 
 hunted for a shady place. It was blazing summer weather 
 until we were half way down the harbour. Then I but- 
 toned my coat closely ; half-an-hour later I put on a spring 
 overcoat, and buttons 1 that. As we passed the light- 
 ship I added an ulster, and tied a handkerchief round the 
 collar to hold it snug up to my neck. So rapidly had the 
 sumnK ■ gone and the winter come again ! 
 
 By iii'7^ *^fall we were far out at sea, with no land in 
 sight. telegrams could come here, no letters, no news. 
 
 It was an uplifting thought. It was still more uplifting 
 to reflect that the millions of harassed people on shore 
 behind us were suffering just as usual. 
 
 The next day brought us into the midst of the Atlantic 
 solitudes, — out of smoke-coloured soundings into fathom- 
 less deep blue ; no ships visible anywhere over the wide 
 ocean ; no company but Mother Gary's chickens, wheeling, 
 darling, skimming the waves in the sun. There were 
 some sea-faring men among the passengers, and the con- 
 versation drifted into matters concerning ships and sailors. 
 One said that ' true as a needle to the pole ' was a bad 
 figure, fcince the needle seldom pointed to the pole. He 
 said a ship's compass was not faithful to any particular 
 point, but was the moat fickle and treacherous of the «er- 
 
10 
 
 AN IDLE EXCmSION. 
 
 vants of man. Tt was forever changing. It changed ovevy 
 (lay in the year; consequently the amount of the daily 
 variation had to bo ciphered out and allowance madc^ for 
 it, cIhc the mariner would go utterly astray. Another said 
 there was a vast fortune waiting for the genius who 
 should invent a compass that would not be affected by 
 the local influences of an iron ship. He said there was 
 only one creature more fickle than a wooden ship's com- 
 pass, and that was the compass of an iron ship. Then came 
 reference to the well-known fact that an experienced 
 mariner can look at the compass of a now iron vessel 
 thousands of miles from her birth-place, aud tell which 
 way her head was pointing when she was in process of 
 building. 
 
 Now an ancient whale-ship master fell to talking about 
 the sort of crews they used to have in his early days. 
 Said he,— 
 
 * Sometimes we'd have a batch ot college students. 
 Queer lot. Ignorant ? Why, they didn't know the cat- 
 heads from the main brace. But if you took them for 
 fools you'd get bit, sure. They'd learn more in a month 
 than another man would in a year. We had one, once, 
 in the ' Mary Ann,' that came on board with gold spectacles 
 on. And besides, he was rigged out from maintruck to 
 keelson in the nobbiest clothes that ever saw a fo'castle. 
 He had a chest full, too ; cloaks and broadcloth coats 
 and velvet vests j everything swell, you know ; and 
 didn't the salt water fix them out for him ? I guess 
 not ! Well, going to sea, the mate told him to go aloft 
 and help to shake out the fore-to'-gallants'l. Up he shins 
 to the fore-top, with his spectacles on, and in a minute 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION'. 
 
 11 
 
 1 
 
 ; 
 
 down ho comes again, looking insulted. Says the mate, 
 " What (lid you come down for ? " Says the chap, " P'raps 
 you didn't notice that there ain't any ladders above there." 
 You see we hadn't any shrouds above the foretop. The 
 men bursted out in a laugh such as I guess you never heard 
 the like of. Next night, which was dark and rainy, the 
 mate ordered this chap to ijo aloft about something, and 
 I'm dummed if he didn't start up with an umbrella and 
 a lantern ! But no matter ; he made a mighty good 
 sailor before the voyage was done, and we had to hunt 
 up something else to laugh at. Years afterwards, when 
 I had forgot all about him, I comes into Boston, mate of 
 a ship, and was loafing about town with the second mate, 
 and it so happened that we stepped into the Revere 
 House, thinking maybe we would chance the salt-horse 
 in that big dining-room for a flyer, as the boys say. Some 
 fellows were talking just at our elbow, and one says, 
 " Yonder's the new governor of Massachusetts, — at that 
 table over there, with the ladies." We took a good look, my 
 mate and I, for we hadn't either of us seen a governor before. 
 I looked and looked at that face, and then all of a sudden 
 it popped on me. But I didn't give any sign. Says I, 
 «' Mate, I've a notion to go over and shake hands with 
 him." Says he, " I think I see you doing it, Tom." Says 
 I, " Mate, I'm a-going to do it." Says he, " Oh, yes, I 
 guess so ! May be you don't want to bet you will, T <'ii ? " 
 Says I, " I don't mind going a V on it mate." Says he, 
 " Put it up." " Up she goes," says I, planking the cash. 
 This surprised him. But he covered it, and says pretty 
 sarcastic, " Hadn't you better take your grub with the 
 governor and the ladies, Tom ? " Says I. " Upon second 
 
12 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 1 
 
 thoughts, I will." Says he, " Well, Tom, you are a dum 
 fool." Says I, " May be I am, may be I ain't ; but the 
 daain question is, Do you want to risk two and a half that 
 I won't do it ? " " Make it a V," says he. " Done," says I. 
 [ started him a-giggling and slapping his hand on his 
 thigh, he felt so good. I w«?nt over there and leaned my 
 knuckles on the table a minutg and looked the govemoi 
 in the face, and says I, " Mister Gardner, don't you know 
 me ? " He stared, and I stared, and he stared. Then all 
 of a sudden he sings out, " Tom Bowling, by the holy 
 poker ! Ladies, it's old Tom Bowling, that you've heard 
 me talk about, — shipmate of mine in the * Mary Ann.* 
 He rose up and shook hands with me ever so hearty, — I 
 sort of glanced around and took a realizing sense of my 
 mate's saucer eyes, — and then says the governor, " Plant 
 yourself, Tom, plant yourself ; you can'v cat your anchor 
 again till you've had a feed with me and the ladies! " I 
 planted myself alongside the governor, and canted my 
 eye around towards my mate. Well, sir, his dead-lights 
 were bugged out like tompions; and his mouth stood 
 that wide open that you could have laid a ham in it with- 
 out noticing it.' 
 
 There was great applause at the conclusion of the old 
 captain's story ; then, after a moment's silence, a grave, 
 pale young man, said, — 
 
 * Had you ever met the governor before ? * 
 The old captain looked steadily at this inquirer a while, 
 and then got up and walked aft without making any re- 
 ply. One passenger after another stole a furtive glance 
 at the inquirer, but failed to make him out, and so gave 
 him up. It took some little work to get the talk ma- 
 
ith- 
 
 1 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 13 
 
 chinery to running smoothly again after this derange- 
 ment ; but at length a conversation sprang up about that 
 important and jealously guarded instrument, a ship's 
 time-keeper, its exceeding delicate accuracy, and the 
 Avreck and destruction that have sometimes resulted from 
 its varying a few seemingly trifling moments from the 
 true time ; then, in due course, my comrade, the Rever- 
 end, got oflT on a yam, with a fair wind and everything 
 drawing. It was a true story, too, — about Captain 
 Kounceville's shipwreck, — true m every detail. It was 
 to this effect : — 
 
 Captain Rounceville's vessel was lost in mid-Atlantic, 
 and likewise his wife and his two little children. Cap- 
 tain Rounceville and seven seamen escaped with life, but 
 with little else. A small rudely constructed raft was to 
 be their home for eight days. They had neither pro- 
 visions nor water. They had scarcely any clothing ; no 
 one had a coat but the captain. The coat was changing 
 hands all the time, for the weather was very cold. When- 
 ever a man became exhausted with the cold, they put the 
 coat on him and laid him down between two ship-mates 
 until the gaiment and their bodies had warmed life into 
 him again. Among the sailors was a Portuguese who 
 knew no English. He seemed to have no thought of his 
 own calamity, but was concerned only about the captain's 
 bitter loss of wife and children. By day, he would look 
 his dumb compassion in the captain's face ; and by night, 
 in the darkness and the driving spray and rain, he would 
 seek out the captain and try to comfort him with caress- 
 ing pats on the shoulder. One day, when hunger and 
 thirst weie making their sure inroads upon the men's 
 
u 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 strength and spirits, a floating barrel was seen at a dis- 
 tance. It seemed a great find, for doubtless it contained 
 food of some sort. A biave fellow swam to it, and ,9,fter 
 long and exhausting effort got it to the raft. It was 
 eagerly opened. It was a barrel of magnesia ! On the 
 fifth day an onion was spied. A sailor swam off and got 
 it. Although perishing with.hunger he brought it in its 
 integrity and put it into the captain's hand. The history 
 of the sea teaches that among starving, shipwrecked men, 
 selfishness is rare, and a wonder-compelling magnanimity 
 the rule. The onion was equally divided into eight parts 
 and eaten with deep thanksgivings. On the eighth daj 
 a distant ship was sighted. Attempts were made to 
 hoist an oar with Captain Rounceville's coat on it for a 
 signal There were many failures, for the men were but 
 skeletons now, and strengthless. At ast success was 
 achieved, but the signal brought no help. The ship faded 
 out of sight and left despair behind her. By and by an- 
 other ship appeared, and passed so near that the cast- 
 aways, every eye eloquent with gratitude, made ready to 
 welcome the boat that would be sent to save them. But 
 this ship also drove on, and left these men staring their 
 unutterable surprise and dismay into each other's ashen 
 faces. Late in the day, still another ship came up out of 
 the distance, but the men noted with a pang that her 
 course was one which would not bring her nearer. Their 
 remnant of life was nearly spent ; their lips and tongues 
 were swollen, parched, cracked with eight days' thirst ; 
 their bodies starved ; and here was their last chance glid- 
 ing relentlessly from them ; they would not be alive when 
 the next sun rose. For a day or two past the men had 
 
 1 
 
 ] 
 
 } 
 
1 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 15 
 
 \ 
 
 I, 
 
 lost their voices, but now Captain Rounceville whis- 
 pered, * Let us pray.' The Portuguese patted him on the 
 shoulder in sign of deep approval. All knelt at the base 
 of the oar that was waving the signal coat aloft, and bowed 
 their heads. The sea was tossing ; the sun rested, a red. 
 ray less disk, on the sea-line in the west. When the men 
 presently raised their heads they would have roared a 
 hallelujah if they had had a voice ; the ship's sails lay 
 wrinkled and flapping against her masts, she was going 
 about I Here was a rescue at last, and in the very last 
 instant of time that was left for it. No, not rescue yet, 
 — only the imminent prospect of it. The red disk sank 
 under the sea and darkness blotted out the ship. By and 
 by came a pleasant sound, — oars moving in a boat's row- 
 locks. Nearer it came, and nearer, — within thirty steps, 
 but nothing visible. Then a deep voice: ' H.o\-lo !' The 
 castaways could not answer; their swollen tongues re- 
 fused voice. The boat skirted round and round the raft, 
 started away — the agony of it! — returned, rested on the 
 oars, close at hand, listening, no doubt. The deep voice 
 again : ' Hol-Zo ! Where aro yo, shipmates ? * Captain 
 Rounceville whispered to his men, saying : ' Whisper 
 yjour best, boys ! now — all at once ! So they sent out an 
 eight-fold whisper in hoarse concert : * Here ! ' There was 
 life in it if it succeeded ; death if it failed. After that 
 supreme moment Captain Rounceville was conscious of 
 nothing until he came to himself on board of the saving 
 ship. Said the Reverend, concluding : — 
 
 * T] ore was one little moment of time in which that raft 
 could be visible from that ship, and only one. If that one 
 little fleeting moment had passed unfruitful, those men's 
 
16 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 (loom was sealed. As close as that does God shave events 
 foreordained from the beginning of the world. When the 
 sun reached the water's edge that day, the captain of that 
 ship was sitting on deck reading his prayer-hook. The 
 book fell ; he stooped to pick it up, and happened to glance 
 at the sun. In that instant that far off* raft appeared for 
 a second against the red disk, its needle-like oar and di- 
 minished signal cut sharp and black against the bright 
 surface, and in the next instant was thrust away into the 
 dusk again. But that ship, that captain, and that preg- 
 nant instant had had their work appointed for them in 
 the dawn of time and could not fail of the performance ! * 
 
 Th3re was a deep, thoughtful silence for some moments. 
 Then the grave, pale young man said, — 
 
 • What is the chronometer of God V 
 
 i 
 
 \ : 
 
 \ 
 
 i 
 
 ■^'- 
 
events 
 len the 
 of that 
 . The 
 glance 
 red for 
 md di- 
 bright 
 ito the 
 t preg- 
 lem in 
 unce ! ' 
 ments. 
 
 t 
 
 AN IDLE fiXCUJttilON. 
 
 17 
 
 i^ 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 T dinner, six o'clock, the same people assembled 
 whom we had talked with on deck and seen at 
 luncheon and breakfast this second day out, and at 
 dinner the evening before. That is to say, three journey- 
 ing ship-masters, a Boston merchant, and a returning 
 Bermudian who had been absent from his Bermuda thir- 
 teen years ; these sat on the starboard side. On the port 
 side sat the Reverend in the seat of honour ; the pale young 
 man next to him ; I next ; next t6 me an aged Bermudian. 
 returning to his sunny islands after an absence of twenty- 
 seven years. Of course our captain was at the head of the 
 table, the purser at the foot of it. A small company, bu< 
 small companies are pleasantest. 
 
 No racks upon the table ; the sky cloudless, the sun 
 brilliant, the blue sea scarcely ruffled : then what had be- 
 «ome of the four married couples, the three oachelors, and 
 the active and obliging doctor from the niral districts of 
 Pennsylvania ? — for all these were on deck when we sailed 
 down New York harbour. This is the explanation. I 
 quote from my note book : — 
 
 Thursday, 3.30 P.M. Under way, passing the Battery 
 The large party, of four married couples, three bachelors, 
 and a cheery, exhilarating doctor from the wilds of Penn- 
 sylvania, are evidently travelling together. All but tha 
 doctor grouped in camp-chairs on deck. 
 
18 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 i 
 
 Passing principal fort. The doctor is one of those peo- 
 ple who has an infallible preventive of sea-sickness ; is 
 flitting from friend to friend administering it and saying, 
 " Don't you be afraid ; I know this medicine ; absolutely 
 infallible ; prepared under my own supervision." Takes 
 a dose himself, intrepidly. 
 
 4.15 P.M. Two of those ladies have stiuck their colours, 
 notwithstanding the " infallible." They have gone below. 
 The other two begin to show distress. 
 
 5 P.M. Exit one husband and one bachelor. Thcce 
 still had their infallible in cargo when they started, but 
 arrived at the companion-way without it. 
 
 5.10. LadT No. 3, two bachelors, and one married man 
 have gone below with I5heir own opinion of the infallible 
 
 5.20. Passing Quarantine Hulk. The infallible harj 
 done the business for all the party except the Scotchman'^* 
 wife and the author of that formidable remedy. 
 
 Nearing the Light-Ship, j^xit the Scotchman's wife, 
 head dropped on stewardess's shoulder. 
 
 Entering the open sea. Exit doctor 1 
 
 i 
 
 The rout seems permanent ; hence the smallness of tlic 
 company at table since the voj^age began. Our v^aptain 
 is a grave, handsome Hercules of thirty-five, with a brown 
 hand of such majestic size that one cannot eat for admir- 
 ing it and wondering if a single kid or calf could furnish 
 material for gloving it. 
 
 Conversation not general; drones along between couples. 
 One catches a sentence here and there. Like this, from 
 Bermudian of thirteen years* absence : " It is the nature 
 of woman to ask trivial, irrelevant, and pursuing ques- 
 
 f 
 
 f 
 
 1 
 
 ^i/^ 
 
1 
 
 AN IDLE EXCUBSION. 
 
 19 
 
 se peo- 
 ess ; is 
 saying, 
 Dlutely 
 Takes 
 
 olours, 
 below. 
 
 ThcGG 
 ed, but 
 
 edman 
 iallible 
 )le haa 
 hman'&i 
 
 's wife, 
 
 of the 
 aptain 
 brown 
 admir- 
 •urnish 
 
 tuples. 
 
 , from 
 nature 
 
 ques- 
 
 'i 
 
 
 i 
 
 lions,-' \kVVNl\ims that pursue you from a beginning in 
 nothii\*; lo a run-to-cover in nowhere." Reply of Ber- 
 inudiaii of tAv^isnty-seven years' absence : " Yes ; and to 
 think they have logical, analytical minds and argumenta- 
 tive ability. If ou see 'em begin to whet up whenever 
 they smell argument in the air." Plainly these be philo- 
 sophers. 
 
 Twice since "v;e left port our engines havo stopped for t 
 couple of minutes at a time. Now they stop again. Say? 
 the pale young man, meditatively, " There ! — that engi- 
 neer is sitting down to rest again," 
 
 Grave stare fiom the captain, whose mighty jaws cease 
 to work, and whose harpooned potato stops in mid-air on 
 its way to his open paralyzed mouth. Presently says he 
 in measured tones, " Is it your idea that the engineer of 
 this ship propels her by a crank turned by his own 
 hands?" 
 
 The pale young man studies over this a moment, then 
 lifts up his guileless eyes, and says, " Don't he ? " 
 
 Thus gently falls the death-blow to further conversa- 
 tion, and the dinner drags to its close in a reflective silence, 
 disturbed by no sounds but the murmurous wash of the 
 sea and the subdued clash of teeth. 
 
 After a smoke and a promenade on deck, where is no 
 motion to discompose our steps, we think of a game of 
 whist. We ask the brisk and capable stewardess if there 
 are any cards in the ship. 
 
 "Bless your soul, dear, indeed there is. Not a whole 
 pack, true for ye, but not enough missing to signify." 
 • However, I happened by accident to bethink me of a 
 new pack in a morocco case, in biv trunk, which I had 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 placed there by mistake, thinking it to be a flauk of some 
 thing. So a party of us conquered the tedium of the even 
 ing with a fbw games and were ready for bod about six 
 bells, mariner's time, the signal for putting out the lights 
 
 There was much chat in the smoking-cabin on the uppei 
 deck after luncheon to-day, mostly vhaler yams fron; 
 those old sea-captains. Captain Tom Bowling was garru- 
 lous. He had that garrulous attention to minor detail 
 which is bom of secluded farm life or life at sea on long 
 voyages, where there is little to do and time no object 
 He would sail along till he was right in th^ most exciting 
 part of a yarn, and then say, " Well, as I was saying, the 
 rudder was fouled, ship driving before the gale, head-on 
 straight for the iceberg, all hands holding their breath 
 turned to stone, top-hamper giving way, sails blown tc 
 ribbons, first one stick going, then another, boom ! smash '> 
 crash ! duck your head and stand from under ! when up 
 comes Johnny Kogers, capstan bar in hand, eyes a-blazing, 
 hair a-flying . . . no 't wasn't •Johnnj'^ Rogers . . . 
 let me see . . . seerns to me Johnny Rogers wa'n't 
 along that voyage ; he was along one voyage, I know thati 
 mighty well, but somehow it seems to me that he signed 
 the articles for this voyage, but — ^but— whether he come 
 along or not, or got left, or something happened " — 
 
 And so on and so on, till the excitement all cooled down 
 and nobody cared whether the ship struck the iceberg or 
 not. 
 
 In the course of his talk he rambled into a criticism 
 upon New Englc^nd degrees of merit in ship-building. 
 Said he, " You get a vessel built away down Maine- way ; 
 Bath, for instance ; whai « (.ne result i First thing you 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 21 
 
 )me 
 
 ven 
 
 b six 
 
 ^hts 
 
 ppei 
 
 froix 
 
 irru 
 
 ietai) 
 
 long 
 
 oject 
 
 liting 
 
 r, the 
 
 ,d-on 
 
 •eath 
 
 m. to 
 
 aashi 
 
 jn up 
 
 ^zing, 
 
 ■ • 
 
 a'n't 
 that« 
 Igned 
 Icome 
 
 lown 
 rgor 
 
 icism 
 ing. 
 
 you 
 
 i 
 
 do, you want to heave her down for repairs, — thafs the 
 result ! Well, sir, she hain't been down a week till you 
 can heave a dog through her seams. You send that ves- 
 sel to sea, and what's the result ? She wets her oakum 
 the first trip ! Leave it to any man if 't ain't so. Well, 
 you let owr folks build you a vessel — down New Bedford 
 way. What's the result ? Well, sir, you might take that 
 ship and heave her down, and keep her hove down six 
 months, and she'll never shed a tear ! " 
 
 Everybody, landsmen and all, recognised the descrip- 
 tive neatness of that figure, and applauded, which greatly 
 pleased the old man. A moment later, the meek eyes of 
 the pale young fellow heretofore mentioned came up 
 slowly, rested upon the old man's face a moment, and the 
 meek mouth began to open. 
 
 " Shet your head ! " shouted the old mariner. 
 It was a rather startling surprise to everybody, but it 
 was effective in the matter of its purpose. So the conver- 
 sation flowed on instead of perishing. 
 
 There was some talk about the perils of the sea, and a 
 landsman delivered himself of the customary nonsense 
 about the poor mariner wandering in far oceans, tempest- 
 tossed, pursued by dangers, every storm blast and thunder 
 bolt in the home skies moving the friends by snug firesides 
 to compassion for that poor mariner, and prayers for his 
 succour. Captain Bowling put up with this for a while, 
 and then burst out with a new view of the matter. 
 
 " Come, belay there ! I have read this kind of rot all 
 my life in poetry and tales and such like rubbage. Pity 
 for the poor mariner ! sympathy for the poor mariner ! 
 
 All right enough, but not in the way the poetry puts it. 
 B 
 
22 
 
 AN IDLE EXCUllSION. 
 
 Pity for tho mariner's wife ! all right again, but not in 
 the way the poetry puts it. Look-a-liere ! whose life's 
 the saf cfe Jie whole world ? The poor mariners. You 
 look at the statistics, you'll see. So don't you fool away 
 any sympathy on the poor mariner's dangers and priva- 
 tions and sufferings. Leave that to the poetry muffs. 
 Now you look at the other side a minute. Here is Cap- 
 tain Brace, forty years old, been at sea thirty. On his 
 way now to take command of his ship and sail south from 
 Bermuda. Next week he'll be under way : easy times, 
 comfortable quarters ; passengers, sociable company ; just 
 enough to do to keep his mind healthy and not tire him ; 
 king over his ship, boss of everything and everybody ; 
 thirty years' safety to learn him that his profession ain't 
 a dangerous one. Now you look back at his home. His 
 wife's a feeble woman ; she's a stranger in New York ; 
 shut up in blazing hot or freezing cold lodgings, according 
 to the season ; don't know anybody hardly ; no company 
 but her lonesomeness and her thoughts ; husband gone 
 six months at a time. She has borne eight children ; five 
 of them she has buried without her husband ever setting 
 eyes on them. She watched them all the long nights till 
 they died, — he comfortable on the sea ; she followed them 
 to the grave, she heard the clods fall that broke her heart, 
 — ^he comfortable on the sea ; she mourned at home, weeks 
 and weeks, missing them every day and every hour, — he 
 cheerful at sea knowing nothing about it. Now look at 
 it a minute, — turn it over in vour mind and size it : five 
 children born, she among strangers, and him not by to 
 hearten her ; buried, and him not by to comfort her ; 
 think of that ! Sympathy for the poor mariner's perils is 
 
 i 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 23 
 
 ^ 
 
 rot ; give it to his wife's hftrd lines, where it belonn^s I 
 Poetry makes out that all the wife worries about is the 
 danger her husband's running. She's got substantialer 
 things to worry over, I tell you. Poetry's always pitying 
 the poor mariner on account of his perils at sea ; better a 
 blamed sight pity him for the nights he can't sleep for 
 thinking of how he had to leave his wife in her very birth 
 pains, lonesome and friendless, in the thick of disease and 
 trouble and death. If there's one thing that can make 
 mo madder than another, it's this sappy, damned maritime 
 poetry ! " 
 
 Captain Brace was a patient, gentle, seldom-speaking 
 man, with a pathetic something in his bronzed face that 
 had been a mystery up to this time, but stood interpreted 
 now, since we had heard his story. He had voyaged 
 eighteen times to the Mediterranean, seven times to India, 
 once to the Arctic pole in a discovery ship, and " between 
 times" had visited all the remote seas and ocean corners 
 of the globe. But he said that twelve years ago, on 
 account of his family, he " settled down," and evei" since 
 then had ceased to roam. And what do you suppose was 
 this simple-hearted, life-long wanderer's idea of settling 
 down and ceasing to roam ? Why, the making of two five- 
 month voyages a year between Surinam and Boston foi 
 sugar and molasses. 
 
 Among other talk, to-day, it came out that whale-ships 
 carry no elector. The captain adds the doctorship to his 
 own duties. He not only gives medicines, but sets broken 
 limbs after notions of his own, or saws them off and sears 
 the stump when amputation seems best. The captain is 
 provided with a medicine chest, with the medicines num- 
 
24 
 
 A.N IDLE EXCURSION, 
 
 bored instead of named. A book of directions goes with 
 this. It dcHcribes diaeaacs and symptoms, and says, 
 " Give a teaspoonful of No. 9 once an hour," or " Give ten 
 grains of No. 12 every half -hour," etc. One of our sea 
 captains came across a skipper in the North Pacific who 
 was in a state of great sui*priso and perplexity. Said he • 
 
 " There's something rotten about this medicine-chest 
 business. One of my men was sick, — nothing much the 
 matter. I looked in tlu book : it said, give him a tea- 
 spoonful of No. 15. I went to the medicine-chest, and I 
 see I was out of No. 15. I judged I'd got to get up a 
 combination somehow that would fill the bill ; so I hove 
 into the fellow half a teaspoonful of No. 8 and half a tea- 
 spoonful of No, 7, and I'll be hanged if it didn't kill him 
 in fifteen minutes ! There's something bout this medi- 
 cine-chest system that's too many for me ! " 
 
 There was a good deal of pleasant gossip about old 
 Captain " Humcane '' Jones, of the Pacific Ocean, — peace 
 to his ashes ! Two or three of us present had known him ; 
 I, particularly, well, for I had made four sea-voyages 
 with him. He was a very remarkable man. He was 
 bom in a ship ; he picked up what little education he had 
 among his shipmates ; he began life in the forecastle, and 
 climbed grade by grade to the captaincy. More than fifty 
 years of his sixty -five were spent at sea. He had sailed 
 all oceans, seen all lands, and borrowed a tint from all 
 climates. When a man has been fifty years at sea, he 
 necessarily knows nothing of men, nothing of the world 
 but its surface, nothing of the world's thought, nothing of 
 the world's learning but its A. B. C, and that blurred and 
 distorted by the unfocused lenses of an untrained mind. 
 
 \ 
 
 a 
 

 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 2A 
 
 Such a man is only a gray and boarded child. This it* 
 what old Hurricane Jones was, — simply an innocent, lov- 
 able old infant. When his spirit was ii: repose he was a? 
 sweet and gentle as a girl ; when his wrath was up he wa? 
 a hurricane that made his nickname seem tamely desc. ip- 
 tive. He was formidable in a fight, for ho was of powerful 
 build and dauntless courage. Ho was frescoed from 
 head to heel with pictures and mottoes tatooed in red and 
 blue India ink. I was with him one voyage when he got 
 his last vacant space tattooed ; this vacant space was 
 around his left ankle, during three days he stumped about 
 the ship with his ankle bare and swollen, and this legend 
 gleaming red and angry out from a clouding of India ink 
 " Virtue is its own R'd." (There was a lack of room.) 
 He was deeply and sincerely pious, and swore like a fish- 
 woman. He considered swearing blameless, because 
 sailors would not understand an order unillumined by it. 
 He was a profound Biblical scholar, — that is, he thought 
 he was. He believed everything in the Bible, but he had 
 his own methods of arriving at his beliefs. He was of 
 the " advanced " school of thinkers, and applied natural 
 laws to the interpretation of all miracles, somewhat on the 
 plan of the people who make the lIx days of creation six 
 geological epochs, and so forth. Without being aware of 
 it, he was a rather severe satire on modern scientific 
 religionists. Such a man as I have been describing is 
 rabidly fond of disquisition and argument; one knows 
 that without being told it. fc /^ 
 One trip the captain had a clergyman on board, but did 
 ' not know he was a clergyman, since the passenger list 
 did not betray the fact. Ho took a great liking to this 
 
26 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 
 Kev. Mr. Peters, and talked with him a great deal : told 
 him yarns, gave him toothsome scraps of personal history, 
 and wove a glittering streak of profanity through his 
 garrulous fabric that was refreshing to a spirit weary of 
 the dull neutralities of undecorated speech. One day the 
 captain said, " Peters, do you ever read the Bible ?" 
 - Well— yes." 
 
 ''I judge it ain't often, by the way you say it. Now, 
 j'ou tackle it in dead earnest once, and you '11 find it '11 
 pay. Don't you get discouraged, but hang right on. 
 First, you won't understand it ; but by and by, things 
 will begin to clear up, and then you wouldn't lay it down 
 to eat." 
 " Yes, I have heard that said." 
 
 " And it's so, too. There ain't a book that begins with 
 it. It lays over 'em all, Peters. There's some pretty 
 tough things in it, — there ain't any getting around that, 
 — but you stick to them and think them out, and when 
 once you get on the inside everything's plain as day." 
 " The miracles, too captain ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir ! the miracles, too. Every one of them. Now, 
 there's that business with the prophets of Baal ; like 
 enough that stumped you ? " 
 " Well, I don't know, but "— 
 
 " Own up, now ; it stumped you. Well, I don't wonder. 
 You hadn't had any experience in raveling such things 
 out, and naturally it was too many for you. Would you 
 like to have me explain that thing to you, and show you 
 how to get at the meat of these matters ?" 
 " Indeed, I would, captain, if you don't mind." 
 Then the captain proceeded as follows : " I'U do it willi 
 
 t 
 
 i 
 
 • 
 
>> 
 
 t 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 27 
 
 I 
 
 pleasure. First, you see, I read and read, and thought 
 and thought, till I got to understand what sort of people 
 they were in the old Bible times, and then after that it 
 was all clear and easy. Now, this was the way I put it 
 up, concerning Isaac* and the prophets of Baal. There 
 was some mighty sharp men amongst the public characters 
 of that old ancient day, and Isaac was one of them. Isaac 
 had his failings, — plenty of them, too ; it ain't for me to 
 apologize for Isaac ; he played it on the prophets of Baal, 
 and like enough he was justifiable considering the odds 
 that was against him. No, all I say is, 'twa'nt any mira- 
 cle, and that I'll show you so's't you can see it yourself. 
 
 " Well, times had been getting rougher and rougher for 
 . prophets, — that is, prophets of Isaac's denomination. There 
 was four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal in the com- 
 munity, and only one Presbyterian ; that is, if Isaac was 
 a Presbyterian, which I reckon he was, but it don't say. 
 Naturally, the prophets of Baal took all the trade. Isaac 
 was pretty low-spirited, I reckon, but he was a good deal 
 of a man, and no doubt he went a-prophesying around, 
 letting on to be doing a land-office business, but 't wa'nt 
 any use; he couldn't run any opposition to amount to any- 
 thing. By and by things got desperate with him ; he sets 
 his head to work and thinks it all out, and then what does 
 he do? Why, he begins to throw out hints that the other 
 parties are this and that and t'other, — no thing very definite, 
 may be, but just kind of undermining their reputation in 
 a quiet way. This made talk, of course, and finally got to 
 the king. The king asked Isaac what he meant by his 
 talk. Says Isaac, * Oh, nothing particular ; only can they 
 
 * This ia the captain's own mistake. 
 
28 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 pray down fire from heaven on an altar ? It ain't much, 
 may be, your majesty, only can they do it ? That's the 
 idea/ So the king was a good deal disturbed, and he 
 went to the prophets of Baal, and they said, pretty airy, 
 that if he had an altar ready, they were ready ; and they 
 intimated that he had better get it insured, too. 
 
 ** So next morning all the children of Israel and their 
 parents and the other people gathered themselves together. 
 Well, here was that great crowd of prophets of Baal 
 packed together on one side, and Isaac walking up and 
 down all alone on the other, putting up his job. When 
 time was called, Isaac let on to be comfortable and indif- 
 ferent ; told the other team to take the first innings. So 
 they went at it, the whole four hundred and fifty, pray- 
 ing around the altar, very hopeful, and doing their level 
 best. They prayed an hour, — two hours, — three hours, — 
 and so on, plumb till noon. It wa'n't any use ; they 
 hadn't took a trick. Of course they felt kind of ashamed 
 before all those people, and well they might. Now, what 
 would a magnanimous man do ? Keep still, wouldn't he ? 
 Of course. What did Isaac do ? He graveled the prophets 
 of Baal every way he could think of. Says he, 'You 
 don't speak up loud enough; your god's asleep, like 
 enough, or may be he's taking a walk ; you want to holler, 
 you know ', — or words to that effect ; I don't recollect the 
 exact language. Mind, I don't apologize for Isaac ; he 
 had his faults. 
 
 " Well, the prophets of Baal prayed along the best they 
 knew how all the afternoon, and never raised a spark. At 
 last, about sundown, they were all tuckered out, and they 
 owned up and quit. 
 
 ■« 
 
 I 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 29 
 
 I 
 
 ; 
 
 \ 
 
 " What does Isaac do, now ? He steps up nnd says to 
 some friends of his, there, ' Pour four barrels of water on 
 the altar !' Everybody was astonished ; for the other side 
 prayed at it dry, you know, and got whitewashed. They 
 poured it on. Says he, ' Heave on four more barrels.* 
 Then he says, ' Heave on four more.' Twelve bar- 
 rels, you see, altogether. The water ran all over the 
 altar, and all down the sides, and filled up a trench around 
 it that would hold a couple of hogsheads, — * measures,' it 
 says ; I reckon it means about a hogshead. Some of the 
 people were going to put on their things and go, for they 
 allowed he was crazy. They didn't know Isaac. Isaac 
 knelt down and began to pray: he strung along, and 
 strung along, about the heathen in distant lands, and 
 about the sister churches, and about the state and the 
 country at large, and about those that's in authority in 
 the government, and all the usual programme, you know, 
 till everybody had got tired and gone to thinking about 
 something else, and then all of a sudden, when nobody 
 was noticing, he outs with a match and rakes it on the 
 under side of his leg, and pff ! up the whole thing blazes 
 like a house afire ! Twelve barrels of water ? Petroleum^ 
 Sir, PETROLEUM ! that's what it was I" 
 
 " Petroleum, captain ? " 
 
 " Yes, Sir ; the country was full of it. Isaac knew all 
 about that. You read the Bible. Don't you worry about 
 the tough places. They ain't tough when you come to 
 think them out and throw light on them. There ain't a 
 thing in the Bible but what is true ; all you want is to go 
 prayerfully to work and cipher out how 'twas done." 
 
 At eight o'clock on the third morning out from New 
 
80 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 York, land was sighted. Away across the sunny waves one 
 saw a faint dark stripe stretched along under the horizon 
 —or pretended to see it, for the credit of his eye-sight. 
 Even the Reverend said he saw it, a thing which was 
 manifestly not so. But I never have seen any one who was 
 morally strong, enough to confess that he could not see 
 land when others claimed that they could. 
 
 By and by the Bermuda Islands were easily visible. The 
 principal one lay upon the water in the distance, a long, 
 dull-coloured body, scalloped with slight hills and valleys. 
 We could not go straight at it, but had to travel all the 
 way around it, sixteen miles from shore, because it is 
 fenced with an invisible coral reef. At last we sighted 
 buoys, bobbing here and there, and then we glided into a 
 narrow channel among them, " raised the reef," and came 
 upon shoaling blue water that soon further shoaled into 
 pale green, with a surface scarcely rippled. Now came the 
 resurrection hour: the berths gave up their dead. Who 
 are these pale spectres in plug hats and silken flounces 
 that file up the companion-way in melancholy procession 
 and step upon the deck ? These are they which took the 
 infallible preventive of sea-sickness in New York harbour 
 and then disappeared and were forgotten. Also there came 
 two or three faces not seen before until this moment 
 One's impulse is to ask, " Where did you come aboard ? " 
 
 We followed the narrow channel a long time, with land 
 on both sides — low hills that might have been green and 
 grassy, but had a faded look instead. However, the land- 
 locked water was lovely, at any rate, with its ghttering 
 belts of blue and green where moderate soundings were, 
 and its broad splotches of rich brown where the rocita 
 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 
«k 
 
 AN IDLE EXCUKSION. 
 
 31 
 
 lay near the surface. Everybody was feeling so well that 
 even the grave, pale young man (who, by a sort of kindly 
 common consent, had come latterly to be referred to as 
 " the Ass") received frequent and friendly notice — which 
 was right enough, for there was no harm in him. 
 
 At last we steamed between two island points whose 
 rocky jaws allowed only just enough room for the vessvl's 
 body, and now before us loomed Hamilton on her clus- 
 tered hill-sides and summits, the whitest mass of terraced 
 architecture that exists in the world perhaps. 
 
 It was Sunday afternoon, and on th'> pier were gathered 
 one or two hundred Bermudians, haif of them black, half 
 of them white, and aU of them nobbily dressed, as the poet 
 says. 
 
 Several boats came off to the ship, bringing citizens. 
 One of these citizens was a faded, diminutive old gentle- 
 man, who approached our most ancient passenger with a 
 childlike joy in his twinkling eyes, halted before him, 
 folded his arms, and said, smiling with all his might and 
 with all the simple delight that was in him, " You don't 
 know me, John ! Come, out with it, now ; you know you 
 don't!" 
 
 The ancient passenger scanned him perplexedly, scan- 
 ned the napless, threadbare costume of venerable fashion 
 that had done Sunday-service no man knows how many 
 years, contemplated the marvellous stove-pipe hat of still 
 more ancient and venerable pattern, with its poor pathe- 
 tic old stiff brim canted up " gallusly " in the wrong places 
 and said, with a hesitation that indicated strong internal 
 effort to " place " the gentle old apparition, " Why . . . 
 let me see . . . plague on it , , . thcra's something 
 
32 
 
 AN IDLE EXCUBSION. 
 
 about you that . . . er . . . er . . . but I 've been 
 gone from Bermuda for twenty-seven years, and . . . 
 hum, hum ... I don't seem to get at it, somehow, but 
 there's something about you that is just as familiar to me 
 
 as — 
 
 " Likely it might be his hat/' murmured the Aaa, with 
 sympathetic intore»^ 
 
» been 
 
 • • 9 
 
 V, but 
 to me 
 
 , "with 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 33 
 
 ( 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 the Reverend and I had at last arrived at Hamil- 
 ton, the principal town in the Bermuda Islands. A 
 wonderfully white town ; white as snow itself. 
 White as marble ; white as flour. Yet looking like none 
 of these, exactly. Never mind, we said ; we shall hit 
 uopn a figure by and by that will describe this peculiar 
 white. 
 
 It was a town that was compacted together upon the 
 sides and tops of a cluster of small hills. Its outlying 
 borders fringed off* and thinned away among the cedar 
 forests, and there was no woody distance of curving coast, 
 or leafy islet sleeping upon the dimpled, painted sea, but 
 was flecked with shining white points — half-concealed 
 houses peeping out of the foliage. 
 
 The architecture of the town was mainly Spanish, in- 
 herited from the colonists of two hundred and fifty years 
 ago. Some ragged-topped cocoa-palms, glimpsed here and 
 there, gave the land a tropical aspect. 
 
 There was an ample pier of heavy masonry; upon this, 
 under shelter, were some thousands of barrels containing 
 that product which has carried the fame of Bermuda to 
 many lands — the potato. With here and there an onion. 
 That last sentence is facetious; for they grow at least two 
 onions in Bermuda to one potato. The onion is the pride 
 and joy of Bermuda. It is her jewel, her gem of gems. In 
 'her conversation, her pulpit, her literature, it is her most 
 
 
u 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 frequent and eloquent fi^ro. In Bermudian metaphor it 
 stands for perfection — perfection absolute. 
 
 The Bermudian weeping over the departed, exhausts 
 praise when he says, ' He was an onion !' The Bermudian 
 extolling the living hero, bankrupts applause when he 
 says, * He is an onion! ' The Bermudian setting his sor 
 upon the stage of life to dare and do for himself, climaxe? 
 all counsel, supplicflition, admonition, comprehends all am- 
 bition, when he says, ' Be an onion ! ' 
 
 When parallel with the pier, and ten or fifteen steps out 
 side it, we anchored. It was Sunday, bright and sunny 
 The groups upon the pier, men, youths, and boys, were 
 whites and blacks in about equal proportion. All werf 
 well and neatly dressed, many of them nattily, a few ol 
 them very stylishly. One would have to travel far before 
 he would find another town of twelve thousand inhabi- 
 tants that could represent itself so respectably, in the mat 
 ter of clothes, on a freight-pier, without premeditation ox 
 effort. The women and young girLs, black and white, w ho 
 occasionally passed by, were nicely clad, and many were 
 elegantly and fashionably so. The men did not affect 
 summer clothing much, but the girls and women did, and 
 their white garments were good to look at, after so many 
 months of familiarity with sombre colours. 
 
 Around one isolated potato barrel stood foui yuuiig ^en 
 tlemen, two black, two white, becomingly dressed, each 
 with the head of a slender cane pressed against his teeth 
 and each with a foot propped up on the barrel. Anothei 
 young gentleman came up, looked longingly at the bar- 
 rel bat saw no rest for his foot there. He wandered hen 
 and there, but without result. Nobody sat upon a barrel 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 35 
 
 as is the custom of the idle in other lands, yet all the iso- 
 lated barrels were humanly occupied. Whosoever had a 
 foot to spare put it on a barrel, if all the places on it were 
 not already taken. The habits of all peoples are deter- 
 mined by their circumstances. The Bermudians lean upon 
 barrels because of the scarcity of lamp-posts. 
 
 Many citizens came on board and spoke eagerly to the 
 officers — inquiring about the Turco-Russian war news, I 
 supposed. However, by listening judiciously, I found 
 that this was not so. They said, * What is the price of 
 onioiia ? ' or, * how is onions ? ' Naturally enough this was 
 their first interest ; but they dropped into the war the 
 moment it was satisfied. 
 
 W^e went ashore and found a novelty of a pleasing na- 
 ture; there were no hackmen, hacks, or omnibuses on the 
 pier or about it anywhere, and nobody offered his services 
 to us, or molested us in any way. I said it was like being 
 in heaven. The Reverend rebukingly and rather point- 
 edly advised me to make the most of it, then. We knew 
 of a boarding-house, and what we needed now was some- 
 body to pilot us to it. Presently a little barefooted col- 
 oured boy came along, whose raggedness was conspicu- 
 ously un-Bermudian. His rear was so marvellously be- 
 patcbed with coloured squares and triangles that one was 
 half persuaded he had got it out of an atlas. When the 
 sun struck him right, he was as good to follow as a light- 
 ning-bug. We hired him and dropped into his wake. He 
 piloted us through one picturesque street after another, 
 and in due course deposited us where we belonged. He 
 charged us nothing for his map, and but a trifle for his 
 t»ervices ; so the Reverend doubled it. The little chap re- 
 
86 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 ceived the money with a beaming applause in hia eye 
 which plainly said, ' This man's an onion ! ' 
 
 We had brought no letters of introduction Our names 
 had been misspelt in the passenger list ; nobody knew 
 whether we were honest folk or otherwise. So we were 
 expecting to have a good private time in case there was 
 nothing in our general aspect to close boarding-house 
 doors against us. We had no trouble. Bermuda has had 
 but little experience of rascals, and is not suspicious. We 
 got large, cool, well-lighted rooms on a second floor, over- 
 looking a bloomy display of flowers and flowering shrubs 
 — calla and annunciation lilies, iantanas, heliotrope, jessa- 
 mine, roses, pinks, double geraniums, oleanders, pomegra- 
 nates, blue morning-glories of a great size, and many 
 plants that were unknown to me. 
 
 We took a long afternoon walk, and soon found out 
 that that exceedingly white town was built of blocks of 
 white coral. Bermuda is a c»ral island, with a six-inch 
 crust of soil on top of it, and every man has a quarry on 
 his own premises. Everywhere you go you see square 
 recesses cut into the hill-sides, with perpendicular walls 
 unmarred by crack or crevice, and perhaps you fancy that 
 a house grew out of the ground there, and has been re- 
 moved in a single piece from the mould. If you do, you 
 err. But the material for a house has been quarried there 
 They cut right down through the coral, to any depth that 
 is convenient — ten to twenty feet — and take it out in 
 great square blocks. This cutting is done with a chisel 
 that has a handle twelve or fifteen feet long, and is used 
 as one uses a crowbar when he is drilling a hole, or a 
 dasher when he is chu^ ning. Thus soft is this stone. 
 
 B^l 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 37 
 
 Then with a common handsaw they saw the greac blocks 
 into handsome, huge bricks that are two feet long, a foot 
 wide, and about six inches thick. These stand loosely 
 piled during a month to harden ; then the work of build- 
 ing begins. The house is built of these blocks ; it is roofed 
 with broad coral slabs an inch thick, whose edges lap upon 
 each other, so that the roof looks like a succession of shal- 
 low steps or terraces ; the chimneys are built of the coral 
 blocks and sawed into graceful and picturesque patterns ; 
 the ground-floor veranda is paved with coral blocks — 
 built in massive panels, with broad cap-stones and heavy 
 gate-posts, and the whole trimmed into easy lines and 
 comely shape with the saw. Then they put a hard coat 
 of whitewash, as thick as your thumb-nail, on the fence 
 and all over the house, roof, chimneys, end all ; the sun 
 comes out and shines on this spectacle, and it is time for 
 you to shut your unaccustomed eyes, lest they be put out. 
 It is the whitest white you can conceive of, and the blind- 
 ingest. A Bermuda house does not look like marble ; it 
 is a much intenser white than that ; and besides, there is 
 a dainty, indefinable something else about its look that is 
 not marble-like. We put in a great deal of solid talk and 
 reflection over this matter of trying to find a figure that 
 would describe the unique white of a Bermuda house, and 
 we contrived to hit upon it at last. It is exactly the 
 white of the icing of a cake, and has the same unempha- 
 sized and scarcely perceptible polish. The white of mar- 
 ble is modest and retiring compared with it. 
 
 After the house is cased in its hard scale of whitewash, 
 not a crack, or sign of a seam, or joining of the blocks, is 
 detectable, from base-stone to chimney-top ; the building 
 
38 
 
 kH IDLE £XCU11SI0N. 
 
 looks as if it had been carved from a single block of stone, 
 and the doors and windows sawed out afterwards. A 
 white marble house has a cold, tomb-like, unsociable look, 
 and takes the conversation out of a body and depresses 
 him. Not so with a Bermuda house. There is something 
 exhilarating, even hilarious, about its vivid whiteness 
 when the sun plays upon it. If it be of picturesque shape 
 and graceful contour — and many of the Bermudian dwell- 
 ings are— it will so fascinate you that you will keep your 
 eyes upon it until they ache. One of those clean-cut 
 fanciful chimneys — too pure and white for this world — 
 with one side glowing in the sun and the other touched 
 with a soft shadow, is an object that will charm one's gaze 
 by the hour. I know of no other country that has chim- 
 neys worthy to be gazed at and gloated over. One of 
 those snowy houses, half-concealed and half-glimpsed 
 through green foliage, is a pretty thing to see ; and if it 
 takes one by surprise and suddenly, as he turns a sharp 
 corner of a ''ountry road, it will wring an exclamation 
 from him, fure.^^ 
 
 WhercYer you go, in town or country, you find those 
 snowy houses, and always with masses of bright-coloured 
 flowers about them, hut with no vines climbing their walls ; 
 vines cannot take hold of the smooth, hard whitewash. 
 Wherever you go, in the town or along the country roads, 
 among little potato farms and patches or expensive coun- 
 try-seats, these stainless white dwellings, gleaming out 
 from flowers and foliage, meet you at every turn. The 
 least little bit of a cottage is as white and blemishless as 
 the stateliest mansion. i>fo where is there dirt or stench, 
 puddle, or hog- wallow, ueglect, disorder, or lack of trim- 
 
 • 
 
 I 
 
 Tii 
 
 thi 
 
 th 
 
 in 
 del 
 
 W( 
 
 to 
 
AN IDLE EXCUB3I0N. 
 
 39 
 
 t 
 
 I I 
 
 ness and ncatnoss. The roads, the .streets, the dwellings, 
 the people, the clothes, this neatness extends to every- 
 thing that falls under the eye. It is the tidiest country 
 in the world. And very much the tidiest, too. 
 
 Considering these things, the question came up, Where 
 dothe poor live ? No answer was arrived at. Therefore, 
 we agi'eed to leave this conundrum for future statesmen 
 to wrangle over. 
 
 What a bright and startling spectacle one of those blaz- 
 ing white country palaces, with its brown-tinted window 
 caps and ledges, and green shutters, and its wealth ot 
 caressing flowers and foliage, would be in black London ! 
 And what a gleaming surprise it would be in nearly any 
 American city one could mention ! 
 
 Bermuda roads are made by cutting down a few inches 
 into the solid white coral — or a good many feet, where a 
 Iiill intrudes itself — and smoothing off the surface of the 
 road-bed. It is a simple and easy process. The grain of 
 the coral is coarse and porous ; the road-bed has the look 
 of being made of coarse white sugar. Its excessive clean- 
 ness and whiteness are a trouble in one way : the sun is 
 reflected into your eyes with such energy as you walk along 
 that you want to sneeze all the time. Old Captain Tom 
 Bowling found another difficulty. He joined us in our 
 walk, but kept wandering unrestfully to the road -side. 
 Finally he explained. Said he, " Well, I chew, you know, 
 and the road's so plaguy clean." 
 
 We walked several miles that afternoon in the bewil- 
 ;dering glare of the sun, the white roads, and the white 
 i buildings. Our eyes got to paining us a good deal. By- 
 land-by a sooohing, blessed twilight sp/ead its cool balm 
 
40 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 around. We looked up in pleased surprise, and saw thai 
 it proceeded from an intensely black negro who was going 
 by. We answered his military salute in the grateful gloom 
 of his near presence, and then passed on into the pitiless 
 white glare again. 
 
 The coloured women whom we met usually bowed and 
 spoke ; so did the children. The coloured men commonly 
 gave the military salute. They borrowed this fashion 
 from the soldiers, no doubt ; England has kept a garrison 
 here for generations. The younger men's custom of carry- 
 ing small canes is also borrowed from the soldiers, I sup- 
 pose, who always carry a cane, in Bermuda as everywhere 
 else in Britain's broad dominions. 
 
 The country roads curve and wind hither and thither in 
 the delightful lest way, unfolding pretty surprises at every 
 turn ; billowy masses of oleander that seem to float out 
 from behind distant projections like the pink cloud-banks 
 of sunset ; sudden plunges among cottages and gardens, 
 life and activity, followed by as sudden plunges into the 
 sombre twilight and stillness of the woods ; flittering 
 visions of white fortresses and beacon tow rs pictured 
 against the sky on remote hill-tops ; glimpses of shining 
 green sea caught for a moment through opening headlands 
 then lost again ; more woods and solitude ; and by-and- 
 by another turn lays bare, without warning, the full sweep 
 of the inland ocean, enriched with its bars of soft colour, 
 and graced with its wandering sails. 
 
 Take any road you please, you may depend upon it you 
 will not stay in it half a mile. Your road is everything 
 that a road ought to be : it is bordered with trees, and with 
 strange plants and flowers : it is shady and pleasant, or 
 
 ■ 
 
 •I '■. 
 
IN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 41 
 
 
 1 
 
 sunny and still pleasant; it carries you by the prettiest 
 and peacefullest and most home-like of homes, and through 
 stretches of forest that lie in a deep hush sometimes, and 
 sometimes are alive with the music of birds ; it curves 
 always, which is a continual promise, whereas straight 
 roads reveal everything at a glance and kill interest. Your 
 road is all this, and yet you will not stay in it half a mile, 
 for the reason that little, seductive, mysterious roads are 
 always branching out from it on either hand, and as these 
 curve sharply also and hide what is beyond, you cannot 
 resist the temptation to desert your own chosen road and 
 explore them. You are usually paid for your trouble ; con- 
 sequently, your walk inland always turns out to be one of 
 the most crooked, involved, purposeless, and interesting 
 experiences a body can imagine. There is enough of va- 
 riety. Sometimes you are in the level open, with marshes 
 thick grown with flag-lances that are ten feet high on the 
 one hand, and potato and onion orchards on the other ; 
 next, you are on a hill-top, with the ocean and the Islands 
 spread around you ; presently, the road winds through a 
 deep cut shut in by perpendicular walls, thirty or forty 
 feet high, marked with the oddest and abruptest stratum 
 lines, suggestive of sudden and eccentric old upheavals, 
 and garnished with here and there a clinging adventurous 
 flower, and here and there a dangling vine ; and by-and- 
 by your way is along the sen edge, and you may look down 
 a fathom or two through the transparent water and watch 
 the diamond-like flash and play of the light upon the 
 rocks and sands on the bottom until you arc tired of it — 
 if you are so constituted as to be able to get tiied of it. 
 You may march the country roads in maidon modita- 
 
42 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 tion fancy free, by field and farm, for no dog will plunge 
 out at you from unsuspected gate, with breath-taking sur- 
 prise and ferocious bark, notwithstanding it is a Christian 
 land and a civilized. We saw upwards of a million cats 
 in Bermuda, but the people are very abstemious in the 
 matter of dogs. Two or three nights we prowled the 
 country far and wide, and never once were accosted by a 
 dog. It is a great privilege to visit such a land. The cats 
 were no offence when properly distributed, but when piled 
 they obstructed travel 
 
 As we entered the edge of the town that Sunday after- 
 noon, we stopped at a cottage to get a drink of water. 
 The proprietor, a middle-aged man with a good face, asked 
 us to sit down and rest. His dame brought chairs, and we 
 grouped ourselves in the shade of the trees by the door. 
 Mr. Smith — that was not his name, but it will answer — 
 questioned us about ourselves and our country, and we 
 answered him truthfully, as a general thing, and ques- 
 tioned him in return. It was all very simple and pleasant 
 and sociable. Rural, too ; for there was a pig and a small 
 donkey and a hen anchored out, close at hand, bj" cords to 
 their legs, on a spot that purported to be grassy. Presently 
 a woman passed along, and although she coldly said nothing, 
 she changed the drift of our talk. Said Smith : 
 
 " She didn't look this way, you noticed ? Well, she is 
 our next neighbour on one side, and there's another family 
 that's our next neighbours on the other side ; but there's 
 a general coolness all round now, and we don't speak. 
 •Yet these three families, one generation and another, have 
 lived here side by side and been as friendly as weavers 
 for a hundred and fifty years, till about a year ago." 
 
 > 
 
 «. 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 43 
 
 plunge 
 ing sur- 
 tiristian 
 on cats 
 
 in the 
 led the 
 3d by a 
 'he cats 
 jn piled 
 
 y after- 
 water. 
 ), asked 
 and we 
 le door, 
 swer — 
 md we 
 i ques- 
 leasant 
 I small 
 ords to 
 isently 
 3thing, 
 
 she is 
 family 
 there's 
 speak. 
 r, have 
 eavers 
 
 f 
 
 " Why, what calamity could have been powerful enough 
 to break up so old a friendship ? " 
 
 "Well, it was too bad, but it couldn't be helped. It 
 happened like this : About a year or more ago, the rats 
 got to pestering my place a good deal, and I set up a steel- 
 trap in the back yard. Both of these neighbours run 
 considerable to cats, and so I warned them about the 
 trap, because their cats were pretty sociable around here 
 nights, and they might get into trouble without my in- 
 tending it. Well, they shut up their cats for a while, 
 but you know how it is with people ; they got careless, 
 and sure enough one night the trap took Mrs. Jones's 
 principal tom-cat into camp, and finished him up. In 
 the morning; Mrs. Jones comes here with the corpse in her 
 arms, and cries and takes on the same as if it was a child. 
 It was a cat by the name of Yelverton — Hector G. Yel- 
 verton — a troublesome old rip, with no more principle 
 than an Injun, though you couldn't make her believe it. 
 I said all a man could to comfort her, but no, nothing 
 would do but I must pay for him. Finally, I said I 
 warn't investing in cats now as much as I was, and with 
 that she walked off in a huff, caiTying the remains vnth 
 her. That closed our intercourse with the Joneses. Mrs. 
 Jones joined another church and took her tribe with her. 
 She said she would not hold fellowship with assassins. 
 Well, by and by comes Mrs. Brown's turn — she that went 
 by here a minute ago. She had a disgraceful old yellow 
 cat that she thought as much of as if he was twins, and 
 one nighi he tried that trap on his neck, and it fitted him 
 so, and was so sort of satisfactory, that he laid down a.^d 
 
44 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 curled up and stayed with it. Such was the end of Sir 
 John Baldwin." 
 
 " Was that the name of the cat ? " 
 
 "The same. There's cats around here with names 
 that would surprise you. Maria" to his wife — "what 
 was that cat's name that eat a keg of ratsbane by mistake 
 over at Hooper's, and started home and got struck by 
 lightning and took the blind staggers and fell in the well 
 and was most drowned before they could fish him out ? " 
 
 " That was that coloured Deacon Jackson's cat. I only 
 remember the last end of its name, which was To-be-or- 
 not-to-be-that-is-the-question-Jackson." 
 
 " Sho, that ain't the one. That's the one that eat up an 
 entire box of Seidlitz powders, and then hadn't any more 
 judgment than to go and take a drink. He was con- 
 sidered to be a great loss, but I never could see it. Well, 
 no matter about the names. Mrs. Brown wanted to be 
 reasonable, but Mrs. Jones wouldn't let her. She put her 
 up to going to law for damages. So to law she went, and 
 had the face to claim seven shillings and sixpence. It 
 made a great stir. All the neighbours went to court; 
 everybody took sides. It got hotter and hotter, and broke 
 up all the friendships for three hundred j'^ards around — 
 friendships that had lasted for generations and generations. 
 
 " Well, I proved by eleven witnesses that the cat was 
 of a low character and very ornery, and v.^arn't worth a 
 cancelled postage-stamp, any way, taking the average of 
 cats here; but I lost the case. V/hat could I expect? 
 The system is all wrong here, and is bound to make re- 
 volution and bloodshed some day. You see, they give 
 the magistrate a poor little starvation salary, and then 
 
 
I 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 45 
 
 turn him loose on the public to gouge for fees and costs 
 to live on. What is the natural result ? Why, he never 
 looks into the justice of a case — never once. All he looks 
 at is which client has got the money. So this one piled 
 the fees and costs and everything on to me. I could pay 
 specie, don't you see ? and he knew mighty well that if 
 he put the verdict on to Mrs. Brown, where it belonged, 
 he'd have to take his swag in currency." 
 
 " Currency ? Why, has Bermuda a currrency ? " 
 
 " Yes — onions. And they were forty per cent, discoimt, 
 too, then, because the season had been over as much as 
 three months. So I lost my case. I had to pay for that 
 cat. But the general trouble the case made was the worst 
 thing about it. Broke up so much good feeling. The 
 neighbours don't speak to each other now. Mrs. Brown 
 had named a child after me. So she changed its name 
 right away. She is a Baptist. Well, in the course of bap- 
 tising it over again, it got drowned. I was hoping we 
 might get to be friendly again some time or other, Int of 
 course this drowning the child knocked that all out of the 
 question. It would have saved a world of heart-break 
 and ill blood if she had named it dry." 
 
 I knew by the sight that this was honest. All this 
 trouble and all this destruction of confidence in the purity 
 of the bench on account of a seven-shilling lawsuit about 
 a cat ! Somehow, it seemed to " size " the country. 
 
 At this point we observed that an English flag had just 
 been placed at half mast on a building a hundred yards 
 away. I and my friend were busy in an instant trying 
 to imagine whose death, among the i^'^and dignitaries, 
 could command such a mark of respect as this. Then a 
 
 
46 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 shudder shook him and me at the same moment, and I 
 knew that we had jumped to one and the same conclu- 
 sion : " The Governor has gone to England ; it is for the 
 British admiral ! " 
 
 At this moment Mr. Smith noticed the flag. He said 
 with emotion : — 
 
 " That's on a boarding-house. I judge there's a boarder 
 dead." 
 
 A dozen other flags within view went to half-mast. 
 
 " It's a boarder, sure," said Smith. 
 
 " But would they half-mast the flags here for a boarder, 
 Mr. . mith ? " 
 
 " Why certainly they would, if he was dead.** 
 
 That seemed to " size " the country a^in. 
 
ndl 
 
 iclu- 
 
 the 
 
 said 
 
 rder 
 
 L^ IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 4y 
 
 ; 
 
 rder, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 J HE early twilight of a Sunday evening in Hamilton, 
 Bermuda, is an alluring time. There is just enough 
 of whispering breeze, fragrance of flowers, and sense of 
 repose to raise one's thoughts heavenward ; and just 
 enough amateur piano music to keep him reminded of 
 the other place. There are many venerable pianos in 
 Hamilton, and they all play at twilight. Age enlarges 
 and enriches the powers of some musical instruments, — 
 notably those of the violin, — ^but it seems to set a piano's 
 teeth on edge. Most of the music in vogue there is the 
 same that those pianos prattled in their innocent infancy ; 
 and there is something very pathetic about it when they 
 go over it now, in their asthmatic second childhood, drop- 
 ping a note here and there, where a tooth is gone. 
 
 We attended evening service at the stately Episcopal 
 church on the hill, where were five or six hundred people, 
 half of them w!:ite and the other half black, according to 
 the usual Bermudian proportions ; and all well dressed, — 
 a thing which is also usual in Bermuda and to be confi- 
 dently expected. There was good music, which we heard, 
 and doubtless a good sermon, but there was a wonderful 
 deal of coughing, and so only the high parts of the argu- 
 ment carried over it. As we came out after service, I 
 overheard one young girl say to another, — 
 
 " Why you don't mean to say you pay duty on gloves 
 and laces ! I only pay postage ; have them done up and 
 sent in the Boston Advertiser." 
 
4f) 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 There are those who believe that the most difficult 
 thing to create is a woman who can comprehend that it 
 is wrong to smuggle ; and that a i impossible thing to 
 create is a woman who will not smuggle, whether or no, 
 when she gets a chance. But these may be errors. 
 
 We went wandering off toward the country, and were 
 soon far down in the lonely black depths of a road that 
 was roofed over by the dense foliage of a double rank of 
 great cedars. There was no sound of any kind there ; it 
 was perfectly still. And it was so dark that one could 
 detect nothing but sombre outlines. We strode farther and 
 farther down this tunnel, cheering the way w^ith chat. 
 
 Presently the chat took this shape : — " How insensibly 
 the character of a people and of a government makes its 
 impression upon a stranger, and gives him a sense of se- 
 curity or of insecurity without his taking deliberate 
 thought upon the matter or asking anybody a question " 
 We have been in this land halx a day ; v/e have seen none 
 bnt honest faces ; we have noticed the British flag flying' 
 which means efficient government and good order ; so 
 without inquiry we plunged unarmed and with perfect 
 confidence into this dismal place, which in almost any 
 other country would swarm with thugs and garroters " — 
 
 'Sh ! What was that ? Stealthy fooi^^eps. Low voices ! 
 We gasp, we close up together, and wait. A vague shape 
 glides out of the dusk and confronts us. A voice speaks 
 — demands money ! 
 
 " A shilling, gentlemen^ if you please, to help build the 
 new Methodist church." 
 
 Blessed sound ! Holy sound ! We concribute witli 
 thankful avidity to the new Methodist church, and are 
 
AN IDLE EXCUBSION. 
 
 id 
 
 I 
 
 so 
 
 I 
 
 happy to think how lucky it was that those little coloured 
 Sunday-school scholars did not seize upon everything we 
 had with violence, before we recovered from our momen- 
 tary helpless condition. By the light of cigars we write 
 down the names of weightier philanthropists than our- 
 selves on the contribution-cards, and then pass on into 
 the farther darkness, saying. What sort of a government 
 do they call this, where they allow little black pious child- 
 ren, with contribution-cards, to plunge out upon peaceable 
 strangers in the dark and scare them to death ? 
 
 We prowled on several hours, sometimes by the sea-side, 
 sometimes inland, and finally managed to get lost, which 
 is a feat that requires talent in Bermuda. I had on new 
 shoes. They were No. 7's when 1 started, but were not 
 more than 5's now, and still diminishing. I walked two 
 hours in those shoes after that, before we reached home. 
 Doubtless I could have the reader's sympathy for the ask- 
 ing. Many people have never had the headache or the 
 toothache, and I am one of those myself; but everybody 
 has worn tight shoes for two or three hours, and know 
 the luxury of taking them off in a retired place and see- 
 ing his feet swell up and obscure the firmament. Few of 
 us will ever forget the exquisite hour we were married. 
 Once when I was callow, bashful cub, I took a plain, un- 
 sentimental country girl to a comedy one night. I had 
 known her a day ; she seemed divine ; I wore my new 
 boots. At the end of the first half-hour she said, " Why 
 do you fidget so with your feet I " 1 said, " Did I ? " 
 Then I put my attention there tmd kept still. At the end 
 of another half hour she said, " Why do you say * yes, oh, 
 yes 1 ' and * Ha, ha, oh, certainly I very true I ' to every- 
 
 t 
 
50 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 j 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 thing T say, when half the time those are entirely irrele- 
 vant answers ? " I blushed, and explained that I had 
 been a little absent-minded. At the end of another half 
 hour she said, " Please, why do you grin so steadfastly at 
 vacancy, and yet look so sad ? " I explained that I always 
 did that when I was reflecting. An hour passed, and then 
 she turned and contemplated me with her earnest eyes 
 and said, " Why do you cry all the tim« ? " I explained 
 that very funny comedies r^lways made me cry. At last 
 human nature surrendered, and I secretly slipped my 
 boots off. This was a mistake. I was not able to get 
 them on any more. It was a rainy night ; there were no 
 omnibuses going our way ; and as I walked home, bTxm- 
 ing up with shame, with the girl on one arm and my 
 boots under the other, I was an object worthy of some 
 compassion, — especially in those moments of martyrdom 
 when I had to pass through the glare that fell upon the 
 pavement from street lamps. Finally, this child of the 
 forest said, " Where are your boots ? " and being taken 
 unprepared, I put a fitting finish to the follies of the 
 evening with the stupid remark, " The higher classes do 
 not wear them to the theatre." 
 
 The Reverend had been an army chaplain during the 
 war, and while we were hunting for a road that would 
 lead to Hamilton he told a story about two dying soldiers 
 which interested me in spite of my feet. Ke said that in 
 the Potomac hospitals rough pine coflins were furnished 
 by government, but that it was not always possible to 
 keep up with the demand ; so, when a man died, if there 
 was no coffin at hand he was buried without one. One 
 night late, two soldiers lay dying in a ward. A man came 
 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 51 
 
 the 
 
 ren 
 
 the 
 
 do 
 
 I 
 
 in with a coffin on his shoulder, and stood trying to m.ike 
 up his mind which of these two poor fellows would be 
 likely to need it first. Both of them begged for it with 
 their fading eyes, — they were past talking. Then one of 
 them protruded a wasted hand from his blankets and 
 made a feeble beckoning sign with the fingers, to signify, 
 " Be a good fellow ; put it under my bed, please." The 
 man did it, and left. The lucky soldier painfully turned 
 himself in his bed until he faced the other warrior, raised 
 himself partly on his elbow, and began to work up a mys- 
 terious expression of some kind in his face. Gradually, 
 irksomely, but surely and steadily, it developed, and at 
 last it took definite form as a pretty successful wink. The 
 sufferer fell back exhausted with his labour, but bathed 
 in glory. Now entered a personal friend of No. 2, the 
 despoiled soldier. No. 2 pleaded with him with eloquent 
 eyes, till presently he understood, and removed the coffin 
 from under No. I's bed and put it under No. 2's. No. 2 
 indicated his joy, and made some more signs ; the friend 
 understood again, and put his arm under No. 2's shoulders 
 and lifted him partly up. Then the dying hero turned 
 the dim exultation of his eye upon No. 1, and began a 
 slow and laboured work with his hands ; gradually he 
 lifted one hand up toward his face ; it grew weak and 
 dropped back again ; once more he made the effort, but 
 failed again. Be took fl. rest ; he gathered all the rem- 
 nant of his strength, and this time he slowly but surely 
 carried his thumb to the side of his nose, spread the gaunt 
 fingers wide in triumph, and dropped back dead. That 
 picture sticks by me yet. The " situation " is unique. 
 The next morning, at what seemed a very early hour, 
 
52 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 the little white table-waiter appeared suddenly in my 
 room and .shot a wingle word out of hiniself : " Breakfast ! " 
 
 This was a remarkable boy in many ways. He was 
 about eleven years old ; he had alert, intent black eyes ; 
 he was quick of movement ; there was no hesitation, no 
 uncertainty about him anj^whcre ; there was a military 
 decision in his lip, his manner, his speech, that was an 
 astonishing thing to see in a little chap like him ; he 
 wasted no words ; his answers always came so quick and 
 brief that they seemed to be part of the question that had 
 been asked instead of a reply to it. When he stood at 
 the table with his fly-binish, rigid, erect, his face set in a 
 cast-iron gravity, he was a statue till he detected a dawn- 
 ing want in somebody's eye ; then he pounced down, sup- 
 plied it, and was instantly a statue again. When he was 
 sent to the kitchen for anything, he marched upright till 
 he got to the door ; he turned hand-springs the rest of 
 the way. 
 
 " Breakfast ! " • 
 
 I thought I would make one more effort to get some 
 conversation out of this being. 
 
 *' Have you called the Reverend, or are — V\ 
 
 " Yes s'r 1" 
 
 "Isitearly, oris— ?" 
 
 " Eight-five !" 
 
 " Do you have to do all the ' chores/ or is there some- 
 body to give you a 1- " 
 
 "Coloured girl!" 
 
 " Is there only one parish in this island, or are there — " 
 
 " Eight !" 
 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 r3 
 
 u* If 
 
 " Is the big church on the hill a parish chiirc! 
 
 "Chapel-of-oase!" 
 
 "Is taxation here classified into poll, paiisli, town, 
 and^" 
 
 "Don't know!" 
 
 Before T could cudgel another question out of my hea3 
 he was below, hand-springing across the back-yard. He 
 had slid down the balusters, head first. I gave up trying 
 to provoke a discuss! i with him. The essential element 
 of discussion had been left out of him ; his answers were 
 so final and exact, that they did not leave a doubt to hang 
 conversation on. I suspect that there is the making of a 
 mighty man or a mighty rascal in this boy, — according to 
 circumstances, — but they are going to apprentice him to 
 a carpenter. It is the way the world uses its oppor- 
 tunities. 
 
 During this day and the next we took carriage drive, 
 about the island and over to the town of St. George's 
 fifteen or twenty miles away. Such hard, excellent road, 
 to drive over are not to be found elsewhere out of Europe. 
 An intelligent young coloured man drove us, and acted as 
 guide-book. In the edge of the town we saw five or six 
 'mountain-cabbage palms (atrocious names !) standing in a 
 straight row, and equidistant from each other. These 
 were not the largest or the tallest trees I have ever seen, 
 Ibut they were the stateliest, the most majestic. That row 
 lof them must be the nearest that nature has ever come to 
 ,counterfeiting a colonnade. These trees are all the same 
 height, say sixty feet ; the trunks as gray as granite, with 
 a very gradual and perfect taper, without sign of branch 
 
 
54 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 i 
 
 or knot or flaw ; the surface not looking like bark, but 
 like granite that has been dressed and not polished. 
 Thus all the way up the diminishing shaft for fifty feet ; 
 then it begins to take the appearance of being closely 
 wrapped, spool-fashion, with gray cord, or of having been 
 turned in a lathe. Above this point there is an outward 
 swell, and thence upwards for six feet or more, the cylin- 
 der is a bright, fresh green, and is formed of wrappings 
 like those of an efc,r of green Indian corn. Then comes 
 the great spraying palm plume, also green. Other palm- 
 trees always lean out of the perpendicular, or have a 
 curve in them. But the plumbline could not detect a 
 deflection in any individual of this stately row. They 
 stand as straight as the colonnade of Baalbec ; they have 
 its great height, they have its gracefulness, they have its 
 dignity ; in moonlight or twilight, and shorn of their 
 plumes, they would duplicate it. ' 
 
 Tho birds we came across in the country were singu- 
 larly tame. Even that wild creature, the quail, would 
 pick around in the grass at ease while we iijspected it 
 and talked about it at leisure. A small bird of the can- 
 ary species had to be stirred up with the butt-end of the 
 whip before it would move, end then it moved only a 
 couple of feet. It is said that even the suspicious flea is 
 tame and sociable in Bermuda, and will allow himself to 
 be caught and caressed without misgivings. This should 
 be taken with allowance, foi doubtless there is more or 
 less brag about it. In San Fx{?<bcisco they used to claim 
 that their native flea could kick a child over, as if it were 
 a merit in a flea to be able to do that ; as if the know- 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 5t 
 
 ledge of it trumpeted abroad ought to entice emigi'ation. 
 Such a thing in nine cases out of ten would be almost 
 sure to deter a thinking man from coming. 
 
 We saw no bugs or reptiles to speak of, and so I was 
 thinking of saying in print, in a general way, that there 
 were none at all ; but one night after I had gone to bed, 
 the Reverend came into my room carrying something, and 
 asked, " Is this your boot ?" I said it was, and he said he 
 had met a spider going off with it. Next morning he 
 stoted that just at dawn the same spider raised his win- 
 dow, and was coming in to get a shirt, but saw him and 
 fled. 
 
 I inquired, " Did he get the shirt ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " How did you know it was a shirt he was after ?" 
 
 " I could see it in his eye." 
 
 We inquired round, but could hear of no Bermudian 
 spider capable of doing these things. Citizens said that 
 their largest spiders could not more than spread their legs 
 over an ordinary saucer, and that they had always been 
 considered honest. Here was testim^ony of a clergyman 
 against the testimony of mere worldlings, — interested 
 ones, too. On the whole I judged it best to lock up my 
 things. 
 
 Here and there on the country roads we found lemon, 
 papaia, orange, lime, and fig-trees ; also several sorts of 
 palms, among them the cocoa, the date, and the palmetto. 
 We saw some bamboos forty feet high, with stems as thick 
 as a man's arm. Jungles of the mangrove-tree stood up 
 out of swamps, propped on their interlacing roets as upon 
 
 ■'M 
 
56 
 
 AN 7T>LE EXCURSION. 
 
 a tangle of stilts. In dryer places the noble tamarind sent 
 down its gi-ateful cloud of shade. Here and there the 
 blossomy tamarisk adorned the roadside. There was a 
 curious gnarled and twisted black tree, without a single 
 leaf on it. It might have passed itself off for a dead apple- 
 tree, but for the fact that it had a star-like, red-hot flower 
 sprinkled sparsely over its person. It had the scattery 
 red glow that a constellation might have when glimpsed 
 through smoked glass. It is possible that our constella- 
 tions have been so constructed as to be invisible_thi:pugh 
 smoked glass ; if this is so it is a great mistal 
 
 We saw a tree that bears grapes, and just as caMTy and 
 unostentatiously as a vine would do it. We saw an 
 India-rubber tree, but out of season, possibly, so there 
 ■were no shoes on it, nor suspenders, nor anything that a 
 person would properly expect to find there. This gave it 
 •an impressively fraudulent look. There was exactly one 
 mahogany-tree on the island. I know this to be reliable, 
 because I saw a man who said he had counted it ma ly a 
 time, and could not be mistaken. He was a man with a 
 hair lip and a pure heart, and everybody said he was as 
 true as steel. Such men are all too few. 
 
 One's eye caught near and far the pink cloud of the 
 oleander and the red blaze of the pomegranate blossom. 
 In one piece of wild wood the morning-glory vines had 
 wrapped the trees to their very tops, and decorated them 
 all over with couples and clusters of great blue-bells, — a 
 fine and striking spectacle at a little distance. But the 
 dull cedar is everywhere, and its is the prevailing foliage. 
 One does not appreciate how dull it is until the varnished, 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 67 
 
 ly a 
 
 bright green attire of the infrequent lemon tree pleasantly 
 intrudes its contrast. In one thing Bermuda is eminently 
 tropical, — was in May, at least, — the unbrilliant, slightly 
 faded, unrejoicing look of the landscape. For forests 
 arrayed in a blemishless magnificence of glowing green 
 foliage that seems to exult in its own existence, and can 
 move the beholder to an enthusiasm that will make him 
 either shout or cry, one must go to countries that have 
 malignant winters. 
 
 We saw scores of coloured farmers digging their crops 
 of potatoes and onions, their wives and children helping, 
 entirely contented and comfortable, if looks go for any- 
 thing. We never met a man or woman or child anywhere 
 in this sunny island, who seemed to be unprosperous, or 
 discontented, or sorry about anything. This sort of mon- 
 otony became very tiresome presently, and even some- 
 thing worse. The spectacle of an entire nation grovelling 
 in contentment is an infuriating thing. We felt the lack 
 of something in this community, — a vague, an undefin- 
 able, an elusive something, and yet a lack. But after 
 considerable thought we made out what it was, — tramps. 
 Let them go there, right now, in a body. It is utterly 
 virgin soil. Passage is cheap. Every true patriot in 
 America will help buy tickets. Whole armies of these 
 excellent beings can be spared from our midst and our 
 polls ; they will find a delicious climate, and a green 
 kind-hearted people. There are potatoes and onions for 
 all, and a generous welcome for the first batch that 
 arrives, and elegant graves for the second 
 
 It was the Early Rose potato the people were digging. 
 
 II 
 
 *i 
 
58 
 
 A.N IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 H 
 
 Later in the year they have another crop, which they 
 call the Garnet. We buy their potatoes (retail) at fifteen 
 dollars a barrel ; and those coloured farmers buy ours 
 for a song, and live on them. Havana might exchange 
 cigars with Connecticut in the same advantageous way 
 ii. she thought of it. 
 
 We passed a roadside grocery with a sign up, " Potatoes 
 Wanted." An ignorant stranger, doubtless. He could 
 not have gone thirty-steps from his place without finding 
 plenty of them. 
 
 In several fields the arrowroot crop was already sprout- 
 ing. Bermuda used to make a vast annual profit out of 
 this staple before fire-arms came into such general use. 
 
 The island is not large. Somewhere in the interior a 
 man ahead of us had a very slow horse. I suggested that 
 we had better g(b by him ; but the driver said the man 
 had but a little way to go. I waited to see wondering 
 how he could know. Presently the man did turn down 
 another road. I asked, '* How did you know he would ? " 
 
 " Because I knew the man, and where he lived." 
 
 I asked him satirically, if he knew everybody in the 
 island ; he answered very simply, that he did. This gives 
 a boy's mind a good substantial grip on the dimensions 
 of the place. 
 
 At the principal hotel in St. George's, a young girl, with 
 a sweet, serious face, said we could not be furnished with 
 dinner, because we had not been expected, and no prepa- 
 ration had been made. Yet it was still an hour before 
 dinner time. We argued ; she yielded not ; we suppli- 
 cated, she was serene. The hotel had not been expecting 
 
 
J 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION 
 
 5f 
 
 an inicadation of two people, and so it seemed that we 
 should have to go home dinnerless. I said we were not 
 very hungry ; a fish would do. My little maid answered 
 it was not the market day for fish. Things began to look 
 serious ; but presently the boarder who sustained the 
 hotel came in, and when the case was laid before him he 
 was cheerfully willing to divide. So we h^>d much plea- 
 sant chat at table about St. George's chief industry, the 
 repairing of damaged ships ; and in between we had a 
 soup that had something in it that seemed to taste like 
 the hereafter, but it proved lo be only pepper of a parti- 
 cularly vivacious kind. And we had an iron-clad chicken 
 that was deliciously cooked, but not in the right way. 
 Baking was not the thing to convince his sort. He ought 
 to have been put through a quartz mill until the " tuck " 
 was taken out of him, and then boiled till we came 
 again. We got a good deal of sport out of him, but not 
 enough sustenance to leave the victory on our side. No 
 matter ; we had potatoes and a pie and a sociable good 
 time. Then a ramble through i\\e town, which is a quaint 
 one, with interesting crooked streets, and narrow crooked 
 lanes, with here and there a grain of dust. Here, as in 
 Hamilton, the dwellings had Venetian blinds of a very 
 sensible pattern. They were not double shutters, hinged 
 at the sides, but a single broad shutter hinged at the top ; 
 you push it outward, from the b jttom, and fasten it at 
 any angle required by the sun or desired by yourself. 
 
 All about the island one sees great white scars on the 
 hill-slopes. These are dished spaces where the soil has 
 been scraped off and the coral exposed and glazed with 
 
 i- 
 
60 
 
 AN IDLE EXCUBSION. 
 
 hard whitewash. Some of these are a quarter-acre in 
 size. They catch and carry the rain-fall to reservoirs ; 
 for the wells are few and poor, and there are no natural 
 springs and no brooks. 
 
 They say that the Bermuda climate is mild and equa- 
 ble, with never any snow or ice, and that one may be 
 very comfortable in spring clothing the year round, there. 
 We had delightful and decided summer weather in May, 
 with a flaming sun that permitted the thinnest of rai- 
 ment, and yet there was a constant breeze ; consequently 
 we were never discomfited by heat. At four or five in the 
 afteriioon the mercury began to go down, and then it 
 became necessary to change to thick garments. I went 
 to St. George's in the morning clothed in the thinnest of 
 linen, and reached home at five in the afternoon with two 
 overcoats on. The night? are said to be always cool and 
 bracing. We had mosquito nets, and the Reverend said 
 the mosquitoes persecuted him a good deal. I often heard 
 him slapping and banging at these imaginary creatures 
 with as much zeal as if they had been real. There are 
 no mosquitoes in the Bermudas in May. 
 
 The poet Thomas Moore spent several months in Ber- 
 muda more than seventy years ago. He was sent out to 
 be registrar of the admiralty. I am not quite clear as to 
 the function of a registrar of the admiralty of Bermuda, 
 but I think it is his duty to keep a record of all the ad- 
 mirals born there. I will inquire into this. There was 
 not much doing in admirals and Moore got tired and went 
 away. A reverently preserved souvenir of him is still one^ 
 of the treasures of the islands. I gathered the idea 
 
 I 
 
 it 
 a 
 
 \ 
 
AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 61 
 
 J 
 
 vaguely, that it was a jug, but was persistently thwarted 
 in the twenty-two effoiis I made to visit it. However, 
 it was no matter, for I found afterwards that it was only 
 a chair. 
 
 There are several " sights " in the Bermudas, of course, 
 but they are easily avoided. This is a great advantage 
 —one cannot have it in Europe. Bermuda is the -right 
 country for a jaded man to " loaf " in. There are no har- 
 assments ; the deep peace and quiet of the country sink 
 into one's body and bones, and give his conscience a rest, 
 and chloroform the legion of invisible small devils that are 
 always trying to whitewash his hair, A good many Ame- 
 ricans go there about the first of March and remain until 
 the early spring weeks have finished their villainies at 
 home. 
 
 The Bermudas are hoping soon to have telegraphic 
 communication with the world. But even after they 
 shall have acquired this curse it will still be a good coun- 
 try to go to for a vacation, for there are chaiming li^ttle 
 islets scattered about the inclosed sea where one could 
 live secure from interruption. The telegraph boy would 
 have to come in a boat, and one could easily kill him 
 while he was making his landing. 
 
 We had spent four days in Bermuda, — three bright 
 ones out of doors and one rainy one in the house, we be- 
 ing disappointed about getting a yacht for a sail ; and 
 now our furlough was ended. 
 
 We made the run home to New York quarantine in 
 three days and five hours, and could have gone right 
 along up to the city if we had had a health permit. But 
 
■ I 
 
 62 
 
 AN IDLE EXCURSION. 
 
 \ 1 
 
 health permits are not granted after seven in the evening, 
 partly because a ship cannot be inspected and overhauled 
 with exhaustive thoroughness except in the daylighij 
 and partly because health officials are liable to catch coLl 
 if they expose themselves to the night air. Still, you 
 can buy a permit after hours for five dollars extra, 
 and the officer will do the inspecting next week, 
 Our ship and passengers lay under expense and in humi- 
 Hating captivity all night, under the very nose of the lit- 
 tle official reptile who is supposed to protect New York 
 from pestilence by his vigilant " inspections." This im- 
 posing rigour gave everybody a solemn and awful idea of 
 the beneficent watchfulness of our government, and there 
 were some who wondered if anything finer could be 
 found in other coimtries. 
 
 In the morning we were all a-tiptoe to witness the 
 intricate ceremony of inspecting the ship. But it was a 
 disappointing thing. The health officer's tug ranged 
 alongside for a moment, our purser handed the lawful 
 three-dollar permit fee to the health officer's boot-black, 
 who passed us a folded paper on a forked stick, and away 
 we went. The entire " inspection " did not occupy thir- 
 teen seconds. 
 
 The health officer's place is worth a hundred thousand 
 dollars a year to him. His system of inspection is per- 
 fect, and therefore cannot be improved on ; but it seems 
 to me that his system of collecting his fees might be 
 amended. For a great ship to lie idle all night is a most 
 costly loss of time ; for her passengers to have to do the 
 same thing works to them the same damage, with the 
 
 a 
 c 
 
 hi 
 I 
 
 w 
 bi 
 th 
 
 ' 
 
AN IDLE EXCIJKSION. 
 
 ca 
 
 addition of an amount of exasperation and bitterness 
 of soul that the spectacle of that health ofR . . . 
 . . . * could hardly sweeten. Now, why would it not 
 be better and simpler to let the ships pass in unmo- 
 lested, and the permits be exchanged once a year by 
 post? 
 
 * When the proofs of this article came to me I Haw that " The Atlantic " 
 had condemned the words which occupied the place where is now a vacancy. 
 I can invent no figure worthy to otand in the ahoesi of the lurid colossus 
 which a too deep respect for the opinions of mankind hao thus ruthlessly 
 banished from his due and rightful pedestd in the world's literature. I^et 
 the blank remain a blank ; and let it suggest to the reader that he lias 
 sustained a precious lost which can nev«r b« made good to him, M. T. 
 
 1 
 
FACTS 
 
 C )NCERNING 
 
 THE RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME IN CON 
 • NECTICUT. 
 
 WAS feeling blithe, almost jocuiMi. I put a match to 
 my cigtar, and just then the morning's mail was hand- 
 ed in. The first superscription I glanced at was in a 
 handwriting that sent a thrill of pleasure through and 
 through me. It was Aunt Mary's ; and she was the per- 
 son I loved and honoured most in all the world, outside of 
 my own household. She had been my boyhood's idol ; 
 maturity, which is fatal to so many enchantments, had not 
 been able to dislodge her from her pedestal ; no, it had only 
 justified her right to be there, and placed her dethronement 
 permanently among the impossibilities. To show how 
 strong her influence over me was, I will observe that long 
 after everybody else's " c^o-stop-smoking " had ceased to 
 affect me in the slightest degree, Aunt Mary could still 
 stir my torpid conscience into faint signs of life when she 
 touched upon the matter. But all things have their limit, 
 in this world. A happy day came at last, when even 
 Aunt Mary's words could no longer move me. I was not 
 merely glad to see that day arrive ; I was more than glad 
 — I was grateful ; for when its sun had set, the one alloy 
 that was able to mar my enjoyment of my aunt's society 
 was gone. The remainder of her stay with us that winter 
 was in every way a delight. Of course she pleaded with 
 me just as earnestly as ever, after that blessed day, io quit 
 
 
RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 65 
 
 CON 
 
 
 my pernicious habit, but to no purpose whatever ; the 
 moment she opened the subject I at once bocame calmly, 
 peacefully, contentedly indifferent — absolutely, adaman- 
 tinely indifferent. Consequently the closing weeks of that 
 memorable visit melted away as pleasantly as a dream, 
 they were so freighted for me^ with tranquil satisfaction. 
 I could not have enjoyed my pet vice more if my gentle 
 tormenter had been a smoker herself, and an advocate of 
 the practice. . Well, the sight of her handwriting reminded 
 me that I was getting very hungry to see her again. I 
 easily guessed what I should find in her letter. I opened 
 it. Good! just as I expected ; she was coming ! Coming 
 this very day, too, and by the morning train; I might 
 expect her any moment. 
 
 I said to myself, " I am thoroughly happy and content, 
 now. If my most pitiless enemy could appear before me 
 at this moment, I would freely right any wrong I may 
 have done him." 
 
 Straightway the door opened, and a shrivelled, shabby 
 dwarf entered. He was not more than two feet high. He 
 seemed to be about forty years old. Every feature and 
 every inch of him was a trifle out of shape ; and so, while 
 one could not put his finger upon any particular part 
 and say, " This is a conspicuous deformity," the spectator 
 perceived that this little person was a deformity as a 
 whole — a vague, general, evenly blended, nicely adjusted 
 deformity. There was a fox-like cunning in the face and 
 the sharp little eyes, and also alertness and malice. And 
 yet, this vile bit of human rubbish seemed to bear a sort 
 of remote and ill-defined resemblance to me ! It was dully 
 perceptible in the mean form, the countenance, an-d even 
 
 m 
 
66 
 
 RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 the clothes, gestures, manner, and attitudes of the creature. 
 He was a far-fetched, dim suggestion of a burlesque upon 
 me, a caricature of me in little. One thing about him 
 struck me forcibly, and most unpleasantly : he was cover- 
 ed all over with a fuzz}'-, greenish mould, such as one 
 sometimes sees upon mildewed bread. The sight of it was 
 nauseating, 
 
 He stepped along with a chipper air, and flung himself 
 into a doll's chair in a very fi-ee and easy way, without 
 waiting to be asked. He tossed his hat into the waste 
 basket. He picked up my old chalk pipe from the floor 
 gave the stem a wipe or two on his knee, filled the bowl 
 from the tobacco-box at his side, and said to me in a tone 
 of pert command, — 
 
 "Gimme a match ! " 
 
 I blushed to the roots of my hair ; partly with indig- 
 nation, but mainly because it somehow seemed to mo that 
 this whole performance was very like an exaggeration of 
 conduct which I myself had sometimes been guilty of in 
 my intercourse with familiar friends — but never, nevev 
 with strangers, I observed to myself. I wanted to kick 
 the pygmy into the fire, but some incomprehensible sense 
 of being legitimately under his authority legally and 
 legitimately forced me to obey his order. He applied 
 the match to the pipe, took a contemplated whiff" or two, 
 and remarked in an irritating familiar way : — 
 
 " Seems to me it 's devilish odd weather for this time 
 of year." 
 
 I flushed again, and in anger and humiliation as before ; 
 for the language was hardly an exaggeration of some that 
 I have uttered in my day, and moreover was delivered in 
 
 
 a t< 
 the 
 
RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 67 
 
 
 a tone of voice and with an exasperating drawl that had 
 the seeming of a deliberate travesty of my style. Now 
 there is nothing I am quite so sensitive about as a n:ock- 
 ing ircitation of my drawling infirmity of speech. I 
 spoke up sharply and said : — 
 
 " Look hero, you miserable ash -cat ! you will have to 
 give a little more attention to your manners, or I will 
 throw you out of the window ! " 
 
 The manikin smiled a smile of malicious content and 
 security, puflfed a whifF of smoke contemptuously towards 
 me, and said, with a still more elaborate drawl : — 
 
 " Come — go gently, now ; don't put on too many airs 
 with your betters." 
 
 This cool snub rasped me all over, but it seemed to sub- 
 jugate me, too, for a moment. The pygmy contemplated 
 me awhile with weasel eyes, and then said, in a peculiarly 
 sneering way : — 
 
 " You turned a tramp away fr -m your door this mom- 
 
 I said crustily : — 
 
 " Perhaps I did, perhaps I didn't. How do yoit know ? '* 
 
 " Well, I know. It is n't any matter how I know." 
 
 " Very well. Suppose I did turn a tramp away from 
 the door — what of it 'i " 
 
 " O, nothing ; nothing in particular. Only you lied to 
 him." 
 
 ''I didn't! That is I—" 
 
 " Yes, but you did ; you lied to him." 
 
 I felt a guilty pang — in truth I had felt it forty times 
 before that tramp had travelled a block from my door — 
 
68 
 
 RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 l\ 
 
 but sffi I resolved to m ke a show of feeling slandered ; 
 so I said : — 
 
 " This is baseless impertinence. I said to the tramp — " 
 
 " There — wait. You were about to lie again. / know 
 what you said to him. You said the cook was gone down 
 town and there was nothing left from breakfast. Tw© 
 lies. You knew the cook was behind the door and plenty 
 of provisions behind her" 
 
 This astonishing accuracy silenced me ; and it filled me 
 with wondering speculations, too, as to how this cub could 
 have got his information. Of course he could have culled 
 the information from the tramp, but by what sort of 
 magic had he contrived to find out about the concealed 
 cook ? Now the dwarf spoke again : — 
 
 " It was rather pitiful, rather small, in you to refuse to 
 read that poor young woman's manuscript the other day, 
 and give your opinion as to its literary value ; and she 
 bad come so far, too, and so hopefully. Now wcLsn't it ? " 
 
 I felt like a cur ! And I had felt so every time the 
 thing had recurred to my mind, I may as well confess. I 
 flushed hotly and said : — 
 
 " Look here, have you nothing better to do than prowl 
 around prying into other people's business ? Did that 
 girl tell you that ? " 
 
 " Never mind whether she did or not. The main thing 
 is, you did that contemptible thing. And you felt ashamed 
 of it afterwards. Aha ! you feel ashamed of it now ! " 
 
 This with a sort of devilish glee. With a fiery earnest- 
 ness I responded : — 
 
 *' I told that girl in the kindest gentlest way that I 
 could hot consent to deliver judgment upon any one's 
 
 wo 
 
RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 69 
 
 » 
 
 » 
 
 manuscript, because an individuars verdict was worthless. 
 It might underrate a work of high merit and lose it to the 
 world, or it might overrate a trashy production and so 
 open the way for its infliction upon the world. I said 
 that the great public was the only tribunal competent to 
 sit in judgment upon a literary efibrt, and therefore it. 
 must be best to lay it before that tribunal in the outset, 
 since in the end it must stand or fall by that mighty- 
 court's decision any way." 
 
 " Yes, you said all that. So you did, you juggling, 
 small-souled shuffler ! And yet when the happy hopeful- 
 ness faded out of that poor girl's face, when you saw her 
 furtively slip beneath her shawl the scroll she had so pa- 
 tiently and honestly scribbled at, — so ashamed of her 
 darling now, so proud of it before, — ^when you saw the 
 gladness go out of her eyes and the tears come there, 
 when she crept away so humbly who had come so — " 
 
 " 0, peace ! peace ! peace ! Blister your merciless 
 tongue, haven't all these thoughts tortured me enough, 
 without your coming here to fetch them back again ? " 
 
 Remoi*se ! remorse ! It seemed to me that it would 
 eat the very heart out of me ! And yet that small fiend 
 only sat there leering at me with joy and contempt, and 
 placidly chuckling. Presently he began to speak again. 
 Every sentence was an accusation, and every accusation 
 a truth. Every clause was freighted with sarcasm and 
 derision, every slow-dropping word burned like vitriol. 
 The dwarf reminded me of times when I had flown at 
 my children in anger and punished them for faults which 
 a little inquiry would have taught me that others, and 
 not they, had committed. He reminded me of how I had 
 
 ! <l 
 
I I 
 
 70 
 
 RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 If' 
 
 I 
 
 disloyally allowed old friends to be traduced in my hear- 
 ing, and been too craven to utter a word in their defence. 
 He reminded me of many dishonest things which I had 
 done; of many which I had procured to be done by 
 children and other irresponsible persons ; of some which 
 I had planned, thought upon, and longed to do, and been 
 kept from the performance by fear of consequences only. 
 With exquisite cruelty he recalled to my mind, item by 
 item, wrongs and unkindnesses I had inflicted and hu- 
 miliations I had put upon friends since dead, " who died 
 thinking of those injuries, maybe, and grieving over 
 them," he added, by way of poison to the stab. 
 
 " For instance," said he, " take the case of your younger 
 brother, when you two were boys together, many a long 
 year ago. He always lovingly trusted in you with a 
 fidelity that your manifold treacheries were not able to 
 shake. He followed you about like a dog, content to 
 suffer wrong and abuse if he might only be with you ; 
 patient under these injuries so long as it was your hand 
 ^ that inflicted them. The Ir.test picture you have of him 
 in health and strength must be such a comfort to you 
 You pledged your honour that if he would let you blind 
 fold him no harm should come to him ; and then, giggling 
 and choking over the rare fun of the joke, you led him 
 to a brook thinly glazed with ice, and pushed him in; 
 and how you did laugh ! Man, you will never forget the; 
 gentle, reproachful look he gave you as he struggled 
 shivering out, if you live a thousand years! Oho! you 
 see it now, you see it now ! " 
 
 " Beast, I have seen it a million times, and shall see it 
 ft million more ! and may you rot away piecemeal, and 
 
 rou£ 
 
EECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 71 
 
 ly hear- 
 defence. 
 ;h I had 
 lone by 
 e which 
 nd been 
 5es only, 
 item by 
 and hu- 
 ''ho died 
 ng over 
 
 younger 
 7 a long 
 
 with a 
 ) able to 
 itent to 
 th you ; 
 ar hand 
 
 of him 
 to you 
 
 I blind 
 
 led him 
 lim in ; 
 rget thfo 
 ruggled 
 10 1 you 
 
 II see it 
 tal, and 
 
 
 suffer till doomsday what I suffer now for bringing it 
 back to me again ! " 
 
 The dwarf chuckled contentedly, and went on with his 
 accusing history of my career. I dropped into a moody, 
 vengeful state, and suffered in silence under the merciless 
 lash. At last this remark of his gave me a sudden 
 rouse : — 
 
 " Two months ago, on a Tuesday, you woke up, away 
 in the night, and fell to thinking, wi\/h shame, about a 
 peculiarly mean and pitiful act of yours toward a poor 
 ignorant Indian in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains in 
 the winter of eighteen hundred and — " 
 
 " Stop a moment, devil ! Stop ! Do you mean to tell 
 me that even my very thoughts are not hidden from you ? " 
 
 " It seems to look like that. Didn't you think the 
 thoughts I have just mentioned ? " 
 
 " If I didn't, I wish I may never breathe again 1 Look 
 here, friend — look me in the eye. Who are you ? " 
 
 " Well, who do you think ? " 
 
 " I think you are Satan himself. I think you are the 
 devil." 
 
 " No.'* 
 
 " No ? Then who can you be ? " 
 
 " Would you really like to know ? " 
 
 " Indeed I would." ' 
 
 " Well, I am your Conscience I " 
 
 In an instant I was in a blaze of joy and exultation. I 
 sprang at the creature, roaring, — 
 
 " Curse you, I have wished a hundred million^times 
 that you were tangible, and that I could get my hands on 
 
 
 ; 
 : 
 
 \ 
 
 i\ 
 
72 
 
 KECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 ti i 
 
 your throat once ! 0, but I will wreak a deadly ven- 
 geance on — " 
 
 Folly ! Lightning does not move more quickly than 
 ray Conscience did ! He darted aloft so suddenly that in 
 the moment my fingers clutched the empty air he was al- 
 ready perched on the top of the high bookcase, with his 
 thumb at his nose in token of derision. I flung the poker 
 at him, and missed. I fired the bootjack. In a blind 
 rage I flew from place to place, and snatched and hurled 
 any missile that came handy ; the storm of books, ink- 
 stands, and chunks of coal gloomed the air and beat about 
 the manikin's perch relentlessly, but all to no purpose ; 
 the nimble figure dodged every shot ; and not only that, 
 but burst into a cackle of sarcastic and triumph? nt laugh- 
 ter as I sat down exhausted. While I pufied aLd gasped 
 with fatigue and excitement, my Conscience talked to this 
 effect : — 
 
 " My good slave, you are curiously witless — no, I mean 
 characteristically so. In truth, you are always consistent, 
 always yourself, always an ass. Otherwise it must have 
 occurred to you that if you attempted this murder with a 
 sad heart and a heavy conscience, I would droop under 
 the burdening influence instantly. Fool, I should have 
 weighed a ton, and could not have budged from the floor; 
 but instead, you are so cheerfully anxious to kiU me that 
 your conscience is as light as a feather ; hence I am away 
 up here out of your reach. I can almost respect a mere 
 ordinary sort of fool ; but you — pah ! " 
 
 I wovld have given anything, then, to be heavy- 
 hearted, so that I could get this person down from there 
 and take his life, but I covdd no more be heavy-hearted 
 
RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 73 
 
 lly ven- 
 
 :ly than 
 that in 
 was al- 
 svith his 
 le poker 
 a blind 
 I hurled 
 ks, ink- 
 it about 
 urpose ; 
 ly that, 
 t laugh- 
 gasped 
 I to this 
 
 I mean 
 sistent, 
 st have 
 with a 
 ) under 
 d have 
 3 floor ; 
 ae that 
 i away 
 a mere 
 
 heavy- 
 1 there 
 earted 
 
 over SI' oh a desire than I could have sorrowed over ita 
 accomplishment. So I could only look longingly up at 
 my master, and rave at the ill-luck that denied me a 
 heavy conscience the one only time that I had ever wanted 
 such a thing in my life. By and by I got to musing over 
 the hour's strange adventure, and of course mj^ human 
 curiosity began to work. I set myself to framing in my 
 mind some questions for this fiend to answer. Just then 
 one cf my boys entered, leaving the door open behind 
 him, and exclaimed, — 
 
 " My ! what has been going on, here ! The bookcase is 
 all one riddle of — " 
 
 I sprang up in consternation, and shouted, — 
 
 " Out of this ! Hurry ! Jump ! Fly ! Shut the door ! 
 Quick, or my Conscience will get away ! " 
 
 The door slammed to, and I locked it. I glanced up 
 and was gi'atef ul, to the bottom of my heart, to see that 
 my owner was still my prisoner. I said, — 
 
 " Hang you, I might have lost you ! Children are the 
 heedlessest creatures. But look here, friend, the boy did 
 not seem to notice you at all ; how is that ? " 
 
 " For a very good reason. I am invisible to all but 
 you." 
 
 I made m ental note of that piece of information with a 
 good deal of satisfaction. I could kill this miscreant now> 
 if I got a chance, and no one would know it. But this 
 very reflection made me so light-hearted that my Con- 
 science could hardly keep his seat, but was like to float 
 aloft toward the ceiling like a toy balloon. I said, pre- 
 sently, — 
 
 *' Come, my Conscience, let us be friendly. Let us fly 
 
 " 
 
74 
 
 RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 f 
 
 I 
 
 a flag of truce for a while. I am suffering to ask you 
 some questions." 
 
 " Very well. Begin." 
 
 " Well, then, in the first place, why were you never 
 visible to me before ? " 
 
 " Because you never asked to see me before ; that is, 
 you never asked in the right spirit and the proper form 
 before. You were just in the right spirit this time, and 
 when you called for your most pitiless enemy I was that 
 person by a very large majority, though you did not sus- 
 pect it." 
 
 '* Well, did that remark of mine turn you into flesh and 
 blood ? " 
 
 " No. It only made me visible to you. I am unsub- 
 stantial, just as other spirits are." 
 
 This remark prodded me with a sharp misgiving. If 
 ne was unsubstantial, how was I going to kill ? * - ? But 
 I dissembled and said persuasively,— 
 
 " Conscience, it is n't sociable of you to keep at such a 
 distance. Come down and take another smoke." 
 
 This was answered with a look ihat was full of derision, 
 and with this observation added : — 
 
 " Come where you can get at me and kill me ? The 
 invitation is declined with thanks." 
 
 " All right," said I to myself ; " so it seems a spirit can 
 be killed, after all ; there will be one spirit lacking in this 
 world, presently, or I lose my guess." Then I said 
 aloud, — 
 
 " Friend—" 
 
 " There ; wait a bit. I am not your friend, I am your 
 
 I 
 
ask you 
 
 ou never 
 
 ; that is, 
 per form 
 ime, and 
 was that 
 not sus- 
 
 flesh and 
 
 1 unsub- 
 
 ving. If 
 - ? But 
 
 t such a 
 
 derision, 
 
 e? The 
 
 )irit can 
 
 ig in this 
 
 I said 
 
 mi your 
 
 RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 75 
 
 t 
 
 enemy ; I am not your equal, I am your master. Call me 
 * my lord,' if you please. You are too familiar." 
 
 " I don't like such titles. I am willing to call you wr. 
 That is as far as — " 
 
 "We will have no argument about this. Just obey; 
 that is all. Go on with your c'uatter." 
 
 " Very well, my lord, — since nothing but my lord will 
 suit you, — I was going to ask you how long you will be 
 visible to me ? " 
 
 "Always!" 
 
 I broke out with strong indignation : " This is simply 
 an outrage. That is what I think of it. You have dogged, 
 and dogged, and dogged me, all the days of my life, in- 
 visible. That was misery enough ; now to have sr'^h a 
 looking thing as you tagging after me like another shadow 
 all the rest of my days is an intolerable prospect. You 
 have my opinion, my lord ; make the most of it." 
 
 ■ '' My lad, there was never so pleased a conscience in 
 this world as I was when you made me visible. It gives 
 me an inconceivable advantage. Now, I can look you 
 straight in the eye, and call you names, and leer at you, 
 jeer at you, sneer at you ; and you know what eloquence 
 there is in visible gesture and expression, more especially 
 when the eiFect is heightened by audible speech. I shall 
 always address you henceforth in your o-w-n s-n-i-v-e-1- 
 1-i-n-g d-r-a-w-1 — baby ! " 
 
 I let fly with the coal-hod. No result. My lord 
 said, — 
 
 " Come, come ! E,emember the flag of truce ! " 
 
 " Ah, I forgot that. I will try to be civil ; and you 
 try it, too, for a novelty. . The idea of a civil conscience ! 
 
 i ill 
 
 i: 
 
70 
 
 RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 iii 
 
 It is a good joke ; an excellent joke. All the consciences 
 7 have ever heard of were nagging, badgering, fault-find- 
 ing, execrable savages ! Yes ; and always in a sweat about 
 some poor little insignificant trifle or other — destruction 
 catch the lot of them, I say ! I would trade mine for the 
 small-pox and seven kinds of consumption, and be glad of 
 the chance. Now, tell me, why is it that a conscience 
 can't haul a man over the coals, once, for an offence, and 
 sben let him alone ? Why is it that it wants to keep on 
 pegging at him, day and night and night and day, week in 
 and week out, forever and ever, about the same old thing ? 
 There is no sense in that, and no reason in it. I think a 
 conscience that will act like that is meaner than the very 
 dirt itself." 
 
 " Weil, we like it, that suffices." 
 
 " Do you do it with the honest intent to improve a 
 man?" 
 
 That question produced a sarcastic smile, and this 
 reply : — 
 
 "No, sir. Excuse me. We do it simply because it is 
 * business.' It is our trade. The purpose of it is to im- 
 prove the man, but we are merely disinterested agents. 
 We are appointed by authority, and haven't anything to 
 say in the matter. We obey orders and leave the conse- 
 quences y7bere they belong. But I am willing to admit 
 this much : we do crowd the orders a trifle when we get 
 a chance, which is most of the time. We enjoy it. We 
 are instructed to remind a man a few times of an error ; 
 and I don't mind acknowledging that we try to give pretty 
 good measure. And when we get hold of a man of a 
 peculiarly sensitive nature, oh, but we do haze him ! I 
 
 I 
 
RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 77 
 
 
 have known consciences to come all the way from China 
 and Russia to see a person of that ki^A put through his 
 paces, on a special occasion. Why, I ki.ew a man of that 
 sort who had accidentally crippled a mulatto baby ; the 
 news went abroad, and I wish you may never commit 
 another sin if the consciences didn't flock from all over 
 the earth to enjoy the fun and help his master exercise 
 him. That man walked the floor in torture for forty- 
 eight hours, without eating or sleeping, and then blew his 
 brains out. The c.^il vras perfectly well again in three 
 weeks." 
 
 " Well, you are « precious crew, not to put it too strong* 
 I think I begi?' to see, now, why you have always been 
 a trifle inconsistent with me. In your anxiety to get all 
 the juice you can out of a sin, you make a man repent of 
 it in three or four different ways. For instance, you 
 f oimd fault with me for lying to that tramp, and I suffer- 
 ed over that. But it was only yesterday that I told a 
 tramp the square truth, to wit, that, it being regarded as 
 bad citizenship to encourage vagrancy, I would give him 
 nothing. What did you do then ? Why, you made me 
 say to myself, ' Ah, it would have been so much kinder 
 and more blameless to ease him off with a little white lie, 
 and send him away feeling that if he could not have 
 bread, the gentle treatment was at least something to be 
 grateful for ! ' Well, I suffered all day about that. Three 
 days before, I had fed a tramp, and fed him freely, sup- 
 posing it a virtuous act. Straight off you said, * O false 
 citizen, to have fed a tramp ! ' and I suffered as usual. I 
 gave a tramp work ; you objected to it — after the contract 
 was made, of course; you never speak up beforehand, 
 
78 
 
 RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 ill 
 
 Next I refused a tramp work ; you objected to that 
 Next, I proposed to kill a tramp ; you kept me awake all 
 night oozing remorse at every pore. Sure I was going to 
 be right this time, I sent the next tramp away with my 
 benediction ; and I wish you may Hve as long as I do, it 
 you didn't make me oiii?.rt all night again because I 
 didn't kill him. Is there any way of satisfying that 
 malignant invention which is called conscience ? " 
 
 " Ha, ha ! this is luxury ! Go on ! " 
 
 " But come, now, answer me that question, /s there 
 any way ? " 
 
 " Well, none that T propose to tell you, my ^on. Ass ! I 
 don't care what act you may turn your hand to, I can 
 straightway whisper a word in your ear and make you 
 think you have committed a dreadful meanness. It is 
 my business — and my joy — to make you repent of every- 
 thing you do. If I have fooled away my opportunities 
 it was not intentional ; I beg to assure you it was not 
 intentional." 
 
 "Don't worry ; you haven't missed a trick that / know 
 of. I never did a thing in all my life, virtuous or other- 
 wise, that I didn't repent of within twenty -four hours. 
 In church last Sunday I listened to a charity sermon. 
 My first impulse was to give three hundred and fifty 
 dollars ; repented of that and reduced it a hundred ; re- 
 pented of that and reduced it another hundred ; repented 
 of that and reduced it another hundred ; repented of that 
 and reduced the remaining fifty to twenty -five ; repented 
 of that and came down to fifteen ; repented of that and 
 dropped to two dollars and a half ; when the plate came 
 around at last, I repented once more and contributed ten 
 
 
RECENT CABKIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 79 
 
 i 
 
 cents. Well, when I got home, I did wish to goodness 1 
 had that ten cents back again ! You never did let mo 
 get through a charity sermon without having something 
 to swoat about." 
 
 " O, and I never shall, I never shall. You can always 
 depend on me." 
 
 " I think so. Many and many's the restless night I 
 wanted to take you by the neck. If I could only get 
 hold of you now ! " 
 
 " Yes, no doubt. But I am not an ass ; I am only the 
 saddle of an ass. But go on, go on. You entertain me 
 more than I like to confess." 
 
 " I am glad of that. (You will not mind my lying a 
 little, to keep in practice.) Look here ; not to be too per- 
 scmal, I think you are about the shabbiest and most con- 
 temptible little shrivelled-up reptile that can be imagined. 
 I am grateful enough that you are invisible to other peoi 
 pie, for I should die with shame to be seen with such a 
 mildewed monkey of conscience as you are. Now if you 
 were five or six feet high, and — " 
 
 " O, come, who io to blame ? " 
 
 " / don't know." 
 
 " Why, you are ; nobody else." 
 
 " Confound you, I wasn't consulted about your per- 
 sonal appearance." 
 
 '* I don't care, you had a good deal to do with it, never- 
 theless. When you were eight or nine years old, I was 
 seven feet high and as pretty as a picture." 
 
 " I wish you had died young ! So you have grown the 
 wrong way, have you ? " 
 
 " Some of us grow one way and some the other. You 
 
80 
 
 RECENT CAENIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 1.1 'f 
 
 had a large conscieuce once ; if you've a small conscience 
 now, I reckon there are reasons for it. However, both ol 
 us are to blame, you and I. Yoti see, you used to be con- 
 scientious about a great many things ; morbidly so, I may 
 say. It was a great many years ago. You probably do 
 not remember it, now. Well, I took a great interest in 
 my work, and I so enjoyed the anguish which certain pet 
 sins of yours afflicted you with, that I kept pelting at 
 you until I rather overdid the matter, ^ou began to 
 rebel. Of course I began to lose ground, then, and shri- 
 vel a little — diminish in stature, get mouldy, and grow 
 deformed. The more I weakened, the more stubbornly 
 you fastened on to those particular sins ; till at last 
 the places on my person that represent those vices 
 became as callous as shark-skin. Take smoking, for 
 instance. I played that card a little too long, and I 
 lost. When people plead with you at this late day to 
 quit that vice, the old callous place seems to enlarge 
 and cover me all over like a shirt of mail. It exerts a 
 mysterious, smothering effect; and presently I, your 
 faithful hater, your devoted Conscience, go fast asleep ! 
 Sound ? It is no name for it. I couldn't hear it thun- 
 der at such a time. You have soriye few other vices — 
 perhaps eighty, or maybe ninety — that affect me in much 
 the same way." 
 
 " This is flattering ; you must be asleep a good part of 
 your time." 
 
 " Yes, of late years. I should be asleep all the time 
 but for the help I get." 
 
 " Who helps you ? " 
 
 " Othc)' consciences. Whenever a person whose con^ 
 
RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 81 
 
 science I am acquainted with tries to plead with you 
 about the vices you are callous to, I get my friend to 
 give his client a pang concerning some villany of his own, 
 and that shuts off his meddling and starts him off to hunt 
 personal consolation. My field of usefulness is about 
 trimmed down to tramps, budding authoresses, and that 
 line of goods, now ; but don't you worr^ — I'll harry you 
 on them while they last ! Just you put your trust in 
 
 me. 
 
 » 
 
 " I think I can. But if you had only been good enough 
 to mention these facts some thirty years ago, I should 
 have turned my particular attention to sin, and I think 
 that by this time I should not only have had you pretty 
 permanently asleep on the entire list of human vices, but 
 reduced to the size of a homoeopathic pill, at that. That 
 is about the style of conscience / am pining for. If I only 
 had you shrunk down to a homcepathic pill, and could get 
 my hands on you, would I put you in a glass case for a 
 keepsake ? No, sir. I would give you to a yellow dog ! 
 That is where you ought to be — you and all your tribe. 
 You are not fit to be in society, in my opinion. Now 
 another question. Do you know a good many conscien- 
 ces in this section ? " 
 
 " Plenty of them." 
 
 " I would give anything to see some of them ! Could 
 you bring them here ? And would they be visible to me ? " 
 
 "Certainly not." 
 
 " I suppose I ought to } sve known that, without 
 asking. But no matter, you can describe them. Tell me 
 about my neighbour Thompson's conscience, please." 
 
 "Very well, I know him intimately, — ^have known 
 
82 
 
 RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 
 !' I 
 
 him many years. I knew him when he was eleven leet 
 high, and of a faultless figure. But he is very rusty and 
 tough and misshappen now, and hardly ever interests 
 himself about anything. A.s to his present size — well, he 
 sleeps in a cigar-box." 
 
 " Likely enough. There are few smaller, meaner men 
 in this region than Hugh Thompson. Do you know Rob- 
 inson's conscience ?" 
 
 " Yes. He is a shade under four and a half feet high ; 
 used to be a blonde ; is a brunette now, but still shapely 
 and comely. 
 
 " Well, Robinson is a good fellow. Do you know Tom 
 Smith's conscience ? " 
 
 " I have known him from childhood. He was thirteen 
 inches high, and rather sluggish when he was two years 
 old — as nearly all of us are at that age. He is thirty- 
 seven feet high now, and the stateliest figure in America- 
 His legs are still racked with growing pains, but he has a 
 good time nevertheless. Never sleeps. He is the most 
 active and energetic member of the New England Con- 
 science Club, — is presidenij of it. NigLt and day you can 
 find him pegging away at Smith, panting with his labour, 
 sleeves rolled up, countenance all alive with enjoyment 
 H« has got his victim splendidly dragooned now. He can 
 make poor Smith imagine that the most innocent little 
 thing he does is an odious sin ; and then he sets to work 
 and 'almost tortures the soul out of him about it." 
 
 " Smith is the noblest man in all this section, and the 
 purest ; and yet is always breaking his heart because he 
 oannot be good ! Only a conscience could find pleasure in 
 
EECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 83 
 
 heaping agony upon a spirit like that. Do you know my 
 Aunt Mary's conscience ?" 
 
 "I have seen her at a distance, but am not acquainted 
 with her. She lives in the open air altogether, because 
 no door is large enough to admit her." 
 
 " I can believe that. Let me see. Do you know the 
 conscience of that publisher who once stole some sketches 
 of mine for a ' series ' of his, and then left me to pay the 
 law expenses I had to incur in order to choke him off?" 
 
 " Yes ; he has a wide fame. He was exhibited a month 
 ago, with some other antiquities, for the benefit of a recent 
 Member of the Cabinet's conscience, that was starving in 
 exile. Tickets and fares were high, but I travelled for 
 nothing by pretending to be the conscience of an editor, 
 and got in for half price by representing myself to be the 
 conscience of a clergyman. However, the publisher's 
 conscience, which was to have been the main feature of 
 the entertainment, was a failure, — as an exhibition. He 
 was there, but what of that ? The management had pro- 
 vided a microscope with a magnifying power of only 
 thirty thousand diameters, and so nobody got to see him 
 after all. There was great and general dissatisfaction, ot 
 course, but — " 
 
 Just here there was an eager footstep on the stairs. I 
 opened the door, and my Aunt Mary burst into the room. 
 It was a joyful meeting, and a cheery bombardment of 
 questions and answers concerning family matters ensued. 
 By and by my Aunt said : 
 
 " But I am going to abuse you a little now. You pro- 
 ini;:jed me, the day I saw you last, that you would look 
 after the needs of the poor family round the corner an 
 
84 
 
 RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 ill 
 
 faithfully as I had done it myself. Well, I found out by 
 accident that you failed of your promise. Wo.s that 
 right ? " 
 
 In simple truth, I never had thought of that family a 
 secoiid time ! And now such a splintering pang of guilt 
 shot through me ! I glanced up at my Conscience. 
 Plainly, my heavy heart was affecting him. His body 
 was drooping forward ; he seemed about to fall from the 
 bookcase. My aunt continued : — 
 
 " And think how you have neglected my poor prot^gie 
 at the almshouse, you dear, hard-hearted promise- 
 breaker ! " I blushed scarlet, and my tongue was tied. 
 As the sense of my guilty negligence waxed sharper and 
 st>:onger, my Conscience began to sway heavily back and 
 forth ; and when my aunt, after a little pause, said in a 
 grieved tone " Since you never once went to see her, may- 
 be it will not distress you now to know that that poor 
 child died, months ago, utterly friendless and forsaken ! '' 
 My Conscience could no longer bear up under the weight 
 of my sufferings, but tumbled headlong from his high 
 perch and struck the floor with a dull, leaden thump. He 
 lay there writhing with pain and quaking with appre- 
 hension, but straining every muscle in frantic efforts to 
 get up. In a fever of expectancy I sprang to the door, 
 locked it, placed my back against it, and bent a watchful 
 gaze upon my struggling master. Already my fingers 
 were itching to begin their murderous work. 
 
 " 0, what can be the matter ! " exclaimed my aunt, 
 shrinking from me, and following with her frightened 
 eyes the direction of mine. My breath was coming in 
 
 \ 
 
 \) 
 
KECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME. 
 
 85 
 
 out by 
 as that 
 
 amily a 
 )f guilt 
 science. 
 s body 
 om the 
 
 rot^gSe 
 romise- 
 is tied. 
 )er and 
 ek and 
 d in a 
 r, may- 
 ,t poor 
 tken ! '' 
 weight 
 s high 
 ip. He 
 appre- 
 brt« to 
 3 door, 
 -tchful 
 fingers 
 
 aunt, 
 itened 
 ing in 
 
 
 Bhort, quick gasps now, and my excitement was almost 
 uncontrollable. My aunt cried out, — 
 
 " 0, do not look so ! You appall me ! O, what can 
 the matter be ? What is it you see ? W hy do you stare 
 so ? Why do you work your fingers like that ? " 
 
 " Peace, woman ! " I said, in a hoarse whisper. " Look 
 elsewhere ; pay no attention to me ; it is nothing, noth- 
 insf. I am often this w&y. It will pass in a moment. It 
 comes from smoking too much." 
 
 My injured lord was up, wild-eyed with terror, and 
 trying to hobble toward the door. I could hardly breathe, 
 I was so wrought up. My aunt wrung her hands, and 
 said, — 
 
 " O, I knew how it would be ; I knew it would come to 
 this at last ! 0, I implore yon to crush out that fatal 
 habit while it may yet be time ! You must not, you 
 shall not be deaf to my supplications longer ! " My 
 struggling Conscience showed sudden signs of weariness! 
 " O, promise me you will throw off this hateful slavery 
 of tobacco !" My Conscience began to reel drowsily, and 
 grope with his hands — enchanting spectacle ! " I beg 
 you, I beseech you, I implore you ! Your reason is de- 
 serting you i There is madness in your eye ! It flames 
 with frenzy ! 0, hear me, hear me, and be saved ! See, I 
 plead with you on my very knees ! " As she sank before 
 me my Conscience reeled again, and then drooped lan- 
 guidly to the floor, blinking toward me a last supplication 
 for mercy, with heavy eyes. " 0, promise, or you are 
 lost ! Promise, and be redeemed ! Promise ! Promise 
 ana live I " With a long-drawn sigh my conquered Con- 
 science closed his eyes and fell fa;st asleep ! 
 
■*m^'- 
 
 ^'''\ 
 
 86 
 
 RECENT ./iENWA.!. )F ORlMii.. 
 
 ;, i 
 
 in 
 
 "With an exultant shoufc T .sprpng past my aunt, and in 
 an instant I had my life-long foe by the throat. After 
 so many years of waiting and long;ng, he was mine at 
 last, I tore him to shreds and fragments. I rent the 
 fragments to bits. I cast the Heeding rubbish into the 
 fire, and drew into my nostrils the grateful incense of my 
 burnt offering. At last, and forever, my Conscience was 
 dead! 
 
 I was a free man I I tvmed upon my poor aunt, who 
 was almost petrified with te Tor^ and shouted, — 
 
 " Out of this with your paupers, your charities, your 
 reforms, your pestilent morals ! You behold before you 
 a man whose life-conflict is done, whose soul is at peace ; 
 a man whose heart is dead to sorrow, dead to sufiering, 
 dead to remorse ; a man without a Conscience! In my 
 joy I spare you, though I cnuld throttle you and never 
 feel a pang! Fly!" 
 
 She fled. Since that da^^ my life is all bliss. Bliss, un- 
 alloye t i<Ilss. Nothing in all the world could persuade 
 me to >.vtv8 a conscience again. I settled all my old out- 
 standing scores, and began the world anew. I killed 
 thirty-eight persons during the first two weeks — all of 
 them on account of ancient grudges. I burned a dwelling 
 that interrupted my view. I swindled a widow and some 
 orphans out of their last cow, which is a very gocd one, 
 though not thoroughbred, I believe. I have also com- 
 mitted scores of crimes, of various kinds, and have en- 
 joyed my work exceedingly, whereas it would formerly 
 have broken ray heart and turned my hair gray, I have 
 no doubt. 
 
 In conclusion I wish to state, by way of adveiiisement, 
 
 f 
 
'-^^: 
 
 t, and in 
 u After 
 mine at 
 rent the 
 into the 
 ise of my 
 ■'^ was 
 
 mco 
 
 ant, who 
 
 ies, your 
 fore you 
 -t peace ; 
 mffering, 
 ! In my 
 tid never 
 
 Bliss, un- 
 persuade 
 old out- 
 I killed 
 J— all of 
 dwelling 
 ^nd some 
 ocd one, 
 Iso com- 
 lave en- 
 formerly 
 , I have 
 
 
 RECiJNT CMi^lVAL fy^ ClUl^.E. 
 
 87 
 
 that medical colleges desiring assortcl ranps for scien- 
 tific purposes, either by the gross, hv 3ord i iie<ASuremeut, 
 or per ton, will do well to examine -lie lot in my cellar 
 before purchasing elsewhere, as these were all selected 
 and pre][>ared by myself, and can be had at a low rate., be- 
 cause I wish to clear out my stock and get ready for the 
 spring trade, ^2l 
 
 '■>] 
 
 isement, 
 
THE L0YE8 
 
 ov 
 
 ALONZO FITZ OLAKENOE 
 
 AND 
 
 ROSANFAH ETHELTOK 
 
 
 -> ♦ • 
 
 Qii 
 
 ■„ I! 
 
 
 
 li, 
 
 r3. 1 
 
 £1 ! 
 
 [T was well along in the forenoon of a bitter winter's 
 day. The town of Eastport, in the State of Maine, 
 lay buried under a deep snow that was newly fallen. The 
 customary bustle in the streets was wanting. One could 
 look long distances down them and see nothing but a 
 dead white emptiness, with silence to match, Of course 
 I do not moan that you could see the silence, — no, you 
 could only hear it. The sidewalks were merely long, 
 deep ditches, with steep snow walls on either side. Here 
 and there you might hear the faint, far scrape o^ a wooden 
 shovel, and if you were quick enough you might catch a 
 glimpse of a distant black figure stooping and disappear- 
 ing in one of those ditches, and reappearing the next mo- 
 ment wiih a motion which you would know meant the 
 heaving out of a shovelful of snow. But you needed to 
 be quick, for that black figure would not linger, but 
 would soon drop that shovel and scud for the house, 
 thrashing itself with its arms to warm them. Yes, it was 
 too venomously cold for snow shovelers or anybody else 
 to stay out lon^. 
 
 
 ' 
 
i 
 
 ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 89 
 
 Presently the sky darkened ; then the wind rose and 
 began to blow in fitful, vigorous gusts, which sent clouds 
 of powdery snow aloft, and straight ahead, and every- 
 where. Under the impulse of one of these gusts, great 
 white drifts banked themselves like graves across the 
 streets ; a moment later, another gust shifted them around 
 the other way, driving a fine spray of snow from their 
 sharp crests, as the gale drives the spume flakes from the 
 wave-crests at sea ; a third gust swept that place as clean 
 as your hand, if it saw fit. This was fooling, this was 
 play ; but each and all of the gusts dumped some snow 
 into the sidewalk ditches, for that was business. 
 
 Alonzo Fitz Clarence was sitting in his snug and 
 elegant little parlour, in a lovely blue silk dressing-gown, 
 with cuffs and facings of crimson satin, elaborately quilted. 
 The remains of his breakfast were before him, and the 
 dainty and costly little table service added a harmonious 
 charm to the grace, beauty, and richness of the fixed ap- 
 pointments of the room. A cheery fire was blazing on 
 the hearth. 
 
 A furious gust of wind shook the windows, and a great 
 wave of snow washed against them with a drenching 
 sound, so to speak. The handsome young bachelor mur- 
 mured, — 
 
 " That means, no going out to-day. Well, I am con- 
 tent. But what to do for company ? Mother is well 
 enough, aunt Susan is well enough ; but these, like the 
 poor, I Lave with me always. On so grim a day as this, 
 one needs a new interest, a fresh element, to whet the 
 dull edge of caiptivity. That was very neatly said, but it 
 doesn't mean anything. One doesn't want the edge of 
 
 M 
 
90 ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 
 
 > i 
 
 captivity shai-pened up, you know, but just the re- 
 verse." 
 
 He glanced at his pretty French mantel clock. 
 
 " That clock's wrong again. That clock hardly ever 
 knows what time it is ; and when it does know, it lies 
 about it, — which amounts to the same thing. Alfred ! " 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 " Alfred ! . . . Good servant, but as uncertain as 
 the clock," 
 
 Alonzo touched an electric bell-button in the wall. He 
 waited a moment, then touched it again ; waited a few 
 moments more, and said, — 
 
 " Battery out of order, no doubt. But now that I have 
 started, I will find out what time it is." He stepped tr 
 a speaking-tube in the wall, blew its whistle and called 
 " Mother ! " and repeated it twice. 
 
 " Well, that's no use. Mother's battery is out of ordei 
 too. Can't raise anybody down stairs, — that's plain." 
 
 He sat down at at a rose- wood desk, leaned his chin or 
 the left-hand edge of it, and spoke, as if to the floor :— 
 "Aunt Susan!" 
 
 A low, pleasant voice answered, " Is that you, Alonzo V 
 
 " Yes. I'm too lazy and comfortable to go down-stairs 
 I'm in extremity, and I can't seem to scare up any help.' 
 
 " Dear me, what is the matter ? " 
 
 " Matter enough, I can tell you !" 
 
 " Oh, don't keep me in suspense, dear ! "What is it ?" 
 
 " I want to know what time it is." 
 
 " You abominable boy, what a turn you did give me 
 Is that all ? " 
 
ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 91 
 
 " All, — on my honour. Calm yourself. Tell roe the 
 time, and receive my blessing." 
 
 " Just five minutes after nine. No charge, — keep your 
 blessing." 
 
 " Thanks. It wouldn't ha\ae impoverished me, aunty, 
 nor so enriched you that you could live without other 
 means." He got up murmuring, *' Just five minutes after 
 nine," and faced his clock. " Ah," said he, " you are doing 
 better than usual. You are only thirty-four minutes 
 wrong. Let me see . . . let me see . . . Thirty- 
 three and twenty-one are fifty-four ; four times fifty-four 
 are two hundred and thirty-six. One ofi", leaves two hun- 
 dred and thirty-five. That's right." He turned the hands 
 of his clock forward till they marked twenty-five minutes 
 to one, and said, " Now see if you can't keep right for a 
 while . . . else I'll raffle you !" 
 
 He sat down at the desk again, and said, ''Aunt 
 Susan ! " 
 
 " Yes, dear." 
 
 " Had breakfast ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed, an hour ago." 
 
 '' Busy ? " 
 
 " No, — except sewing. Why ? " 
 
 " Got any company ? " 
 
 " No, but I expect some at half past nine." 
 
 " I wish I did. I'm lonesome. I want|to talk to 
 somebody." 
 
 " Very well, talk to me." 
 
 " But this is very private." 
 
 "D^n't be afraid, — talk right aloug; there's nobody 
 here but me." 
 
92 ALONZO FITZ CLAftENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHBLTON. 
 
 W 
 
 1 .1 
 
 " I hardly know whether to venture or not, but " — 
 
 " But what ? Oh, don't stop there ? You knoio you 
 can trust me, Alonzo, — you know you can." 
 
 " I feel it, aunt, but this is very serious. It affects me 
 deeply, — me and all the family, — even the whole com- 
 munity." 
 
 " Oh, Alonzo, tell me ! I will never breathe a word oi 
 it. What is it?" 
 
 " Aunt, if I might dare " — 
 
 " Oh, please go on ! I love you and can feel for you 
 Tell me all. Confide in me. What is it ? 
 
 " The weather ! " 
 
 " Plague take the weather ! I don't see how you can 
 have the heart to serve me so, Lon." 
 
 " There, there, aunty dear, I'm sorry ; I am, on my 
 honour. I won't do it again. Do you forgive me ? " 
 
 " Yes, since you seem so sincere about it, though I know 
 I oughtn't to. You will fool me again as soon as I have 
 forgotten this time." 
 
 "No, I won't, honour bright. But such weather, oh, 
 such weather ! Youv'e got to keep your spirits up arti- 
 ficially. It is snowy, and blowy, and gusty, and bitter 
 cold ! How is the weather with you ? " 
 
 " Warm and rainy and melancholy. The mourners go 
 about the streets with their umbrellas running streams 
 from the end of every whalebone. There's an elevated 
 double pavement of umbrellas stretching down the sides 
 of the streets as far as I can see. I've got a fire for cheer- 
 fulness, and the windows open to keep cool. But it is 
 vain, it is useless : nothing comes in but the balmy breath 
 of December, with its burden of mocking odours from the 
 
 flo^ 
 la^ 
 flai 
 is 
 
ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 93 
 
 flowers that possess the realm outside, and rejoice in their 
 lawless profusion whilst the spirit of man is low, and 
 flaunt their gaudy splendours in his face whilst his soul 
 is clothed in sackcloth and ashes and his heart breaketh." 
 
 Alonzo opened his lips to say, " You ought to prir^ that 
 and get it framed," but checked himself, for he heard his 
 aunt speaking to some one else. He went and stood at 
 the window and looked out upon the wintry prospect. 
 The storm was driving the snow before it more furiously 
 than ever ; window shutters were slamming and banging ; 
 a forlorn dog, with bowed head and tail withdrawn from 
 service, was pressing his quaking body against a windward 
 wall for shelter and protection ; a young girl was plough- 
 ing knee-deep through the drifts, with her face turned 
 from the blast, and the cape of her water-proof blowing 
 straight rearward over her head. Alonzo shuddered, and 
 said with a sigh, " Better the slop and the sultry '•din, and 
 even the insolent flowers, than this !" 
 
 He turned from the windovf, moved a step, and stopped 
 in a listening attitude. The faint, sweet notes of a fa- 
 miliar song caught his ear. He remained there, with his 
 head unconsciously bent forward, drinking in the melody, 
 stirring neither hand nor foot, hardly breathing. There 
 was a blemish in the execution of the song, but to Alonzo 
 it seemed an added charm instead of a defect. This blem- 
 ish consisted of a marked flatting of the third, fourth, 
 fifth, sixth and seventh notes of the refrain or chorus of 
 the piece. When the music ended, Alonzo drew a deep 
 breath, and said, " Ah, I never have heard In the Sweet 
 By and By sung like that before ! " 
 
 He stepped quickly to the desk, listened a moment, and 
 
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94 AI.ONZO ^nZ CLARBKCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 
 
 said in a guarded, confidential voice, ^' Aunty, who is this 
 divine singer ? " 
 
 " She is the company I was expecting. Stays with me 
 a month or two. I will introduce you. Miss " — 
 
 " Spr goodness sake, wait a moment, aunt Susan ! You 
 never stop to think what you are about ! " 
 
 He flew to his bed-chamber, and returned in a moment 
 perceptibly changed in his outward appearance, and re- 
 marking, snappishly, — 
 
 " Hang it, she would have introduced me to this angel 
 in that sky-blue dressing-gown with red-hot lappels ! 
 Women never think, when they get agoing." 
 
 He hastened and stood by the desk, and said eagerly, 
 " Now, aunty, I am ready," and fell to smiling and bow- 
 ing with all the persuasiveness and elegance that were in 
 him. 
 
 " Very well. Miss Bosannah Ethelton, let me introduce 
 to you my favourite nephew, Mr. Alonzo Fitz Clarence. 
 There ! You are both good people, and I like you ; so I 
 am going to trust you together while I attend to a few 
 household affairs. Sit down, Bosannah ; sit down, Alonzo. 
 Good-by ; I shan't be gone long." 
 
 Alonzo had been bowing and smiling all the while, and 
 motioning imaginary young ladies to sit down in imagi- 
 nary chairs, but now he took a seat himself, mentally 
 saying, " Oh, this is luck ! Let the winds blow, now and 
 the snow drive, and the heavens frown ! Little I care ! " 
 
 While these young people chat themselves into an 
 acquaintanceship, let us take the liberty of inspecting the 
 sweeter and fairer of the two. She sat alone at her 
 graceful ease, in a richly furnished apartment which was 
 
 
ILTON. 
 
 is thia 
 i^th me 
 n ! You 
 
 moment 
 and re- 
 is angel 
 appels ! 
 
 agerly, 
 id bow- 
 were in 
 
 broduce 
 larence. 
 u ; so 1 
 > a few 
 ^onzo. 
 
 lie, and 
 imagi- 
 entally 
 )wand 
 care ! " 
 ito an 
 ng the 
 Ekt her 
 jh was 
 
 ▲LONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 95 
 
 manifestly the private parlour of a refined and sensible 
 lady, if signs and symbols may go for an3rthing. For 
 instance, by a low, comfortable chair stood a dainty, top- 
 heavy work-stand, whose summit was a fancifuUy em- 
 broidered shallow basket, with vari-coloured crewels, and 
 other stiings and odds and ends, protruding from under 
 the gaping lid and hanging down in negligent profusion. 
 On the floor lay bright shreds of Turkey-red, Prussian 
 blue, and kindred fabrics, bits of ribbon, a spool or two, 
 a pair of scissors, and a roll or so of tinted silken stuffs. 
 On a luxurious sofa, upholstered with some sort of soft 
 Indian goods wrought in black and gold thieads inter- 
 webbed with other threads not so pronounced in colour, 
 lay a great square of coarse white sti.]?, upon whose sur- 
 face a rich bouquet of flowers was giowing, under the 
 deft cultivation of the crochet needle. The household cat 
 was asleep on this work of art. In a bay window stood 
 an easel with an unfinished picture on it, and a palette 
 and brushes on a chair beside it. There were books every- 
 where : Robertson's Sermons, Tennyson, Moody and San- 
 key, Hawthorne, Rab and his Friends, cook-books, prayer- 
 books, pattern-books, — and books about all kinds of odious 
 and exasperating pottery, of course. There was a piano, 
 with a deck-load of music, and more in a tender. There 
 was a great plenty of pictures on the walls, on the shelves 
 of the mantel-piece, and around generally ; where coignes 
 of vantage oflered were statuettes, and quaint and pretty 
 gimcracks, and rare and costly specimens of peculiarly 
 devilish china. The bay-window gave upon a garden that 
 was ablaze with foreign and domestic flowers and flower- 
 ing shrubs 
 
96 ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON 
 
 But the sweet young girl was the daintiest thing those 
 premises, within or without, could oflfer for contempla- 
 tion ; delicately chiseled features, of Qrecian cast; her 
 complexion the pure snow of a japonica that is receiving 
 a faint reflected enrichment from some scarlet neighboui 
 of th*e garden ; great, soft blue eyes fringed with long, 
 curving lashes ; an expression made up of the truthful- 
 ness of a child and the gentleness of a fawn ; a beautifu) 
 head crowned with its own prodigal gold ; a lithe and 
 rounded figure, whose every attitude and movement were 
 instinct with native grace. 
 
 Her dress and adornment were marked by that exqui* 
 site harmony that can come only of a fine natural taste 
 perfected by culture. Her gown was of a simple magenta 
 tulle, cut bias, traversed by three rows of light blue 
 fiounces, with the selvage edges turned up with ashes-of- 
 roses-chenille ; overdress of dark bay tarleton, with scarlet 
 satin lambrequins ; corn-coloured polonaise, en panier, 
 looped with mother-of-pearl buttons and silver cord, and 
 hauled aft and made fast by buff'-velvet lashings ; basque 
 of lavender reps, picked out with valenciennes; low neck, 
 short sleeves ; maroon-velvet necktie edged with delicate 
 pink silk; inside handkerchief of some simple three-ply in- 
 grain fabric of a soft safiron tint; coral bracelets and 
 locket-chain ; coifinre of forget-me-nots and lilies of the 
 valley massed around a noble calla. 
 
 This was all ; yet even in this subdued attire she was 
 divinely beautiful. Then what must she have been when 
 adorned for the festival or the ball ? 
 
 All this time she has been busily chatting with Alonzo 
 unconscious of our inspection. The minutes still sped 
 
 up 
 fio 
 
 hai 
 Bto^ 
 up( 
 
ALONZO FITZ CLAKENCE AUD BOSANNAH ETHELTON. 97 
 
 Aid still she talked. By and by she happened to look 
 up, and saw the clock. A crimson blush sent its rich 
 flood through her cheeks, and she exclaimed, — 
 
 " There, good-by, Mr. Fitz Clarence; I must go now!" 
 
 She sprang from her chair with such haste that she 
 hardly heard the young man's answering good-by. She 
 stood radiant, graceful, beautiful, and gazed, wondering, 
 upon the accusing dock. Presently her pouting lips 
 parted, and she said, — 
 
 " Five minutes after eleven I Nearly two hours, and it 
 did not seem twenty minutes! Oh, dear, what will he 
 think of me ! " 
 
 At the self -same moment Alonzo was staring at his 
 clock. And presently he said, — 
 
 "Twenty-five minutes to three! Nearly two hours, 
 and I didn't believe it was two minutes i Is it possible 
 that this clock is humbugging me again? Miss Ethel ton ! 
 Just one moment, please. Are you there yet ? " 
 
 " Yes, but be quick ; I'm going right away." 
 
 " Would you be so kind as to tell me what time it 
 is?" 
 
 The girl blushed again, murmured to herself, "It's 
 right down cruel of him to ask me ! " and then spoke up 
 find answered with admirably counterfeited unconcern 
 'Five minutes after nine." 
 
 " Oh, thank you ! You have to go now, have you?" 
 
 « Yes " 
 
 " I'm sorry." 
 
 No reply. 
 
 " Miss Etholton ! " 
 
 "WeU?" 
 
I ''I 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 98 ALONZO FITZ GLABENCE AMD ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 
 
 * You — ^you're there yet, am't you ?** 
 
 "Yes; but please hurry. What did you want to 
 say r 
 
 " Well, I — well, nothing in particular. It's very lone- 
 some here. It's asking a great deal, I know, but would 
 you mind talking with me again by and by, — that is, il 
 it will not trouble you too much ? ** 
 
 " I don't know— but I'll think about it. I'll try." 
 
 " Oh, thanks ! Miss Ethelton ... Ah me, she's 
 go: and here are the black clouds and the whirling snow 
 and the raging winds coine again ! But she said good-hy ! 
 She didn't say good morning, she said good by ! . . . 
 The clock was right, after all. What a lightning-winged 
 two hours it was !" . 
 
 He sat down, and gazed dreamily into his fire for a 
 while, then heaved a sigh and said, — 
 
 " How wonderful it is ! Two little hours ago I was a 
 free man, and now my heart's in San Francisco !" 
 
 About that time Rosannah Ethelton, propped in the 
 window-seat of her bed-d«,mber, book in hand, was gazing 
 vacantly out over the rainy seas that washed the Golden 
 Gate, and whispered to herself, " How different he is 
 from poor Burley, with his empty head and his simple 
 little antic talent of mimicry I" 
 
 n. 
 
 2i^=> 
 
 'OUR weeks later Mr. Sidney AlgemonBurley was en- 
 tertaining a gay luncheon company, in it sumptuous 
 Irawing-room on Telegraph Hill, with some capital imita- 
 dons of the voices and gestures of certain popular actors 
 
 
BLTON. 
 
 ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 99 
 
 97ant to 
 
 iry lone-" 
 it would 
 lat is, ii 
 
 ry. 
 
 Qe, she's 
 ing snow 
 good'hy ! 
 • • • 
 f-winged 
 
 re for a 
 
 I was a 
 
 L in the 
 s gazing 
 
 Golden 
 t he is 
 
 simple 
 
 was en- 
 iptuouff 
 1 imita- 
 r actors' 
 
 and San Franciscan literary people and Bonanza grandees. 
 He was elegantly upholstered, and was a handsome fel- 
 low, barring a trifling cast in his eye. He seemed very 
 jovial, but nevertheless he kept his eye on the door with 
 an expectant and uneasy watchfulness. By and by a 
 nobby lackey appeared, and delivered a message to the 
 mistress, who nodded her head understandingly. That 
 seemed to settle the thing for Mr. Burley ; his vivacity 
 decreased little by little, and a dejected look began to 
 creep into one of his eyes and a sinister one into the 
 other. 
 
 The rest of the company departed in due time, leaving 
 him with the mistress, to whom he said, — 
 
 " There is no longer any question about it. She avoids 
 me. She continually excuses herself. If I could see her, 
 if I could speak to her only a moment, — but this sus- 
 pense." — 
 
 "Perhaps her seeming avoidance is mere accident, Mr. 
 Burley. Go to the small drawing-room up stairs and 
 amuse yourself a moment. I will dispatch a household 
 order that is on my mind, and then I will go to her room. 
 Without doubt she will be persuaded to see you." 
 
 Mr. Burley went up stairs, intending to go to the small 
 Jrawing-room, but as he was passing " Aunt Susan's " 
 private parlour, the door of which stood slightly ajar, he 
 heard a joyous laugh which he recognised ) so without 
 knock or annoimcement he stepped confidently in. But 
 before he could make his presence known he heard words 
 that harrowed up his soul and chilled his young blood. 
 He heard a voice say, — 
 
 " Darling, it has come 1" 
 
100 ALONZO FITZ CLABENCB AKD BOSANNAH ETHELTON. 
 
 M 
 
 Then he heard Bosannah Ethelton, whose Dack was 
 toward hun say, — 
 
 " So has yours, dearest !'* 
 
 He saw her bowed form bend lowe** * he heard her kiss 
 something, — ^not merely once, but again and again ! His 
 soul raged within him. The heart-breaking conversation 
 went on : — 
 
 " Rosannah, I know you must be beautiful, but this ip 
 dazzling, this is blinding, this is intoxicating! " 
 
 " Alonzo, it is such happiness to hear you say it. I 
 know it is not true, but I am so grateful to have you 
 think it is, nevertheless ! I knew you must have a noble 
 face, but the grace and majesty of the reality beggar the 
 poor creation of my fancy." 
 
 Burley heard that rattling shower of kisses again. 
 
 " Thank you, my Rosannah ! The photograph flatters 
 me, but you must not allow yourself to think of that. 
 Sweetheart?" 
 
 " Yes, Alonzo." 
 
 "I am so happy, Bosannah." 
 
 " Oh, Alonzo, none that have gone before me knew 
 what love was, none that come after me will ever know 
 what happiness is. I float in a gorgeous doudland, a 
 boundless firmament of enchanted and bewildering 
 ectascyl" 
 
 " Oh, my Rosannah ! — ^f or you are mine, are you not ? " 
 
 " Wholly, oh, wholly yours, .ilonzo, now and forever I 
 All the day long, and all through my nightly dreams, one 
 song sings itself, and its sweet burden is, * Alonzo Fitz 
 Olarence Alonzo Fitz Clarence, Eastport, State of 
 Maine ! 
 
 If 
 
 Mamn 
 
ALONZO FITZ CIJOtENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 101 
 
 
 *' Curse him, I've got his address, anyway ! " roared 
 Burley, inwardly, and rushed from the place. 
 
 Just behind the unconscious Alonzo stood his mother, 
 a picture of astonishment. She jtras so muffled from head 
 to heel in furs that nothing of herself was visible but hei 
 eyes and nose. She was a good allegory of winter, for 
 she was powdered all over with snow. 
 
 Behind the unconscious Rosannah stood " aunt Susan," 
 another picture of astonishment. She was a good alle- 
 gory of summer, for she was lightly clad, and was vigor- 
 ously cooling the perspiration on her face with a fan. 
 
 Both of these women had tears of joy in their eyes. 
 
 " So ho ! " exclaimed Mrs. Fitz Clarence, " this explains 
 why nobody has been able to drag you out of your room 
 for six weeks, Alonzo ! " 
 
 " So ho 1 " exclaimed aunt Susan, '' this explains why 
 you have been a hermit for the past six weeks, Rosan- 
 nah!" 
 
 The young eouple were on their feet in an instant, 
 abashed, and standing like detec!^ed dealers in stolen goods 
 awaiting Judge Lynch's doom. 
 
 ** Bless you, my son ! I am happy in your happiness. 
 Come to your mother's arms, Alonzo ! " 
 
 ''Bless you, Rosannah, for my dear nepheVs sake! 
 Come to my arms ! " 
 
 Then was there a mingling of hearts and of tean of re- 
 joicing on Telegraph Hill and in Eastport Square. 
 
 Servants were called by the elders, in botL places. 
 Unto one was given the order, " Pile this fire high with 
 hickory wood, and bring me a roasting-hot lemonade." 
 
 Unto the other was given the order, "Put out this fire, 
 
 
102 ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAU JLTHELTON. 
 
 and brin^ me two palm-leaf fans and a pitcher of ice- 
 water." 
 
 Then the young people were dismissed, and the elders 
 sat down to talk the sweet surprise over and make the 
 wedding plans. 
 
 Some minutes before this Mr. Burley rushed from the 
 mansion on Telegraph Hill without meeting or taking 
 formal leave of anybody. He hissed through his teeth, 
 in unconscious imitation of a popular favourite in melo- 
 drama, " Him shall she never wed ! I have sworn it ! 
 Ere great Nature shall have dofied her winter's ermine 
 to don the emerald gauds of spring, she shall be mine ! *' 
 
 III. 
 
 IWO weeks later. Every few hours, during some 
 (3^ three or four days, a very prim and devout-looking 
 Episcopal clergyman with a cast in his eye, had visited 
 Alonzo. According to his card, he was the Rev, Melton 
 Hargrave, of Cincinnati. He said he had retired from 
 the ministry on account of his health. If he had said on 
 account of ill health; he would probably have erred, to 
 judge by his wholesome looks and firm build. He was 
 the inventor of an improvement in telephones, and hoped 
 to make his bread by selling the privilege of using it. 
 " At present " he continued, " a man may go and tap a 
 telegraph wire which is conveying a song or a concert 
 from one State to another, and he can attach his private 
 telephone and steal a hearing of that music as it passes 
 jklong. My invention will stop all that." 
 
 
LION. 
 
 r of ice- 
 
 e eldera 
 lake the 
 
 rom the 
 ' taking 
 is teeth, 
 In melo- 
 7om it! 
 ermine 
 mine!" 
 
 iijf some 
 looking 
 visited 
 Melton 
 3d from 
 said on 
 rred, to 
 Ee was 
 
 hoped 
 sing it. 
 1 tap a 
 concert 
 jrivate 
 
 passes 
 
 ALONZO Fir/ DLABBNOE AND BOSANNAH ETHELTON. 103 
 
 •' Well," answered Alonzo^ " if the owner of the music 
 could not miss what was stolen, why should he Cftre ? " 
 
 " He shouldn't care," said the Reverend. 
 
 " Well ? " said Alonzo, inquiringly. 
 
 " Suppose," replied the Reverend, " suppose that, in- 
 stead of music that was passing along and being stolen, 
 the burden of the wire was loving endearments of the 
 most private and sacred nature ? " 
 
 Alonzo shuddered from head to heel. " Sir, it is a 
 priceless invention," said he ; "I must have it at any 
 cost." 
 
 But the invention was delayed somewhere on the road 
 from Cincinnati, most unaccountably. The impatient 
 Alonzo could hardly wait. The thought of Rosannah's 
 sweet words being shared with him by some ribald thief 
 v^ras galling to him. The Reverend xme frequently and 
 lamented the delay, and told of me; s he had taken 
 bo hurry things up. This was soi . t.tle comfort to 
 Alonzo, 
 
 One forenoon the Reverend ^ascended the stairs and 
 knocked at Alonzo's door. There was no response. He 
 entered, glanced eagerly around, closed the door softly, 
 then ran to the telephone. The exquisitely soft, remote 
 strains of the Sweet By and By came floating through 
 the instrument. The singer was flatting, as usual, the 
 &ve notes that follow the first two in the chorus, when 
 the Reverend interrupted her with this word, in a voice 
 whioh was an exact imitation of Alonzo's, with just the 
 faintest flavour of impatience added, — 
 
 " Sweetheart ? " 
 
 " Yes, Alonzo I " 
 
104 ALONZO FITZ CLABENGE AND ROSANNAH BTHELTON. 
 
 " Please don't sing that any more this week, — try some 
 thing modem." 
 
 The agile step that goes with a happy heart was hearc 
 on the stairs, and the Reverend, smiling diabolically 
 sought sudden refuge behind the heavy folds of the vel 
 vet window curtains. Alonzo entered and flew to th( 
 telephone. Said he, — 
 
 " Rosannah, dear, shall we sing something together ? ' 
 
 ** Something modem i " asked she, with sarcastic bit- 
 terness. 
 
 " Yes, if you prefer." 
 
 " Sing it yourself, if you like ! ** 
 
 This snappishness amazed and wounded the young man 
 He said, — 
 
 " Rosannah, that was not like you." 
 
 " I suppose it becomes me as much as your very polite 
 speech became you, Mr. Fitz Clarence." 
 
 " Mister Fitz Clarence ! Rosannah, there was nothing 
 impolite about my speech." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! Of course, then, I misunderstood you, 
 and I most humbly beg your pardon, ha-ha-ha! No 
 doubt you said, ' Don't sing it any more to-day.* " 
 
 " Sing what any more to-day ? " 
 
 " The song you mentioned, of course. How very obtuse 
 we are, all of a sudden ! " 
 
 " I never mentioned any song." 
 
 •' Oh, you didn't ! " 
 
 '^ No, I didn't!'* 
 
 " I am compelled to remark that you ddd!' 
 
 " And I am obliged to reiterate that I did/nV* 
 
 
roN. 
 some 
 
 hearc 
 lically 
 le vel 
 to tb< 
 
 her?' 
 ;ic bit- 
 
 gman 
 
 polite 
 )thing 
 
 iyou, 
 
 No 
 
 >btu8e 
 
 
 ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND R08ANNAH ETHELTON. 105 
 
 " A second rudeness I Tbat is sufficient, sir. I will 
 never forgive you. All is over between us." 
 
 Tben came a muffled sound of crying. Alonzo hastened 
 to say,— 
 
 " Oh, Rosannah, unsay those words ! There is some 
 dreadful mistery here, some hideous mistake. I am ut- 
 terly earnest and sincere when I say I never said anything 
 about any song. I would not hurt you for the whole 
 world . . . Rosannah, dear ? . . . Oh, speak to me, won't 
 you 1 " 
 
 There waa a pause ; then Alonzo heard the girl's sob> 
 bings retreating, and knew she had gone from the tele- 
 phone. He rose with a heavy sigh and hastened from 
 the room, saying to himself, " I will ransack the charity 
 missions and the haunts of the poor for my mother. She 
 will peiisuade her that I never meant to wound her." 
 
 A minute later, the Reverend was crouching over the 
 telephone like a cat that knoweth the ways of the prey. 
 He had not very many minutes to wait. A soft, repen- 
 tant voice, tremulous with tears, said, — 
 
 " Alonzo, dear, I have been wrong. You could not have 
 said so cruel a thing. It must have been some one who 
 imitated your voice in malice or in jest." 
 
 The Reverend coldly answered, in .AJonzo's tones, — 
 
 " You have said all was over between us, So let it be. 
 I spurn your proffered repentance, and despise it ! " 
 
 Then he departed, radiant with fiendish triumph, to 
 return no more with his imaginary telephonic invention 
 forever. 
 
 Four hours afterward, Alonzo arrived with his mother 
 from her favourite haunts of poverty and vice. They, 
 
 y 
 
106 AliONZO FITZ CLABENCE AND BOSANNAH ETHELTON. 
 
 summoned the San Francisco household ; but there was 
 no reply. They waited, and continued to wait, upon the 
 voiceless telephone. 
 
 At length, when it was sunset in San Francisco, and 
 three hours and a half after dark in Eastport, an answer 
 came to the oft-repeated cry of " Rosannah ! " 
 
 But, alas, it was aunt Susan's voice that spake. She 
 said, — 
 
 " I have been out all day ; just got in. I will go and 
 find her." 
 
 The watchers waited two minutes — five minutes — ^ten 
 minutes. Then came these fatal words, in a frightened 
 tone, — 
 
 '•' She is gone, and her baggage with her. To visit an- 
 other friend, she told the servants. But I found this note 
 on the table in her room. Listen : ' I am gone ; seek not 
 to trace me out ; my heai-t is broken ; you will never see 
 me more. Tell him I shall always think of him when I 
 sing my poor Sweet By and By, but never of the unkind 
 words he said about it.' That is her note. Alonzo, Al- 
 onzo, what does it mean ? What has happened ? " 
 
 But Alonzo sat white and cold as the dead. His mother 
 threw back the velvet curtains and opened a window. 
 The cold air refreshed the sufferer, and he told his aunt 
 his dismal story. Meantime his mother was inspecting 
 a card which had disclosed itself upon the floor when she 
 cast the curtains back. It read, " Mr. Sidney Algemoon 
 Burley, San Francisco." 
 
 " The miscreant ! " shouted Alonzo, and rushed forth to 
 seek the false Reverend and destroy him; for the card ex- 
 plained everything!:, since in the course of the lovers' mu- 
 
She 
 
 ALONZO FITZ CLABENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 107 
 
 tual confessions they had told each other all about all the 
 sweethearts they had ever h- \ and thrown no end of mud 
 at their failings and foibles, — ^for lovers always do that. 
 It has a fascination that ranks next after billing and 
 cooing. 
 
 IV. 
 
 During the next two months, many things happened- 
 It had early transpired that Rosannah, poor suffering or- 
 phan, had neither returned to her grandmother in Portland, 
 Oregon, nor sent any word to her save a duplicate of the 
 woful note she had left in the mansion on Telegraph Hill. 
 Whosoever was sheltering her — if she was still alive — 
 had been persuaded not to betray her whereabouts, with- 
 out doubt ; for all efforts to find trace of her had failed. 
 
 Did Alonzo give her up ? Not he. He said to himself, 
 " She will sing that sweet song when she is sad ; I shall 
 find her." So he took his carpet sack and a portable tele- 
 phone, and shook the snow of his native city from his 
 arctics, and went forth into the world. He wandered far 
 and wide and in many States. Time and again, strangers 
 were astounded to see a wasted, pale, and woe-worn man 
 laboriously climb a telegraph pole in wintry and lonely 
 places, perch sadly there an hour, with his ear at a little 
 box, then come sighing down, and wander wearily away. 
 Sometimes they shot at him, as peasants do at aeronauts, 
 thinking him mad and dangerous. Thus his clothes were 
 much shredded by bullets and his person grievously lacer- 
 ated. But he bore it all patiently. 
 
 In the beginning of his pilgrimage he used often to say, 
 "Ah, if I could but hear the Sweet By and By I " But to- 
 
108 ALONZO FITZ CLABANCE AND ROSAKNAH ETHILTON. 
 
 ward the end of it he used to shed teaxs of anguish and 
 say, " Ah, if I could but hear something else! " 
 
 Thus a month and three weeks drifted by, and at last 
 some humane people seized him [and confined him in a 
 private mad-house in If ew York, He made no moan, for 
 his strength was all gone, and with it all heart and all 
 hope. The superintendent, in pity, gave up his own com- 
 fortable parlour and bed-chamber to him and nursed him 
 with allectionate devotion. 
 
 At the end of a week the patient was able to leave his 
 bed for the first time. He was lying, comfortably pillowed 
 on a sofa, listening to the plaintive Miserere of the bleak 
 March winds, and the muffled sound of tramping feet in 
 the street below, — ^for it was about siz in the evening, 
 and New York was going home from work. He had a 
 bright fire, and the added cheer of a couple of student 
 lamps. So it was warm and snug within, though bleak and 
 raw without; it was light and bright within though out- 
 side it was dark and dreary as if the world had been lit 
 with Hartford gas. Alonzo smiled feebly to think how his 
 loving vagaries had made him a maniac in the eyes of the 
 world, and was proceeding to pursue his line of thought 
 further, when a faint, sweet strain, the very ghost of 
 sound, so remote and attenuated it seemed, struck upon 
 his ear. His pulses stood still ; he listened with parted 
 lips and bated breath. The song flowed on, — ^he waiting, 
 listening, rising slowly and unconsciously from his recum- 
 bent position. At last he exclaimed, — 
 " It is ! it is she ! Oh, the divine flatted notes ) " 
 He dragged himself eagerly to the comer whence the 
 sounds proceeded, tore aside a curtain, and discovered a' 
 
 ^ 
 
 I 
 
LTON. 
 
 ish and 
 
 I at last 
 im in a 
 oan, for 
 and all 
 mcom- 
 }ed him 
 
 avehis 
 
 llowed 
 
 e bleak 
 
 feet in 
 
 vening, 
 
 3 had a 
 
 itndent 
 
 akand 
 
 jh out- 
 
 een lit 
 
 owhis 
 
 of the 
 
 lought 
 
 ost of 
 
 : upon 
 
 parted 
 
 aiting, 
 
 ecum- 
 
 ie the 
 Died a' 
 
 
 ALONZO FITZ CLABENCE AND BOSANNAH ETHBLTON. 109 
 
 telephone. He bent over, and as the last note died away 
 he burst forth with the exclamation, — 
 
 " Oh, thank Heaven, found at last ! Speak to me, Ro- 
 sannah, dearest ! The cruel mystery has been unraveled 
 it was the villain Burley who mimicked my voice and 
 wounded you with insolent speech, i " 
 
 There was a breathless pause, a waiting age to Alonzo 
 then a faint sound came, framing itself into language, — 
 
 " Oh, say those precious words again, Alonzo ! " 
 
 " They are the truth, the veiitable truth, my Rosannali, 
 and you shall have the proof, ample and abundant proof!" 
 
 " Oh, Alonzo, stay by me I Leave me not for a mo- 
 ment ! Let me feel that you are near me ! Ti'U me we 
 shall never be parted more ! Oh, this happy hour, this 
 blessed hour, this memorable hour ! " 
 
 " We will make record of it, my Bosannah ; every yeai . 
 as this dear hour chimes from the clock, we will celebrate 
 it with thanksgivings, aD the years of our life." 
 
 " We will, we will Alonzo ! " 
 
 " Four minutes after six, in the evening, my Kosannah, 
 shall hencef ortli " — 
 
 " Twenty-three minutes after twelve, afternoon, shall " — 
 
 " Why, Rosanuah, darling, where aie you ? " 
 
 " In Honolulu, Sandwich Islands. And where are you? 
 Stay by me ; do not leave me for a moment. I cannot 
 bear it- Are you at home ? " 
 
 " No, dear, I am in New V ork,— a patient in the doctor's 
 hands." 
 
 An agonizing shriek came buzzing to Alonzo's ear, like 
 tlie shai'p buzzing of a hurt gnat; it lost power in tiavel- 
 ling five thousand miles. Alonzo hastened to say, — 
 
110 ALONZO FITZ CLABBNCE AND ROSANNAH ETHBLTON. 
 
 ! 
 
 " Calm yourself , my child. It is nothing. Already! 
 am getting well under the sweet healing of your presence. 
 Rosannah ? " 
 
 " Yes, Alonzo ? Oh, how you terrified me ! Say on." 
 
 " Name the happy day, Rosannah ! " 
 
 There was a little pause. Then a diffident small voice 
 replied, " I blush — ^but it is with pleasure, it is with hap- 
 piness. Would — ^woidd you like to have it soon ? " 
 
 " This very night, Rosannah ! Oh, let us risk no more 
 delays. Let it be now ! — ^this very right, this very mo- 
 ment ! " 
 
 " Oh, you impatient creatu e ! I have nobody here but 
 my g«od old uncle, a missionary for a generation, and now 
 retired from service, — nobody but him and his wife. I 
 would so dearly like it if your mother and your aunt 
 Susan " — 
 
 " Our mother and ov/r aunt Susan, my Rosannah." 
 
 " Yes, ov/r mother and our aunt Susan, — I am content 
 to word it so if it pleases you ; J would so like to have 
 them present." 
 
 " So would I. Suppose you telegraph aunt Susan. How 
 long would it take her to come ? " 
 
 " The steamer leaves San Francisco day after to-mor- 
 row. The passage is eight days. She would be here the 
 Slot of March." 
 
 '' Then name the 1st of April : do, Rosannah, dear." 
 
 " Mercy, it would make us April fools, Alonzo 1 " 
 
 " So we be the Iiappiest ones that that day's sun looks 
 down upon in the whole broad expanse of the ^lobe, why 
 ueed we care ? Call it the 1st of April, dear," 
 
 
 
 It 
 
 u 
 tt 
 
 or 
 tt 
 
 t. 
 
ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHLETt)N. Ill 
 
 II 
 
 >»■ 
 
 ooks 
 why 
 
 
 " Then the 1st of April it shall be, with all my heart ! " 
 " Oh, happiness ! Name the hour, too, Rosamiah." 
 " I liko the morning, it is so blithe. Will eight in the 
 (noming do, Alonzo ! " 
 " The loveliest hour in the day, — since it will make you 
 
 II 
 
 mine. 
 
 There was a feeble but frantic sound for some little time, 
 as if wool-lipped, disembodied spirits were exchanging 
 kisses ; then Rosannah said, " Excuse me just a moment, 
 dear; Ihave an appointment, and am called to meet it." 
 
 The young girl sought a large parlor and took her place 
 at a window which looked out upon a beautiful scene. To 
 the left one could view the charming Nuuana Valley, 
 fringed with its ruddy flush of tropical flowers and its 
 plumed and graceful cocoa palms; its rising foothills 
 clothed in the shining green of lemon, citron, and orange 
 groves ; its storied precipice beyond, where the first Kame- 
 hameha drove his defeated foes over to their destruction, 
 — ^a spot that had forgotten its grim history, no doubt, for 
 now it was smiling, as almost always at noonday, under 
 the glowing arches of a succession of rainbows. In front 
 of the window one could see the quaint town, and here 
 and there a picturesque group of dusky natives, enjoying 
 the blistering weather ; and far to the right lay the rest- 
 less ocean, tossing its white mane in the sunshine. 
 
 Rosannah stood there, in her filmy white raiment, fan- 
 ning her flushed and heated face, waiting. A Kanaka boy, 
 clothed in a damaged blue neck-tie and part of a silk hat, 
 thrust his head in at the door, and announced, " 'Frisco 
 haole I" 
 
 " Show him in," said the girl^ straightening herself up 
 
I 1 
 
 112 iXONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 
 
 and assuming a meaning dignity. Mr. Sidney Algernon), 
 Burley entered, clad from head to heel in dazzling snow, 
 — ^that is to say, in the lightest and whitest of Irish linen. 
 He moved eagerly forward, hut the gu-l made a gesture 
 and gave him a look which checked him suddenly. She 
 said, coldly, " I am here, as I promised. I helieved youi 
 assertions, I yielded to your importunities, and said I 
 would name the day. I name the 1st of April, — eight in 
 the morning. Now go." 
 " Oh, my dearest, if the gratitude of a life-time " — 
 " Not a word. Spare me all sight of you,all communica- 
 tion with you, until that houi'. No, — ^no supplications ; I 
 will have it so." 
 
 When he was gone, she sank exhausted in a chair, for 
 tlie long siege of troubles she had undergone had wasted 
 her strength. Presently she said, " What a narrow escape ! 
 If the hour appointed had been an hour earlier— Oh, 
 horror, what an escape I have made ! And to think I had 
 come to imagine I was loving this beguiling, this truthless, 
 this treacherous monster 1 Oh, he shall repent his 
 villainy 1 " 
 
 Let us now draw this history to a close, for little more 
 needs to be told. On the 2nd of the ensuing April, the 
 Honolula Advertiser contained this notice •— 
 
 Married. — In this city, by telephone, yesterday morn- 
 ing, at eight o'clock, by Rev. Nathan Hays, assisted by 
 Rev. Nathaniel Davis, of New York, Mr. Alonzo Fitz| 
 Clarence, of Eastport, Maine, U. S., and Miss Rosannah 
 Ethelton, of Portland, Oregon, U. S. Mrs. Susan How- 
 
ELTON. 
 
 dgemoj?, 
 ng snow, 
 ish linen. 
 I gesture 
 ly. She 
 v^ed youi 
 i said I 
 -eight in 
 
 »»» 
 
 imunica- 
 ations ; I 
 
 chair, for 
 i wasted 
 r escape ! 
 ier— Oh, 
 ik I had 
 thless, 
 ent his 
 
 tic more 
 )ril, the 
 
 morn- 
 sted by 
 so Fitz' 
 Isannah 
 
 How- 
 
 
 ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 113 
 
 land, of San Francis 20, a friend of the bride, was present, 
 she being the guest of the Eev. Mr. Hays and wife, uncle 
 and aunt of the bride. Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley, of 
 San Francisco, was also present, but did not remain till 
 the conclusion of the marriage service. Captain Haw- 
 thorne's beautiful yacht, tastefully decorated, was in wait- 
 ing, and the happy bride and her friends unmediately de- 
 parted on a bridal trip to Lahaina and Haleakala. 
 
 The New York papers of the same date contained this 
 notice : — 
 
 Married. — In this city, yesterday, by telephone, at 
 half past two in the morning, by Rev. Nathaniel Davis, 
 assisted by Rev. Nathan Hays, of Honolulu, Mr. Alonzo 
 Fitz Clarence, of Eastport, Maine, and Miss Rosanna 
 Ethelton, of Portland, Oregon. The parents and several 
 friends of the bridegroom were present, and enjoyed a 
 sumptous breakfast and much festivity until nearly sun- 
 rise, and then departed on a bridal trip to the Aquarium, 
 the bridegroom's state of health not admitting of a more 
 extended journey. 
 
 Toward the close of that memorable day, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Alonzo Fitz Clarence were buried in sweet converse con- 
 cerning the pleasures of their several bridal tours, when 
 suddenly the young wife exclaimed : " 0, Lonny, I forgot! 
 I did what I said I would." 
 
 " Did you, dear ? " 
 
 " Indeed I did. I made hvm the April fool ! And I 
 told him so, too I Ah, it was a charming surprise I There 
 
|i 
 
 .> 
 
 114 ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON. 
 
 he stood, sweltering in a black dress suit, with the mer- 
 cury leaking out of tho top of the thermometer, waiting 
 to be inarriecl. You should have seen the look he gave 
 when I whispered it in his ear! Ah, his wickedness cost 
 W& many a heartache and many a tear, but the score was 
 all squared up, then. So the vengeful feeling went right 
 out of my heart, and I begged him to stay, and said I for- 
 gave him everything. But he wouldn't. He said he 
 would live to be avenged ; said he would make our lives 
 a curse to us : But he can't, cnn he, doar ? " 
 " Never in this world, my Rosannah ! " 
 
 Aunt Susan, the Oregonian grandmother, and the young 
 couple and their Eastport parents are all happy at this 
 writing, and likely to remain so. Aimt Susan brought 
 the bride from the Islands, accompanied her across oi:r 
 1^ continent, and had the happiness of witnessing the rap- 
 turous meeting between on adoring husband and wife 
 who had never seen each other until that moment. 
 
 A word about the wretched Burley, whose wicked 
 machinations came so near wrecking the hearts and lives 
 of our poor young friends, will be sufficient. In a mur- 
 derous attempt to seize a crippled and helpless artisan 
 who he fancied had done him some small offence, he fell 
 into a caldron of boiling oil and expired before he could 
 be extinguished. 
 
BSLTON. 
 
 the mer- 
 , waiting 
 
 he gave 
 aess cost 
 core was 
 3nt right 
 id I for- 
 
 said he 
 our lives 
 
 le young 
 y at this 
 brought 
 ross oi:r 
 the rap- 
 nd wife 
 t. 
 
 wicked 
 nd lives 
 > a mur- 
 
 artisan 
 , he fell ' 
 
 e could 
 
 
 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 REPEATED WOBD FOB WORD AS X HEARD IT. 
 
 |T was summer time, and twilight We were sitting 
 on the porch of tbc farm-house, on the summit ol 
 the hill, and " Aunt Rachel ' was sitting respectfully be- 
 low our level, on the steps, — for she was our servant, and 
 coloured. She was of mighty frame and stature; she 
 was sixty years old, but her eye was undimmed and her 
 strength unabated. She was a cheerful, hearty soul, and 
 it was no more trouble for her to laugh than it is for a 
 bird to sing. She was under fire, now, as usual when 
 the day was done That is to say, she was being chaffed 
 without mercy, and was enjoying it. She would let off 
 peal after peal of laughter, and then sit with her face in 
 her hands and shake with throes of enjoyment which she 
 could no longer get breath enough to express. At such a 
 momen\i as this a thought occurred to me, and I said : — 
 
 " Aunt Rachel, how is it that youVe lived sixty years 
 and never had any trouble." 
 
 She stopped quaking. She paused, and there was a 
 moment of silence. She turned her face over her shoul- 
 der toward me, and said, without even a smile on her 
 voice : — 
 
 " Misto C , is you in 'arnest ? " 
 
 It surprised me a good deal ; and it sobered my man- 
 ner and my speech, too. I said : — 
 
 " Why, I thought — ^that is, I meant — why, you oem't 
 
 ' ii 
 
116 
 
 ▲ TRUE STOAY. 
 
 i 
 
 W i^ 
 
 have had any troi^Me. I've never heard you sigh, and 
 never seen your eye when there wasn't a laugh in it " 
 
 She faced fairly around, now, and was full of earnest- 
 ness. 
 
 " Has I had any trouble ? h. ksto C , I's gy wne to 
 
 te'l you, den I leave it to you. I was bawn down 'mongst 
 de slaves ; I knows all 'bout slavery case I ben one of 
 'cm my own se'f. Well, sah, my olo man — dat's my bus- 
 bar/ — he was lovin* an' kind to me, jist as kind as you is 
 to yo own wife. An' we had chil'en — seven chil'en — an' 
 we loved dem chil'en jist de same as you loves yo' chil'en 
 Dey was black, but de Lord can t make no chil'en so 
 black but what dey mother loves em an' wouldn't give 
 'em up, no, not for anything dat's in dis whole world. 
 
 " Well sah, I was raised in old Fo'ginny, but my mother 
 she was raised in Maryland ; an' my souls ! she was tur- 
 riblo when she'd git started I My Ian' ! but she'd make 
 de fur fly When she'd git into dem tantrums, she al- 
 ways had one word dat she said. She'd straighten herse'i 
 up an' put her fists in her hips an' say, ' I want you to 
 understan' dat I wa'nt bawn in the mash to be fool' by 
 trash I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, / is ! * 
 'Ca'se, you see, dat's what folks dat's bawn in Maryland 
 calls deyseives, an' dey's proud of it. Well, dat was her 
 word. I don't ever forgit it, beca'se she said it so much, 
 an' beca'se she said it one day when my little Henry tore 
 his wris' awful, and most busted his head, right up at de 
 top of his forehead, an' de niggers didn't fly aroun' fas' 
 enough to 'tend to him. An' when dey talk' back at her, 
 she up an' she says, 'Look-aheah!' she says, 'I want 
 you niggers to underatan' dat I wa'nt bawn in de mash 
 
 cl 
 
 d 
 
 dl 
 d 
 
 111 
 tl 
 
A TUUE STORY. 
 
 117 
 
 sigh, and 
 in it " 
 I earnest- 
 
 ly wne to 
 
 1 'mongst 
 
 3n one of 
 
 my hus- 
 
 as you is 
 
 I'en — an' 
 
 y chil'en 
 
 ihil'en so 
 
 in't give 
 
 ^orld. 
 
 7 mother 
 
 was tur- 
 
 'd make 
 
 , she al- 
 
 1 herse'i 
 
 ; you to 
 
 fool' by 
 
 /is!' 
 
 iryland 
 
 vas her 
 
 » much, 
 
 ry tore 
 
 ) at de 
 
 an* fas* 
 
 at her, 
 
 want 
 
 mash 
 
 to be fool' by trash ? Fs one o* de ole Blue Hen's Chick- 
 ens, /is ! ' an' den she clar* dat kitchen and bandage' up 
 de chile herse'f. So I says dat word, too, when I's riled. 
 
 " Well, bymeby my ole mistis says she's broke, an* she's 
 got to sell all de niggers on de place. An' when I heali 
 dat dey gwyne to sell us all off at oction in Ichmon', oh 
 de good gracious ! I know what dat mean 1 " 
 
 Aimt Rachel had gradually risen, while she t rmed to 
 her subject, and now she towered above us, black against 
 the stars. 
 
 " Dey put chains on us an* put us on a stan* as high as 
 dis po*ch, — ^twenty foot high, — an' all de people stood 
 aroun' crowds an' crowds. An' dey'd come up dah an 
 look at us all roun', an' squeeze our arm, an' make us git 
 up an' walk an' den say, ' Dis one too ole,' or ' Dis one 
 lame,* or * Dis one don't 'mount to much.* An' dey sole 
 my ole man, an' took him away, an' dey begin to sell my 
 chil'en an' take dem away, an' I begin to cry ; an' de m&u. 
 "say, ' Shet up yo* dam blubberin',' an' hit me on de mouf 
 wid his han'. An' when de las' one was gone but my litue 
 Henry, I grab' him clost up to my breast so, an' I ris up 
 an' says, ' You shan't take him away,' I says ; ' I kill de 
 man dat tetches him ! ' I says. But my little Henry, whis- 
 per an' say, ' I gwyne to run away, an' den I work an' buy 
 yo' freedom.* 0, bless de chile, he always so good ! But 
 dey got him — dey got him, de men did ; but I took and 
 tear de clo*es most' v ff of *em an' beat \m over de head 
 wid my chain ; an* dey give it to me, too, but I didn't 
 mine dat. 
 
 " Well, dah was my ole man gone, an' all my chil'en, all 
 my sevea chil'en — ^an' six of 'em I hain't set eyes on ag'in 
 
118 
 
 A TRUE 8T0RT. 
 
 to dis day, an' dat's twenty-two ye&r ago las' Easter. Dt 
 man dat bought me b'long' in Newbern, an' he took me 
 dah. Well, bymeby de years roll on an* de waw come. 
 My marster he was a Go*;fedrit colonel, an' I was his fam- 
 ily's cook So when de Unions took dat town, dey all 
 run away an' lef me all by myse'f wid de other niggers 
 in dat monr'us big house. So de big Union officers move 
 in dah, an' dey ask me would I cook for dem. ' Lord 
 bless you,' says I, ' dat's what I's /(yr* 
 
 " Dey wa'nt no small-fry officers, mine you, dey was de 
 biggest de}' ia ; an' de way dey made dem sojers mosey 
 roun' ! De Qen'l he tole me to boss dat kitchen ; an' he 
 says, ' If anybody come meddlin' wid you, you jist make 
 em' walk chalk ; don't you be afeared/ he says ; * you's 
 'mong frens, now.' 
 
 " Well, I thinks to myse'f, if my little Henry ever got 
 a chance to run away, he'd make to de Norf,o' course. So 
 one day I comes in dah whar de big officers was, in de par- 
 lor, an' I drops a kurtchy, so, an' I up an' tole *em 'bout 
 my Henry, dey a-listening to my troubles jist de same as 
 if I was white folks ; an' I says, ' What I come for is be- 
 ca'se if he got away and gon' up Norf whar you gemmen 
 comes from, you might 'a' seen him, maybe, an' could tell 
 me so as I could fine him ag'in; he was very little, an' he 
 had a sk-yar on his lef wris' an' at de top of his forehead.' 
 Den dey look mournful, an' de Qen'l say, ' How long sence 
 you los' him ? ' an' I say, * Thirteen year.' Den de Qen'l 
 say, * He wouldn't be little no mo', now — ^he's a man ! ' 
 
 " I never thought o' dat bef o' ! He was only dat little 
 feller to me, yit. I never thought 'bout him growin' up 
 an' bein' big. But I see it den. None o' de gemmen had 
 
A TRUE STORY. 
 
 i8t€r. Bt 
 took me 
 'aw come. 
 B his fam- 
 D, dey all 
 r niggers 
 :ers move 
 i. ' Lord 
 
 »y was de 
 rs mosey 
 1 ; an' he 
 jist make 
 b; 'you's 
 
 ever got 
 mrse. So 
 n de par- 
 em 'bout 
 same as 
 'or is be- 
 gemmen 
 ould tell 
 >, an' he 
 )rehead.' 
 ng sence 
 de Qen'l 
 an!' 
 at little 
 •win' up 
 nen had 
 
 run acrost him, so dey couldn't do nothin' for me. But alJ 
 dat time, do' / didn't know it, my Henry was run off to 
 de Norf, years an' years, an' he was a barber, too, an' 
 upe an' he says : ' I's done barberin',' he says, * Is gwyne 
 to fine my ole mammy, less'n she's dead.' So ho stole out 
 an' went to whar dey was recruitin', an' hired hisse'f out to 
 de colonel for his servant ; an' den he went all f roo de 
 battles everywhah, huntin' for his ole mammy ; yes in- 
 leed}^ he'd hire to fust one officer an' den another, tell 
 led ransacked de whole Souf; but you see /didn't know 
 nuffin 'bout dia. How was / gwyne to know it. 
 
 " Well, one night we had a big sojer ball ; de sojers 
 dah at Newbem was always havin' balls an* can*yin' on. 
 Dey had 'em in my kitchen, heaps o' times, 'ca'se it was 
 so big Mine you, I was down on sich doin's ; beca'se my 
 piace was wid de officers, an' it rasp me to have dem com- 
 mon sojers cavortin' roan my kitchen like dat. But I 
 alway' stood aroun' an' kep' thmgs straight, I did ; an' 
 sometimes dey'd git my dander up, an' den I'd make 'em 
 dar dat kitchen, mine I tell you I 
 
 " Well, one night — ^it was a Friday night — dey comes a 
 whole plattoon f m a nigger ridgment dat was on guard 
 at de house, — de house was headquarters, you know, — an' 
 den I was jist a hilin' ! Mad ? I was jist Si-boonmn* ! I 
 swelled aroun , an' swelled aroun' ; I jist was a-itching' 
 for 'em to do somefin for to start me. An' dey was a- 
 waltzing an' a-dancin' ! my ! but dey was havin* a time ! 
 an' I jist a-swellm' an' a-swellin' up Pooty soon, 'long 
 comes sich a spruce young nigger a-sailin* down de room 
 wid a yaller wench roun* de wais' ; an' roun' an' roun' an' 
 roun' dey went, enough to make a body drunk to look at 
 
120 
 
 A TEUE STOEY. 
 
 h i 
 
 i 
 
 em* ; an' when dey got abreas' o' me, dey went to kin' o* 
 balancin' aroun' fust on one leg an' aen on t'other, an', 
 smilin' J my big red turban, an' makin' fun, an' I ups an' 
 say Git along wid you ! — ^rubbage ! ' De young man's 
 face kin' o' changed, all of a sudden, for bout second, 
 but den he went to smilm' ag'in, same as he was befo'. 
 Well, 'bout dis time, in comes some niggers dat played 
 music and b'long' to de ban', an' dey Tiever .ould get along 
 widout puttm' on airs. An' de very fust ar dey put on 
 dat night, I lit into 'em ! Dey laughed, an* dat made me 
 wuss. De res' o' de niggers got to laughm' an' den my 
 soul alive but I was hot ! My eye was jist a blazin' ! I 
 jist straightened myself up, so,— jist as I is now, plum to 
 de ceilin', mos', — an' I digs my fists into my hips, an' I 
 says, * Look-a-heah ! ' I says, * I want you niggers to under- 
 stan' dat I wa'nt bawn in de mash to be fool' by trash ! I's 
 one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, / is ! ' an' den I see dat 
 young man stan' a-starin' an' stiff, lookin' kin' o' up at de 
 ceilin' like he fo'got somefin, an' couldn't 'member it no mo'. 
 Well, I jist march' on dem niggers, — so, lookin' like a gen'l, 
 — an' dey jist cave' away befo' me an' out at de do'. An' 
 as dis young man was a-goin' out, I heah him say to 
 another nigger, ' Jim, he says, * you go 'long an' tell de 
 cap'n I be on han' 'bout eight oclock in de mawnin* ; dey's 
 somefin' on my mine, lie says ; I don't sleep no mo' dis 
 night. You go 'long, he says, ' an leave me by my own 
 se'f.' 
 
 " Dis was 'bout one o'clock in de mawnin' Well, 'bout 
 seven, I was up an' on han' gettin' de ofiieors' breakfast. 
 I was a-stoopin' down by de stove, — jist so, same as if yo* 
 foot was de stove, — ^an' I'd opened de stove do' wid my 
 
 >?*.> 
 
A TRUE STORY. 
 
 to kin' o' 
 other, an*, 
 ' I ups an' 
 ang man's 
 second, 
 was bef o*. 
 it played 
 get along 
 jy put on 
 made me 
 
 den my 
 azm' ! I 
 
 plum to 
 ps, an' I 
 to under- 
 •ash ! I's 
 I see dat 
 up at de 
 t no mo*. 
 Jagen'l, 
 o'. An' 
 
 say to 
 
 tell de 
 i' ; dey's 
 mo' dis 
 [ly own 
 
 121 
 
 right han', — so, pushin'it back, jist as I pushes yo* foot, — 
 an' I'd jist got de pan o hot biscuits in my han' an* was 
 'bout to raise up, when I see a black face come aroun' 
 under mine, an' de eyes a-lookm' into mine jist as I's 
 a-lookin' up clost under yo face now; an' I jist stopped 
 7'ight dah, an' never budged 1 jist gazed, an' gazed, so • 
 an* de pan begin to tremble, an' all of a sudden I 
 kTWwed! De pan drop' on de flo* an' I grab his lef 
 han' an' shove back his sleeve, — jist so, as I's doin' to you, 
 — an' den I goes for his forebear' an' push de hair back so, 
 an' ' Boy ! ' I says, 'if you an't my Henry, what is you 
 doin' wid dis welt on yo' wris* an' dat sk-yar on yo* fore- 
 head ? De Lord God ob heaven be praise', I got my own 
 ag*in I * 
 " 0, no, Miflto C 1 1 hain't had no ti*oubJe. An' no 
 
 11, 'bout 
 jakfast. 
 s if yo' 
 leid my 
 

 I i 
 
 THE CANVASSER'S TALE. 
 
 I OOP, odd- eyed stranger ! There was that about his 
 humble mien, his tired look, his decayed-gentility 
 clothes, that almost reached the mustard-seed of charity 
 that still remained, remote and lonely, in the empty vast- 
 ness of my heart, notwithstanding I observed a portfolio 
 under his arm, and said to myself. Behold, Providence 
 hath delivered his servant into the hands of another can- 
 vasser. 
 
 Well, these people always get one interested. Before I 
 well knew how it came about, this one was telling me his 
 history, and I was all attention and sympathy. He told 
 it something like this : 
 
 My parents died, alas, when I was a little sinless child. 
 My Uncle Ithuriel took me to his heart and reared me as 
 Lis own. He was my only relative in the wide world ; 
 but he was good and rich and generous. He reared me 
 in the lap of luxury. I knew no want that money could 
 satisfy. 
 
 In the fulness of time I was graduated, and went with 
 two of my servants — my chamberlain and my valet — ^to 
 travel in foreign countries During four years 1 flitted 
 upon careless wing amid the beauteous gardens of the dis- 
 tant strand, if you will permit this form of speech in one 
 whose tongue was ever attuned to poesy ; and indeed I so 
 speak with confidence, as one unto his kind, for I perceive 
 
 1 
 
THE CANVASSEll'S TALE. 
 
 123 
 
 <• 
 
 about his 
 gentility 
 •f charity 
 pty vast- 
 portfoho 
 evidence 
 her can- 
 Before I 
 ? me his 
 He told 
 
 ss child, 
 d meas 
 world ; 
 Lred me 
 y could 
 
 it with 
 let — to 
 flitted 
 he dis- 
 in one 
 ediso 
 rceive 
 
 by your eyes that you too, sir, are gifted with the divine 
 inflation. In those far lands I revelled in the ambrosial 
 food that fructifles the soul, the mind, the heart. But of 
 all things, that which most appealed to my inborn sBsthe- 
 tic taste was tlie prevailing custom there, among the rich, 
 of making collections of elegant and costly rarities, dainty 
 ohjeta de vertu, and in an evil hour I tried to uplift my 
 Uncle Ithuriel to a plane of sympathy with this exquisite 
 employment. 
 
 I wrote and told him of one gentleman's vast collection 
 of shells ; another's noble collection of meerschaum pipes; 
 another's elevating and reflning collection of undecipher- 
 able autographs ; another's priceless collection of old china; 
 another's enchanting collection of postage-stamps — and so 
 forth and so on. Soon my letters yielded fruit. My uncle 
 began to look about for something to make a collection 
 of. You may know, perhaps, how fleetly a taste like this 
 dilates. His soon became a raging fever, though I knew 
 it not. He began to neglect his great pork business ; 
 presently he wholly retired and turned an elegant leisure 
 into a rapid search for curious things. His wealth was 
 vast, and he spared it not. First he tried cow-bells. He 
 made a collection which filled five large salons, and com- 
 prehended all the difierent sorts of cow-bells that ever 
 had been contrived, save one. That one — an antique, and 
 the only specimen extant — was possessed by another col- 
 lector. My uncle offered enormous sums for it, but the 
 gentleman would not sell. Doubtless you know what 
 necessarily resulted. A true collector attaches no value 
 to a collection that is not complete. His great h^trt 
 
124 
 
 1 1 
 
 THE CANVASSEB S TALE. 
 
 breaks, he sells his hoard, he turns his mind to some field 
 that seems unoccupied. 
 
 Thus did my uncle. He next tried brickbats. After 
 piling up a vast and intensely interesting collection, the 
 former difficulty supervened ; his great heart broke again ; 
 he sold out his soul's idol to the retired brewer who pos- 
 sessed the missing brick. Then he tried flint hatchets 
 and other implements of Primeval Man, but by and by 
 discovered that the factory where they were made was 
 supplying other collectors as well as himself. He tried 
 Aztec inscriptions and stuffed whales — ^another failure, 
 after incredible labour and expense. When his collection 
 seemed at last perfect, a stuffed whale arrived from Green- 
 land and an Aztec inscription from the Cundurango re- 
 gions of Central America that made all former specimens 
 insignificant. My uncle hastened to secure these noble 
 gems. He got the stuffed whale, but another collector 
 got the inscription. A real Cundurango, as possibly you 
 know, is a possession of such supreme value that, 
 when once a collector gets it, he will rather part with his 
 family than with it. So my uncle sold out, and saw his 
 darlings go forth, never more to return; and his coal- 
 black hair turned white as snow in a single night. 
 
 Now he waited and thought. He knew another disap- 
 pointment might kill him. He was resolved that he 
 would choose things next time that no other man was 
 collecting. He carefully made up his mind, and once more 
 entered the field — this time to make a collection of echoes. 
 
 " Of what ? " said I. 
 
 Echoes, sir. His first purchase was an echo in Georgia 
 that repeated four times ; his next was a six-repeater in 
 
.y. 
 
 THE CANVASSER S TALE. 
 
 125 
 
 some field 
 
 bs. After 
 ction, the 
 ke again ; 
 who pos- 
 ) hatchets 
 >y and by 
 nade was 
 He tried 
 r failure, 
 3ollection 
 m Qreen- 
 rango re- 
 3ecimens 
 >se noble 
 collector 
 ibly you 
 le that, 
 with his 
 saw his 
 is coal- 
 
 • 
 
 ' disap- 
 )hat he 
 an was 
 emore 
 echoes. 
 
 Georgia 
 a-ter in 
 
 . 
 
 filaiyland; his next was a thirteen-repeater in Maine ; his 
 next was a nine-repeater in Kansas; his next was a 
 twelve-repeater in Tennessee, which he got cheap, so to 
 speak, because it was out of repair, a portion of the crag 
 which reflected it having tumbled down. He believed he 
 could repair it at a cost of a few thousand dollars, and, 
 by increasing the elevation with masonry, treble the re- 
 peating capacity ; but the architect who undertook the 
 job had never built an echo before, and so he utterly 
 spoiled this one. Before he meddled with it, it used to 
 talk back like a mother-in-law, but now it was only fit 
 for the deaf and dumb asylum. Well, next he bought a 
 lot of cheap little double-barrelled echoes, scattered around 
 over various States and Territories; he got them at 
 twenty per cent, off by taking the lot. Next he bought 
 a perfect Gatling gun of an echo in Oregon, and it cost a 
 f 01 tune, I can tell you. You may know, sir, that in the 
 echo market the scale of prices is cumulative, like the 
 carat-scale in diamonds ; in fact, the same phraseology is 
 used. A single-carat echo is worth but ten dollars over 
 and above the value of the land it is on ; a two-carat oi 
 double-barreled echo is worth thirty dollars ; a five-carat 
 is worth nine hundred and fifty ; a ten-carat is worth 
 thirteen thousand. My uncle's Oregon echo, which he 
 called the Great Pitt Echo, was a twenty-two carat gem, 
 and cost two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars — they 
 threw the land in, for it was four hundred miles from a 
 settlement. 
 
 Well, in the mean time my path i^^^as a path of loses. 
 I was the accepted suitor of the only and lovely daughter 
 of an English earl, and was Beloved to distraction. In 
 
r 
 
 
 1^ 
 
 I f 
 
 126 
 
 THE GANVABSER'S TALE. 
 
 that dear presence I swam in seas of bliss. The family 
 were content, for it was known that I was sole heir to an 
 uncle held to be worth five million dollars. However, 
 none of us knew that my uncle had become a collector, 
 at least in anything more than a small way, for sesf^hetic 
 amusement. 
 
 Now gathered the clouds above my unconscious head. 
 That divine echo, since known throughout the world as 
 the Great Koh-i-noor, or Mountain of Repetitions, was 
 discovered. It was a sixty-five-carat gem. You could 
 utter a word and it would talk back at you for fifteen 
 minutes, when the day was otherwise quiet. But behold 
 another discovery was made at the same time ; another 
 echo-collector was in the field. The two rushed to make 
 the purchase. The property consisted of a couple of small 
 hills with a shallow swale between, out yonder among 
 the back settlements of New York State. Both men 
 arrived on the ground at the same time, and neither knew 
 the other was there. The echo was not owned by one 
 man ; a person by the name of Williamson Bolivar Jarvis 
 owned the east hill,' and a person by the name of Harbi- 
 son J. Bledso owned the west hill ; the swale between 
 was the dividing line. So while my uncle was buying 
 Jarvis's hill for three million two hundred and eighty-five 
 thousand dollars, the other party was buying Bledso's hill 
 for a shade over three million. 
 
 Now, do you perceive the natural result ? Why, the 
 noblest collection of echoes on earth was forever and ever 
 incomplete, since it possessed but the one half of the king 
 echo of the universe. Neither man was content with 
 this divided ownership, yet neither would sell to the 
 
e family 
 eir to an 
 fowever, 
 JoUejtor, 
 sesf^hetic 
 
 us head. 
 
 p^orld as 
 
 ►ns, was 
 
 u could 
 
 r fifteen 
 
 ' behold 
 > 
 
 another 
 
 io make 
 
 of small 
 
 amons: 
 
 bh men 
 
 ir knew 
 
 by one 
 
 ' Jarvis 
 
 Harbi- 
 
 etween 
 
 buying 
 
 ty-five 
 
 lo's hill 
 
 ly, the 
 d ever 
 e king 
 I with 
 io the 
 
 THE CANVASSEB'S TALE. 
 
 127 
 
 other. There were jawings, bickerings, heart-burnings. 
 And at last, that other collector, with a malignity which 
 only a collector can ever feel toward a man and a brother, 
 proceeded to cut down his hill ! 
 
 You see, as long as he could not have the echo, he was 
 resolved that nobody should have it. He would remove 
 his hill, and then there would be nothing to reflect my 
 ■ uncle's echo. My uncle remonstrated with him, but the 
 man said, " I own one end of this echo ; I choose to kill 
 my end ; you must take care of your own end yourself." 
 
 Well my uncle got an injunction put on him. The 
 other man appealed and fought it in a higher court. 
 They carried it on up, clear to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States. It made no end of trouble there. Two 
 of the judges believed that an echo was personal property, 
 because it was impalpable to sight and touch, and yet 
 was purchasable, salable, and consequently taxable ; two 
 others believed that an echo was real estate, because it 
 was manifestly attached to the land, and was not remov- 
 able from place to place ; other of the judges contended 
 that an echo was not property at all. 
 
 It was finally decided that the echo was property ; that 
 the hills were property; that the two men were separate 
 and independent owners of the two hUls, but tenants in 
 common in the echo; therefore defendant was at full lib- 
 erty to cut down his hill, since it belonged solely to him, 
 but must give bonds in three million dollars as indemnity 
 for damages which might result to my uncle's half of the 
 echo. This decision also debarred my uncle from using 
 defendant's hill to reflect his part of the echo, without 
 defendant's consent , he must use only his own hill ; if 
 
128 
 
 THE canvasser's TALE. 
 
 his part of the echo would not go, under these circum- 
 stances, it was sad, of course, but tliv^ court could find no 
 remedy. The court also debarred defendant from using 
 my uncle's hill to reflect his end of the echo, without 
 consent. You see the grand result ! Neither man gave 
 consent, and so that astonishing and most noble echo had 
 to cease from its great powers ; and since that day that 
 magnificent property is tied up and unsaleable. * 
 
 A week before my wedding day, while I was still 
 swimming in bliss and the nobility were gathering from 
 far and near to honour our espousals, came news of my 
 uncle's death, and also his will, making me his sole heir. 
 He was gone ; alas, my dear benefactor was no more, 
 The thought surcharges my heart even at this remote 
 day. I handed the will to the earl ; I could not read it 
 for the blinding tears. The earl read it ; then he sternly 
 said, " Sir do you call this wealth ? — ^but doubtless you 
 do in your inflated country. Sir, you are left sole heir 
 to a vast collection of echoes — if a thing can be called a 
 collection that is scattered far and wide over the huge 
 length and breadth of the American continent ; sir this is 
 not all ; you are head and oars m debt ; there is not an 
 echo in the lot but has a mortgage on it ; sir, I am not 
 a hard man, but I must look to my child's intereet ; if 
 you had but one echo which you could honestly call your 
 own, if vou had but one echo which was free from incum- 
 brance, so that you could retire to it with my child, and 
 by humble, painstaking industry cultivate and improve 
 it, and thus wrest from it a maintenance, I would not 
 say you nay ; but I cannot marry my child to a beggar 
 
THE CANVASSEB S TALE. 
 
 129 
 
 circum- 
 l find no 
 im using 
 without 
 lan gave 
 echo had 
 day that 
 
 was still 
 ing from 
 T^B of my 
 sole heir, 
 no more, 
 s remote 
 ►t read it 
 e sternly 
 •tless you 
 sole heir 
 ) called a 
 ihe huge 
 rir this is 
 s not an 
 I am not 
 ereet; if 
 call your 
 a incum- 
 hild, and 
 improve 
 ould not 
 a beggar 
 
 Leave his side, my darling; go, sir ; take your mortgage- 
 ridden echoes and quit my sight forever." 
 
 My noble Celestine clung to me in tears, with loving 
 arms, and swore she would willingly, nay, gladly marry 
 me, though I had not an echo in the world. But it could 
 not be. We were torn asunder, she to pine and die 
 within the twelve month, I to toil life's long journey sad 
 and lone, praying daily, hourly, for that release which 
 shall join us together again in that dear realm where the 
 wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. 
 Now, sir, if you will be so kind as to look at these maps 
 and plans in my portfolio, I am sure I can sell you an 
 echo for less money than any man in the trade. Now 
 this one, which cost my uncle ten dollars thirty years 
 ago, and is one of the sweetest things in Texas, I will let 
 you have for — 
 
 " Let me interrupt you," I said. " My friend, I have not 
 had a moment's respice from canvassers this day; I have 
 bought a sewing machine which I did not want ; I have 
 bought a. map which is mistaken in all its details ; I have 
 bought a clock which will not go ; I have bought a moth 
 poison which the moths prefer to any other beverage ; I 
 have bought no end of useless inventions, and now I 
 have had enough of this foolishness. I would not have 
 one of your echoes if you were even to give it to me. I 
 would not let it stay on the place. I always hate a man 
 that tries to sell me echoes. You see this gun? Now 
 take your collection and move on; let us not have blood- 
 shed." 
 
 But he only smiled a sad, sweet smile, and got out 
 some more diagrams. You know itie result perfectly 
 
II 
 
 
 / 
 
 ISO 
 
 THE canvasser's TALE. 
 
 well, because you know that when you have once opened 
 the door to a canvasser, the trouble is done and you have 
 to suffer defeat. 
 
 I compromised with this man at the end of an intoler- 
 able hour. I bought two double ban'eled echoes in good 
 condition, and he threw in another, which he said was 
 not salable because it only spoke German. He said, 
 *' She was a perfect polyglot once, but somehow her pal- 
 aW got down." 
 
i opened 
 TOM have 
 
 L intoler- 
 ; in good 
 said was 
 Ee said, 
 her pal- 
 
 AN ENCOUNTER 
 
 WITH AS 
 
 INTERVIEWER. 
 
 I HE nervous, dapper, " peart" young man took the 
 chair I offered him, and said he was connected with 
 the Daily Thvmderatorm, and added, — 
 
 " Hoping it's no harm, I've come to interview you." 
 
 " Come to what ? " 
 
 "Interview you." 
 
 " Ah ! I see. Yes, — yes. Um ! Yes, — yes." 
 
 I was not feeling bright that morning. Indeed, my 
 powers seemed a bit under a cloud. However, I went to 
 the bookcase, and when I had been looking six or seven 
 minutes, I found I was obliged to refer to the young man. 
 I said, — 
 
 " How do you spell it 
 
 " Spell what ? " 
 
 " Interview." 
 
 " my goodness ! What do you want to spell it for ? " 
 
 " I don't want to spell it ; I want to see what it means." 
 
 " Well, this is astonishing, I must say. I can tell you 
 what it means, if you — if you — " 
 
 " 0, all right ! That will answer, and much obliged to 
 you, too." 
 
 " I n, iw, t e r, ter, mtet — " 
 
f 
 
 m 
 
 182 
 
 AN ENCOUNTBB WITH AM INTEBVIEWER. 
 
 : 
 
 " Then you spell it with an i f " 
 
 " Why, certainly ! " 
 
 *' 0, that is what took me so long." 
 
 ** Why, my dear sir, what do you propose to spell it 
 with ? " 
 
 *' Well, I — I — I hardly know. I had the Unabridged, 
 and I was ciphering around in the back end, hoping I 
 might tree her among the pictures. But it's a very old 
 edition." 
 
 " Why, my friend, they would not have a picf.ure of it 
 in even the latest e — My dear sir, I beg your pardon, I 
 mean no harm in the world, but you do not look as — as 
 — intelligent as I had expected you would. No harm, — 
 I mean no harm at all." 
 
 " O, don't mention it ! It has often been said, and by 
 people who would not flatter and who could have no in- 
 ducement to flatter, that I am quite remarkable in that 
 way. Yes, — ^yes ; they always speak of it with rapture." 
 
 " I can easily imagine it. But about th.' ' 'nterview. You 
 know it is the custom, now, to interview any man who 
 has become notorious." 
 
 " Indeed ! I had not heard of it before. It must be 
 very interesting. What do you do it with ? " 
 
 " Ah, well, — well, — well, — this is disheartening. It 
 ought to be done with a club in some cases ; but custo- 
 marily it consists in the interviewer asking questions and 
 the interviewed answering them. It is all the rage now. 
 Will you let me ask you certain questions calculated to 
 bring out the salient points of your public and private 
 histoiy ? " 
 
 " 0, with pleasure, — with pleasure. I have a very bad 
 
AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER. 
 
 133 
 
 spell it 
 
 abridged, 
 aoping I 
 very old 
 
 ure of it 
 pardon, I 
 )k as — as 
 > harm, — 
 
 I, and by 
 Lve no in- 
 e in that 
 rapture." 
 lew. You 
 man who 
 
 ) must be 
 
 ning. It 
 3ut custo- 
 jtions and 
 rage now. 
 ulated to 
 d private 
 
 , very bad 
 
 memory, but I hope you will not mind that. That is to 
 say, it is an irregular memory, — singularly irregular. 
 Sometimes it goes in a gallop, and then again it will be 
 as much as a fortnight passing a given point. This is a 
 great grief to me." 
 
 " O, it is no matter, so you will try to io the best you 
 
 can. 
 
 " I will. I will put my whole mind on it.* 
 
 " Thanks. Are you ready to begin ? " 
 
 " Ready." 
 
 Q. How old are you ? 
 
 A. Nmeteen, in June. • • 
 
 •Q. Indeed ! I would have taken you to be thirty-five 
 or six. Where were you bom ? 
 
 A. In Missouri. 
 
 Q. When did you begin to write ? 
 
 A, In 1836. 
 
 Q. Why, how could that be, if you are only nineteen 
 now? 
 
 A, I^on't know. It does seem curious, somehow. 
 
 Q. It does, indeed. Who do you consider the most re- 
 markable man you ever met ? 
 
 A. Aaron Burr. 
 
 Q. But you never could have met Aaron Burr, if you 
 «re only nineteen years — 
 
 A. Now, if you know more about me than I do, what 
 do you ask me for ? 
 
 Q. Well, it was only a suggestion ; nothing more. How 
 did you happen to meet Burr ? 
 
 A. Well, I happened to be at his funeral one day, and 
 he asked me to make less noise, and — 
 
lU 
 
 AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER. 
 
 Il- 
 
 
 1 jr 
 
 II 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 1 : 
 
 
 1 
 
 ■ 
 
 ! 
 
 
 ) 
 
 |ii 
 
 f 
 
 
 Q. But, good heavens ! if you were at his funeral, he 
 must have been dead ; and if he was doad, how could he 
 care whether you made a noise or not ? 
 
 A. I don't know. He was always a particular kind of 
 a man that way. 
 
 Q. Still, I don't understand it at all. You say he spoke 
 to you and that he was dead. 
 
 A. I didn't say he was dead. 
 
 Q. But wasn't he dead ? 
 
 A. Well, some said he was, some said he wasn't. 
 
 Q. What did you think ? 
 
 A. O, it was none of my business ! It wasn't any of 
 my funeral. 
 
 Q. Did you — However, we can never get this matter 
 straight. Let me ask about something else. What was 
 the date of your birth ? 
 
 A Monday, October 31, 1693. 
 
 Q. What! Impossible! That would make you a 
 hundred and eighty years old. How do you account for 
 that? ^ 
 
 " A. I don*t account for it at all. 
 
 Q. But you said at first you were only nineteen, and 
 now you make yourself out to be one hundred and eighty. 
 It is an awful discrepancy. 
 
 A. Why, have you noticed that ? (Shaking hands.} 
 Many a, time it has seemed to me like a discrepancy, but 
 somehow I couldn't make up my mind. How quick you 
 notice a thing ! 
 
 Q. Thank you for the co^npliment, as far as it goes. 
 Had you, or have you, any brothers or sisters ? 
 
AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER. 
 
 135 
 
 A. Eh ! I — I — I think so, — yes, — but I don't re- 
 member. 
 
 Q, Well, that is the most extraordinary statement I 
 ever heard ! ... 
 
 A. Why, what makes you think that ? 
 
 Q. How could I think otherwise ? Why, look here 1 
 who is this a picture of on the wall ? Isn't that a brother 
 of yours ? 
 
 A. Oh ! yes, yes, yes ! Now you remind me of it, that 
 was a brother of mine. That's William, — Bill we called 
 him. Poor old Bill ! 
 
 Q. Why? Is he dead, then ? 
 
 A. Ah, well, I suppose so. We never could tell. There 
 was a great mystery about it. 
 
 Q. That is sad, veiy sad. He disappeared then ? 
 
 A. Well, yes, in a sort of general way. We buried him. 
 
 Q. Buried him ! Buried him without knowing 
 whether he was dead or not ? 
 
 A. no ! Not that. He was dead enough. 
 
 Q. Well, I confess that I can't understand this. If you 
 buried him and you knew he was dead — 
 
 A. No ! no ! we only thought he was. 
 
 Q. O, I see ! He came to life again ? 
 
 A. I bet he didn't. 
 
 Q. Well, I never heard anything like this. Somebody 
 was dead. Somebody was buried. Now, where was the 
 mystery ? 
 
 A. Ah, that's just it ! That's it exactly. You see we 
 were twins, — defunct and I, — and we got mixed in the 
 bath-tub when we were only two weeks old, and one of 
 
( 
 
 I 
 
 IJ 
 
 ill 
 
 13C 
 
 AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER. 
 
 m 
 
 us was drowned. But we didn't know which. Some 
 think it was Bill, some think it was me. 
 
 Q. Well, that is remarkable. What do you think ? 
 
 A. Goodness knows ! I would give whole worlds to 
 know. This solemn, this awful mystery has cast a gloom 
 over my whole life. But I will tell you a secret now 
 which I never hav^ revealed to any creature before. One 
 of us had a peculiar mark, a large mole on the back of his 
 left hand, — ^that was me. That child was the one that 
 was drowned. 
 
 Q. Very well, then, I don't see that there is any mys- 
 tery about it, after all. 
 
 A. You don't ? WoU, / do. Anyway, I don't see how 
 they could ever have been such a blundering lot as to go 
 and bury the wrong child. But, 'sh ! — don't mention it 
 where the family can hear of it. Heaven knows they 
 have heart-breaking troubles enough without adding this. 
 
 Q. Well, I believe I have got material enough for the * 
 present, and I am very much obliged to you for the pains 
 you have taken. But I was a good deal interested in that 
 account of Aaron Burr's funeral. Would you mind telling 
 me what particular circumstance it was that made you 
 think Burr was such a remarkable man ? 
 
 A. 0, it was a mere trifle ! Not one man in fifty would 
 have noticed it at all. When the sermon was over, and the 
 procession all ready to start for the cemetery, and the 
 body all arranged nice in the hearse, he said he wanted 
 to take a last look at the scenery, and so he got up and 
 rode with the driver. 
 
 Then the young man reverently withdrew. He was 
 ?ery pleasant company, and I was sorry to see him go. 
 
SPEECH ON THE WEATHER, 
 
 kT THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY'S SEVENTY-FIRST 
 ANNUAL DINNER, NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 HE next toast was : " The Oldest Inhabitant — The 
 Weather of New England." 
 
 Who can lose it and forget it ? 
 Who can have it and regret it? 
 
 ** Be interposer 'twixt us T'^ain." 
 
 — Merchant of Venice. 
 
 To this Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) replied as 
 follows : 
 
 *' I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all 
 . makes everything in New England but the weather. I 
 don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw 
 apprentices in the weather clerk's factory who experi- 
 ment and learn how, in New England, for board and 
 clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for coun- 
 tries that require a good article, and will take their cus- 
 tom elsewhere if they don't get it. There is a sumptuous 
 variety about the New England weather that compels the 
 stranger's admiration — and regret. The weather is always 
 doing something there ; always attending strictly to busi- 
 ness ; always getting up new designs and trying them on 
 the people to see how they will go. But it gets through 
 more business in spring than in any other season. In the 
 spring I have counted one hundred and thirty -six different 
 
138 
 
 SPEECH ON THE WEATHER. 
 
 ( 
 
 r 
 
 i? 
 
 Jij'i 
 
 kinds of weather inside four and twenty hours. It was 1 
 that made the fame and fortune of that man that had that 
 marvellous collection of weather on exhibition at the Cen- 
 tennial, that so astounded the foreigners. He was going 
 to travel all over the world and get specimens from all 
 the climes. I said, * Don't you do it ; you come to New 
 England on a favourable spring day.' I told him what 
 we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity. 
 Well, he came and made his collection in four days. As 
 to variety, why, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds 
 of weather that he had never heard of before. And as 
 to quantity — well, after he had picked out and dis- 
 carded all that was blemished in any way, he not only 
 had weather enough, but weather to spare ; weather to 
 hire out ; weather to sell ; to deposit ; weather to invest ; 
 weather to give to the poor. The people of New England 
 are by nature patient and forbearing, but there are some 
 things which they will not stand. Every year they kill 
 a lot of poets for writing about * Beautiful Spring.' These 
 are generally casual \isitors, who bring their notions of 
 spring from somewhere else, and cannot, of course, know 
 how the natives feel about spring. And so the first thing 
 they know the opportunity to inquire how they feel has 
 permanently gee by. Old Pj obabilities has a mighty 
 reputation for accurate prophecy, and thoroughly well 
 deserves it. You take up the paper and observe how 
 crisply and confidently he checks off what to-day's 
 weather is going to be on the Pacific, down South, in the 
 Middle States, in the Wisconsin region. See him sail 
 along in th© joy and pride of his power till he gets to New 
 England, and then see his tail drop. He doesn't know 
 
Speech on the weather. 
 
 139 
 
 It was 1 
 
 it had that 
 
 it the Cen- 
 
 was going 
 
 ls from all 
 
 le to New 
 
 him what 
 
 quantity. 
 
 days. As 
 
 Is of kinds 
 
 And as 
 
 b and dis- 
 
 j not only 
 
 ireather to 
 
 to invest ; 
 
 7 England 
 
 are some 
 
 they kill 
 
 ig.' These 
 
 otions of 
 
 e, know 
 
 rst thing 
 
 feel has 
 
 mighty 
 
 hly well 
 
 rve how 
 
 to-day's 
 
 fh, in the 
 
 him sail 
 
 to New 
 
 't know 
 
 what the weather is going to be in New England. He 
 can't any more tell than he can tell how many Presidents 
 of the United States there's going to be next year. Well, 
 he mulls over it, and by and by he gets out something 
 about like this : Probable north-east to south-west winds, 
 Varying to the southward and westward and eastward, 
 and [points between, high and low barometer swapping 
 around from place to place ; probable areas of rain, snow 
 hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes, 
 with thunder and lightning. Then he jots down this post- 
 script from his wandering mind, to cover accidents. * But 
 it is possible that the programme may be wholly changed 
 in the meantime.' Yes, one of the brightest gems in the 
 New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it. 
 There is only one thing certain about it : you arc certain 
 there is going to be plenty of weather — a perfect grand 
 review ; but you can never tell which end of the proces- 
 sion is going to move first. You fix up for the drought ; 
 you leave your umbrella in the house and sally out with 
 your sprinkling-pot, and two to one you get drowned. 
 You make up your mind that the earthquake is due ; you 
 stand from under, and take hold of something to steady 
 yourself, and the first thing you know you get struck by 
 lightning. These are great disappointments. But they 
 can't be helped. The lightning there is peculiar ; it is so 
 convincing, when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough 
 of that thing behind for you to tell whether — well, you'd 
 think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had 
 been there. And the thunder. "When the thunder com- 
 mences to merely tune up and scrape and saw, and key up 
 the instruments for the performance, strangers say, ' Why, 
 
1 1 
 
 •I I 
 
 b 
 
 140 
 
 SPEECH ON THE WEATHER. 
 
 what awful thunder you have here !' But when the baton 
 is raised and the real concert begins, you'll find that 
 stranger down in the cellar with his head in the ash-barrel. 
 Now as to the size of the weather in New England — 
 lengthways, I mean. It is utterly disproportioned to the 
 size of that little country. Half the time, when it is 
 packed as full as it can stick, you will see that New Eng- 
 land weather sticking out beyond the edges and project- 
 ing around hundreds and hundreds of miles over the 
 neighbouring States. She can't hold a tenth part of her 
 weather. You can see cracks all about where she has 
 strained herself trying to do it. I could speak volumes 
 abc/ui the inhuman perversity of the New England 
 weather, but I will give but a single specimen. I like to 
 hear rain on a tin roof. So I cove ed part of my roof 
 with tin, with an eye to the luxury. Well, sir, do you 
 think it ever rains on that tin ? No, sir : skips it every 
 time. Mind in this speech I have been trying merely to 
 do honour to the New England weather — ^no language 
 could do it justice. But, after all, there is at least one or 
 two things about that weather (or, if you please, effect 
 produced by it) which we residents would not like to part 
 with. If we hadn't our bewitching autumn foliage, we 
 should still have to credit the weather "with one feature 
 which compensates for all its bullying vagaries — the ice- 
 storm — ^when a leafless tree is clothed with ice from the 
 bottom to the top — ice that is as bright and clear as crys- 
 tal ; every bough and twig is strung with ice-beads, frozen 
 dew-drops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white, 
 like the Shah of Persia's diamond plume. Then the wind 
 waves the branches and the sun comes out and turns all 
 
SPEECH ON THE WEATHER. 
 
 141 
 
 1 the baton 
 find that 
 ash-barrel. 
 England — 
 ►ned to the 
 rhen it is 
 New Eng- 
 id project- 
 over the 
 art of her 
 •e she has 
 k volumes 
 ' England 
 I like to 
 f my roof 
 »ir, do you 
 ►s it every 
 merely to 
 language 
 ist one or 
 ase, effect 
 ^e to part 
 >liage, we 
 e feature 
 -the ice- 
 from the 
 r as crys- 
 is, frozen 
 id white, 
 the wind 
 )ums all 
 
 those mjTiads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and 
 hum and flash with all manner of coloured fires, which 
 change and change again with inconceivable rapidity from 
 blue to red, from red to green, and green to gold — the 
 tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of 
 dazzling jewels ; and it stands there the acme, the climax, 
 supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, in- 
 toxicating, intolerable magnificence. One cannot make 
 tiie words too strong." 
 
ROGERS. 
 
 HIS man Eogers happened upon me and introduced 
 himself at the town of , in the South of Eng- 
 land, where I stayed awhile. His step-father had 
 married a distant relative of mine who was afterwards 
 hanged, and so he seemed to think a blood relationship 
 existed between us. He came in every day and sat down 
 and talked. Of all the bland, serene, human curiosities I 
 ever saw, I think he was the chiefest. He desired to 
 look at my new chimney-pot hat. I was very willing, for I 
 thought hewouldnotice thenameof the great Oxford-street 
 hatter in it and respect me accordingly. But he turned 
 it about with a sort of grave compassion, pointed out two 
 or three blemishes, and said that I, being so recently ar- 
 rived, could not be expected to know where to supply 
 myself. Said he would send me the address of his hatter. 
 Then he said, " Pardon me," and proceeded to cut a neat 
 circle of red tissue paper ; daintily notched the edges of it ; 
 took the mucilage and pasted it in my hat so as to cover 
 the manufacturer's name. He said, " No one will know 
 now where you got it. I will send you a hat-tip of my hat- 
 ter, and you can paste it over this tissue circle." It was 
 the calmest, coolest thing — I never admired a man so 
 much in my Hfe. Mind, he did this while his own hat 
 eat offensively near our noses, on the table — ^an ancient 
 
IIOGEKS. 
 
 143 
 
 i introduced 
 ►uth of Eng- 
 p-father had 
 3 afterwards 
 relationship 
 nd sat down 
 curiosities I 
 ^e desired to 
 grilling, for I 
 xford-street 
 it he turned 
 ted out two 
 :'ecently ar- 
 to supply 
 his hatter, 
 cut a neat 
 sdgesof it; 
 is to cover 
 will know 
 of my hat- 
 It was 
 a man so 
 own hat 
 m ancient 
 
 e 
 
 extinguisher of the " slouch " pattern, limp and shapeless 
 with age, discoloured by vicissitudes of the weather, 
 and banded by an equator of bear's grease that had stewed 
 through. 
 
 Another time he examined my coat. I had no terrors, 
 for over my tailor's door was the legend, " By Special 
 Appointment Tailor to H.R.H the Prince of Wales," etc. 
 I did not know at the time that the most of the tailor 
 shops had the same sign out, and that whereas it takes 
 nine tailors to make an ordinary man, it takes a hundred 
 and fifty to make a prince. He was full of compassion 
 for my coat. Wrote down the address of his tailor 
 for me. Did not tell me to mention my nom de 
 plume and the tailor would put his best work on my gar- 
 ment, as complimentary people sometimes do, but said his 
 tailor would hardly trouble himself for an unknown per- 
 son (unknown person, when I thought I was so celebrated 
 in England ! — that was the cruellest cut), but cautioned 
 me to mention his name, and it would be all right. Think- 
 ing to be facetious, I said : 
 
 " But he might sit up all night and injure his health.'* 
 
 " Well, let him," said Rogers ; *' I've done enough for 
 him to show some appreciation of it." 
 
 I might just as well have tried to disconcert a mummy 
 with my facetiousness. Said Rogers : '* I get all my coats 
 there — they're the only coats fit to be seen in." 
 
 I made one more attempt. I said, " I wish you had 
 brought one with you — I would like to look at it." 
 
 " Bless your heart, haven't I got one on ? — this article 
 is Morgan's make." 
 
 I examined it. The coat had been bought ready-made, 
 
144 
 
 ROGEBS. 
 
 4,; 
 
 i 
 
 \ 
 
 of a Chatham street Jew, without any question — about 
 1848. It probably cost four dollars when it was new. 
 It was ripped, it was frayed, it was napless and greasy. 
 I could not resist showing him where it was ripped. It 
 so affected him that I was almost sorry I had done it. 
 First he seemed plunged into a bottomless abyss of grief. 
 Then he roused himself, made a feint with his hands as 
 if waving off the pity of a nation, and said — with what 
 seemed to me a manufactured emotion — " No matter , no 
 matter ; don't mind me ; do not bother about it. I can 
 get another." 
 
 I prayed Heaven he would not get another, like that. 
 
 When he was thoroughly restored, so that he could ex- 
 amine the rip and command his feelings, he said — ah, 
 now he understood it — his servant must have done ic 
 while dressing him that morning. 
 
 His servant ! There was something awe-inspiring in 
 effrontery like this. 
 
 Nearly every day he interested himself in some article 
 of my clothing. One would hardly have expected this 
 sort of infatuation in a man who always wore the same 
 suit, and it a suit that seemed coeval with the Conquest. 
 
 It was an unworthy ambition, perhaps, but I did wish 
 I could make this man admire something about me or 
 something I did — you would have felt the same way. 
 I saw my opportunity : I was about to return to London, 
 and had " listed " my soiled linen for the wash. It made 
 quite an imposing mountain in the comer of the room— 
 fifty-four pieces. I hoped he would fancy it was the ac- 
 cumulation of a single week. I took up the wash-list, as 
 if to see that it was all right, and then tossed it on the 
 
stion — about 
 it was new. 
 i and greasy, 
 s ripped. It 
 had done it. 
 3y8s of grief, 
 his hands as 
 — with what 
 ) matter , no 
 it it. I can 
 
 r, like that, 
 he could ex- 
 he said — ah, 
 lave done io 
 
 inspiring in 
 
 some article 
 pected this 
 •e the same 
 e Conquest. 
 
 I did wish 
 ibout me or 
 
 same way. 
 
 to London, 
 
 . It made 
 the room- 
 was the ac- 
 vash-list, as 
 i it on the 
 
 BOOEBa 
 
 145 
 
 bable, with pretended forgetfulness. Sure enough, he took 
 it up and ran his eye along down to the grand total. Then 
 he said, " You get off easy," and laid it down again. 
 
 His gloves were the saddest ruin — but he told me where 
 I could get some like them. His shoes would hardly hold 
 walnuts without leaking — but he liked to put his feet up 
 on the mantel-piece and contemplate them. He wore a 
 dim glass breast-pin, which he called a " morphylitic dia- 
 mond," whatever that may mean — and said only two of 
 them had ever been found — the Emperor of China had 
 the other one. 
 
 Afterward in London, it was a pleasure to me to see 
 this fantastic vagabond come marching into the lobby 
 of the hotel in iiis /rand-ducal way, for he always had 
 some new imaginary grandeur t^ develop — there was no- 
 thing stale about him but his clothes. If he addressed me 
 when strangers were about, he always raised his voice a 
 little and called me "Sir Richard," or '* General," or "Your 
 Lordship " — and when people began to stare and look de- 
 ferential, he would fall to enquiring in a casual way why 
 I disappointed the Duke of Argyll the night before ; and 
 then remind me of our engagement at the Marquis of 
 Westminster's for the following day. I think that for 
 the time being these things were realitivjs to him. He once 
 came and invited me to go with him and spend the even- 
 ing with the Earl of Warwick at his town house. I said 
 I had received no formal invitation. He said that r.as. of 
 no consequence — the Earl had no formalities for hSm cm 
 his friends. I asked if I might go juat as I was. Heaaid 
 no, that would hardly do — evening dreas waa requifilte afa 
 night in any gentleman's houaoi. He said h» woattd waiik 
 
146 
 
 ROQEUS. 
 
 
 while T dressed, and then we could go to his apartmenta 
 and I could take a bottle of champagne and cigar while 
 1)0 dressed. I was very willing to see how this entei*prise 
 would turn out, so I dressed, and we started to his lodg- 
 ings. He said if I didn't mind we would walk. So we 
 tramped some four miles through the mud and fog, and 
 finally found his " apartments," and they consisted of jv 
 .single room over a barber's shop in a back street. Two 
 chairs, a small table, an ancient valise, a wash-basin and 
 pitcher (both on the floor in a corner), an unmade bed, a 
 fragment of a looking-glass, and a flower-pot with a per- 
 ishing little rose geranium in it (which he called a century 
 plant, and said it had not bloomed now for upwards of 
 two centuries — given to him by the late Lord Palmerston 
 — been ofl'ered a prodigious sum for it) — these were the 
 contents of the room. Also a brass candlestick and puit 
 of a candle. Rogers lit the candle, and told mo to sit 
 down and make myself at home. He said he hoped 1 was 
 thirsty, because he would surprise my palate with an 
 article of champagne that seldom got into a commoner's 
 system ; or would I prefer sherry or port ? Said he had 
 port in bottles that were swathed in stratified cob-webs, 
 every stratum representing a generation — and as for hia 
 cigars — well, I should judge of them myself. Then ho 
 put his head out at the door and called : 
 
 " Sackville ! " No answer. 
 
 « Hi ! — Sackville ! " No answer. 
 
 " Now what the devil can have become of that butler ? 
 I nefver allow a sei-vant to — Oh, confound that idiot, he's 
 got the keys. Can't get into the other rooms without the 
 keys." 
 
IIOUEKS. 
 
 147 
 
 rtmenU 
 ir while 
 tei*piise 
 is lodg* 
 
 So we 
 og, and 
 ied of a 
 i. Two 
 ksin and 
 e bed, a 
 h a per- 
 century 
 ^ards of 
 mei'stoii 
 'ere the 
 ,nd puit 
 to sit 
 d 1 was 
 vith an 
 moner's 
 he had 
 b-webs, 
 
 for hia 
 'lien ho 
 
 jutler ? 
 ot, he's 
 out the 
 
 (I wab just wondering at his intrepidity instill keeping^ 
 up the delusion of the champagne, and crying to imagine 
 how he was going to get out of the difficulty.) 
 
 Now he stopped calling Sackville and began to call 
 " Anglesy." But Anglesy didn't come. He said, " This 
 is the second time that equerry has been absent without 
 leave. To-morrow 1*11 discharge him." 
 
 Now he began to whoop for " Thomas," but Thomas 
 didn't answer. Then for " Theodore," but no Theodore 
 •'rpucd. 
 
 "Well, I give it up," said Rogers. "The servants 
 ni'ver expect me at this hour, and so they're all oft on a 
 lark. Might get along without the equerry and the page, 
 but can't have any wine or cigars without the butler, and 
 can't dress without my valet." 
 
 1 offered to help him dress, but he would not hear of 
 it ; and besides, he said he would not feel comfortable 
 unless dressed by a practised hand. However, he finally 
 concluded that he was such old friends with the Earl that 
 it would not make any difference how he was dressed. So 
 we took a cab, he gave the driver some directions, and we 
 started. By and by we stopped before a large house and 
 got out. I never had seen this man with a collar on. He 
 now stepped under a lamp and got a venerable paper 
 collar out of his coat pocket, along with a hoary cravat, 
 and put them on. He ascended the stoop, rang and 
 entered the door. Presently he reappeared, descended 
 rapidly, and said, 
 
 " Come— quick 1 " 
 
 We hurried away, and turned the corner. 
 
lli 
 
 148 
 
 ROGERS. 
 
 ii ^i' 
 
 " Now we're safe," he said, and took off his collar and 
 sravat and returned them to his pocket. 
 
 " Made a mighty narrow escape," said he. 
 
 " How ? " said I. 
 
 *' B' George, the Countess was there ! " 
 
 " Well, what of that ? — don't she know you ? " 
 
 " Know me ? Absolutely worships me. I just did 
 happen to catch a glimpse of her before she saw me — and 
 out I shot. Haven't seen her for two months — ^to rush in 
 on her without any warning might have been fatal. She 
 could not have stood it. I didn't know she was in town 
 — thought she was at the castle. Let me lean on you — 
 just a moment — ^there ; now I am better — ^thank you ; 
 thank you ever so much. Lord bless me, what an escape ! " 
 
 So I never got to call on the Earl after all. But I 
 marked his house for futmo reference. It proved to be 
 an ordinary family hotel, with about a thousand plebeian® 
 roosting in it. 
 
 In most things Rogers was by no means a fool. In 
 some things it was plain enough he was a fool, but he 
 certainly did not know it. He was in the " deadest " 
 earnest in these matters. He died at sea, last bummer* 
 as the *' Earl of Kamsgate." 
 
»llar and 
 
 just did 
 Qe — ^and 
 ) rush in 
 il. She 
 in town 
 a you — 
 k you; 
 escape!" 
 But I 
 i to be 
 lebeian® 
 
 )ol. In 
 but he 
 sadest " 
 ummer» 
 
 1 ETTER READ AT A DINNER 
 
 OF THE KNIGHTS OF ST. PATRICK. 
 
 Habtford, Ct., March 16, 1876. 
 
 'to TK% OhAIBMAN! 
 
 ^y> 
 
 ^I^fJvEAR SIR : I am very sorry that I cannot be with 
 (^^^^ the Knights of St. Patrick to-morrow evening. In 
 this centennial year we ought all to find a peculiar 
 pleasure in doing honor to the memory of a man whose 
 good name has endured through fourteen centuries. We 
 ought to find pleasure in it for the reason that at this time 
 we naturally have a fellow-feeling for such a man. He 
 wr ught a great work in his day. He found Ireland a 
 prosperous republic, and looked about him to see if he 
 might find some useful thing to turn his hand to. He observ- 
 ed that the president of that republic was in the habit of 
 sheltering his great officials from' deserved punishment, 
 so he lifted up his staff and smote him, and he died. He 
 found that the secretary of war had been so unbecoming- 
 ly economical as to have laid up $12,000 a year out of a 
 salary of $8,000, and he killed him. He found that the 
 secretary of tie interior always prayed over every separ- 
 ate and distinct barrel of salt beef that was intended for 
 the unconverted savage, and then kept that beef himself, 
 so he killed him also. He found that the secretary of the 
 aavy knew more about handling suspicious claims than 
 
150 
 
 LETTER READ AT A DINNER. 
 
 :il 
 
 :fi 
 
 he did about handling a ship, and he at once made an end 
 of him. He found that a very foul private secretary had 
 been engineered through a sham trial, so he destroyed 
 him. He discovered that the congress which pretended 
 to prodigious virtue was very anxious to investigate an 
 ambassador who had dishonoured the country abroad, but 
 was equally anxious to prevent the appointment of any 
 spotless man to a similar post ; that this congress had no 
 god but party ; no system of morals but party policy ; no 
 vision but a bat's vision ; and no reason or excuse for ex- 
 isting anyhow. Therefore he massacred that c ngress to 
 the last man. 
 
 When he had finished this great work, he said, in hia 
 figurative way, " Lo, I have destroyed all the reptiles in 
 Ireland." 
 
 St. Patrick had no politics ; Ms sympathies lay with 
 the right — that was politics enough. When he came 
 across a reptile, he forgot to enquire whether he was a 
 democrat or a republican, 'out simply exalted his staff and 
 * let him have it." Honoured be his name — I wish we 
 lad him here to trim us up xor the centennial. But that 
 cannot be. His staff", which was the symbol of real, not 
 .^ham reform, is idle. However, we still have with ua 
 the symbol of Truth — George Washington's little hatchet 
 — for I know where they've buried it. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Mark Twain.