by Sesh Heri
“Hell, it has everyone’s attention. Have you seen the papers? You are the thing at the fair. You and that big wheel Ferris is putting up. But you don’t mind parading yourself out as the freak of the century, now do you?” “Not if it makes my work known and accepted. My work. That is all that matters.” “A noble sentiment. Let us drink to it.”
I gave Tesla a glass of scotch and then raised my glass to his, and said, “To your work—and my play—and may never the twain meet.” Tesla nodded and grinned. We clicked glasses and drank. As Tesla swallowed, he looked at the golden liquid in his glass. I knew he was calculating how many ounces of his drink remained. Tesla said, “Ah, Mark. There is more to you than mere play. How is that typesetting machine of yours coming?”
“Not so good. I had the machine’s designer in here today. You know— Paige?” “Oh, yes.”
“I was prepared to give him his walking papers, but the only paper he walked away with was a check with my name on it. I tell you—that man could entice a fish to get up out of the water and walk. But do you think you could make Paige himself take a walk? You couldn’t. You see, Paige has got a mo- nopoly on convincing.” “So work on the typesetter isn’t going well?”
“Depends on who you talk to. If you talk to Paige, it’s going wonderful. And he will tell you of its success in such beautiful gilt-edge words and phrasings, for Paige is a poet. He is a poet of the cog-wheel, lever, screw, and inclined plane. He can make a machine sing—for a while. It sings—then it croaks. When it croaks, he has to go back and work up on his poetry again.” “Nothing wrong with poetry. I consider myself a poet.”
“Yes, but your stuff rhymes and scans. Paige’s epics don’t have any meter and they never end. And they’re running me to the poorhouse.” I drank the rest of my scotch, then picked up my cigar, and blew a couple of smoke rings for Tesla’s entertainment. “I knew a poet once in San Francisco,” I said, “good friend of mine. He said his life was not worth living and all that. He was always saying that.
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Every day. Finally he put a gun to his head. I said, ‘Go ahead. Pull the trigger!’ And… and… he did. And do you know… ? That was the best decision he ever made! You see, while the bullet cleared out all the grey matter in his brain, it also carried away with it the poetic faculty—and now that fellow is a useful member of society again. Why, last I heard, he had a seat in Congress.”
I took another puff of my cigar. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tesla smiling and nodding to himself. I realized he appreciated my attempt at humor, but he was in no mood at the moment to laugh. Something was weigh- ing on his mind. “You wanted to see me, Tesla?”
“I have something I want to show you.” “By jings! I knew it! I knew it!” I crushed out my cigar in an ashtray.
“You’ve finished it, haven’t you?” Tesla smiled and inclined his head. “That mysterious new invention you’ve been hinting about.”
“Yes, and I want to take you to see it. But first we must wait here for someone.” “And who would that be?”
“You’ll find out any moment. He’s on his way up here.”
“By jings! I knew it! I knew you had something up that long sleeve of yours. Why—last time I was in your laboratory in New York with Joe Jefferson, I told him—” A knock at the door interrupted me. I looked to the door, and then to Tesla who gave a quick nod. “Ah,” I said, “our someone else has arrived!”
I went to the door and opened it. Standing in the threshold, looking down on me with the calm of the tornado’s eye, was Stephen Grover Cleveland, twenty-second, and now twenty-fourth, President of the United States of America. I was knocked for a loop and a half by his rotund presence. “You boys ready?” Cleveland asked.
“Yes, Mr. President,” Tesla said.
I found my tongue and blurted out, “President Cleveland! Your Excel- lency!” Cleveland put his forefinger to his lips to “shush” me, like I was a child; then said very quietly, “We’ll sneak out down the back way—Tom Sawyer style.” “By all means, Mr. President,” I said, grabbing my hat and coat, “lead the way.” I followed Cleveland out the door, and then Tesla came along, closing the door behind us.
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While all this was transpiring, down in the lobby of the hotel someone was pacing back and forth. That someone was the young lady I had encountered at the door of the Chicago Daily News—Miss Lillie West, known to the readers of the Daily News by her pen name “Amy Leslie.” Lillie, as all her friends called her, was the drama critic for the Daily News, and quite competent in that line. But lately, she had wanted something more. She wanted to be a “real” re- porter—God help her! If only I could have taken her aside right then and there and explained things to her. You see, first God made invertebrates—then He made Newspa- per reporters; He was practicing, you see. A Newspaper reporter will write as conscience dictates—the conscience of his editor. The Newspaper reporter hasn’t got any conscience to speak of. Well, neither has an editor, but he has some- thing that has a vague resemblance to a conscience. It is called Newspaper Policy. This comes from the publisher. And where does the publisher get his Policy? Why, from his pocketbook, of course. So there is the reporter, boldly sallying forth to tell the whole unvarnished tr—I mean, to tell the partially unvarnished tr—well, to tell the slightly whitewashed, partially papered-over, somewhat corrugated, intermittingly dissimulated tr… Come to think of it, perhaps it was best that I didn’t take Lillie aside to explain things to her. Perhaps some things are best learned for oneself. And anyway, it is a sad thing to shatter the illusions of youth.
So, as I said, there she was, Miss Lillie West, pacing back and forth in the hotel lobby. Just then someone else entered the lobby. That someone else was a young man wearing a fedora and gray suit. He was a striking figure, coming into the place with an easy, confident stroll. He had a noble-looking face somewhat modified by a smile that went past Aloof, but that stopped at the city limits of Sarcastic. His smile was a mask to keep the rest of the world from knowing what he was thinking and feeling. He could have been a leading man on the stage, but he was not. He was a Newspaper reporter. Yes, he was one of those later-model invertebrates I just spoke of; I know all about that species because I once belonged to it myself. That’s not to say that this young man had no conscience or backbone; he did. He just was not a fanatic about making use of them. He was not reluctant to tell a lie when he believed it necessary, but neither did he run from the truth just because he was afraid of it. Truth and falsehood were something he put in the balance scale of business, and he was always looking to make a profit. This young man was none other than George Ade, and at that time he was a reporter for the Chicago Record, the morning edition of the Chicago Daily News.
As Ade entered the hotel lobby, he immediately noticed Lillie pacing back and forth over by the elevators. He drew his stride up short and came to a dead stop. It seemed to Ade that wherever he went lately, Lillie West was
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already there ahead of him. In a way, he wasn’t surprised to see her there. But in another way, he felt almost a little electric shock; for he had been expecting to encounter something unusual before entering the lobby, only he did not know exactly what it might be. Ade had been drawn to the Great Northern by an incident that had happened to him only a few minutes earlier. He had been down the street at the Grand Pacific Hotel with his partner and roommate John T. McCutcheon, the illustrator. They had just stepped out of the hotel, when two other gentlemen passed them going inside.
One gentleman said to the other, “You couldn’t have seen him. He’s not scheduled to arrive until May first.” The other man replied, “Well, if it wasn’t him, it was his twin brother. I saw him go into the Great Northern.” That was all Ade heard. He had hardly been paying attention, but suddenly it seemed that his mind was following those two gentlemen back into the hotel. “What do you say?” McCutcheon asked Ade. “What?” Ade asked.
“I asked if you’re ready to head back.”
> “Oh,” Ade said, “uh… no. I don’t think so. I think I’m going to walk about a while.” “Walk about?”
Ade nodded, and said, “Uh-huh. Just to get some air. Say, Mac, how about filing the story for me?” “Suit yourself,” McCutcheon said, taking Ade’s notebook. “See you back at the mansion.” McCutcheon threw up his hand and walked away.
Ade stood there for a moment, then slowly turned his head to the left to look east along Jackson Street to the Great Northern a block and a half away. He felt a tingling on the back of his neck. He thought of this as his “reporter’s instinct.” From that same instinctual prompting, he had sent McCutcheon on his way. Reason would have had him speak his mind to McCutcheon. He would have said, “Let’s go down to the Great Northern. I suspect something doing down there.” But because of some urge that even Ade did not understand he wanted to be left alone to go down there to the Great Northern all by himself. Ade began to walk toward the Great Northern slowly, then gradually faster with that easy, confident stroll I have just described. He thought about what the man back at the Grand Pacific had just said. There was only one person that Ade could think of who was not scheduled to be in Chicago until May 1st, and that was President Cleveland.
When Ade saw Lillie pacing there in the lobby of the Great Northern and felt that little shock, he knew that there was a connection to what that man at the Grand Pacific had said and what Lillie was now doing, for Ade was a man
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who did not believe in coincidences. He did not know what Lillie was up to, but he was going to find out.
When Ade had come through the hotel entrance, Lillie was pacing with her back to him. He took advantage of this to alter his demeanor and pretend innocent surprise. “Well, hello, Lillie,” Ade said. “Fancy meeting you here.” “Hello, George,” Lillie said, turning around. “What brings you out to this dreary hotel this time of night?” “None of your business.”
“Some players you’ve come to interview? No, I don’t think so. You must be here after some real News. Unless your editor—” “My editor is none of your business, either.”
Lillie turned away from Ade, but he circled around and came up in front of her. “I tell you, Lillie,” Ade said, “you may think you’re Helen of Troy, Betsy Ross, and Susan B. Anthony all rolled into one, but I know what you are.” Lillie just looked at Ade, although she might have raised one eyebrow a little.
“You’re not going to ask me what I know you are?” Ade asked. “No,” Lillie said, and then fought herself not to smile. “There!” Ade said, “that’s just like a—”
Ade stopped. He was staring over Lillie’s head. He had just missed seeing Cleveland and Tesla, but he had looked up just in time to see me step out of the elevator behind them and slip down the hallway toward the back of the hotel. Lillie’s glance darted over Ade’s face. “What?” Lillie asked. “I just thought I saw someone,” Ade said. “Who?” Lillie asked, “Who?” Lillie turned her head around to see who Ade was looking at, but no one was there. She looked back at Ade.
“Well,” Ade said, still looking toward the hallway, “it looked like… .” Ade looked down at Lillie, and said, “It looked like… .” Ade could see that Lillie was too eager. “Wait a minute,” Ade said, “wait a minute! You know something.” “Nonsense,” Lillie said, and she started walking toward the hallway leading past the elevators to the back of the hotel.
“You—” Ade started to say, but stopped. He rushed to catch up with Lillie, came up along side of her, and kept right on going, leaving her behind. “Oh, no you don’t!” Lillie said. “I’m coming, too!” Ade spun about, and said, “Well, come on if you’re coming!”
And the two of them rushed down the hallway leading toward the back of the hotel.
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Cleveland led the way through the hotel. He took us through an empty kitchen, then into a room filled with crates of vegetables, then through another room and out through a door which opened on to a side street. Waiting at the curb was a landau with its top up. Cleveland got in it, then Tesla, and then I piled in behind them. Before I could close the door, the driver shook the reins and sent the horses into a gallop. We turned right on State Street, left on Jackson, then right again going south down Michigan Avenue. Lillie and Ade had reached the street just as our landau was pulling away from the curb with our horses in a gallop. Ade had hailed a passing cab. It stopped, and as Lilly and Ade climbed inside, Ade said to the driver, “Follow the landau—but not too close!”
The cab carrying Lillie and Ade started forward slowly. When our landau turned on to State Street, Lillie and Ade’s driver shook the reins of his horses and they broke into a little trot. “Now just who are we following?” Ade asked. “Now just what makes you think I’m going to tell you?” Lillie replied. “Professional courtesy?” “I let you in the cab, that’s professional courtesy.” “I hailed the cab.” “And I got in it.”
“That was Mark Twain I saw getting out of the elevator.” “Really? You think so?” “All right. I can wait.”
“Yes. You can wait all you want.”
Ade looked ahead, and spoke up to the driver of the hansom, “They’re turning on to Michigan Avenue! Don’t lose them!”
I sat in the landau facing Cleveland. Tesla sat on Cleveland’s right side. Both of them looked ahead blankly. I was sitting with my back to the direction in which we were going, a position I never liked to take in stagecoaches and carriages. But at the moment I didn’t mind, and, anyway, I was sure we were out for a short drive. I looked to my right and saw a gray billow of steam from the rail yards along the lake front. I looked back at Cleveland. He was still staring blankly ahead. We rode along in silence through the streets of Chicago. I kept waiting for Cleveland to say something, but in a moment realized that he intended to sit there in silence the whole way. Finally I said, “Where are we bound for, Your Excellency?” “You’ll know when we get there,” he said.
“So this is going to be a surprise party—with me being the party who’ll be surprised.” “If you want to look at it that way.”
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“I take it no one knows you’re here in the city.”
“No one knows—officially. Unofficially, only my wife; Dan Lamont, Secre- tary of War; Robert O’Brien, my private secretary; and two other people know I am here.” “Won’t you be missed by everyone in Washington?”
“Joseph Jefferson has secured for me a discreet actor whom Jefferson says is my exact double. I say he is too fat. But I suppose he will fool people at a distance.” “So, only Mrs. Cleveland, Lamont, O’Brien, Joe Jefferson, and this double of yours know you are here.” “That’s right.”
“And now Tesla and I.” Cleveland nodded. “Why don’t you want anyone else to know?”
“These are delicate times. Very delicate times. And they call for extreme discretion. That is all I’ll say for now.” We rode along in silence quite a while longer. Cleveland kept looking at me with his blank poker face which was always impossible for me to read. Tesla was unusually quiet and kept his head bowed down slightly, studying his coat buttons. Finally, after a number of minutes had passed, Cleveland said, “Cold as hell.”
“Yes,” I said, “Yes, yes, it is.” “Chicago’s always cold as hell,” Cleveland continued. “Cold and the wind blows. Damn cold weather is giving me a sore throat.” Cleveland studied me a moment longer, then added, “You don’t look very well yourself, Clemens.”
“I’m a sick old man, Your Excellency. Worn out before my time with money worries.” “Money worries? Ha! You?”
“Yes, and this bank panic has exacerbated my troubles.” “Exacerbated? That’s a ten dollar word.” “If I could’ve found a higher priced one, I would’ve used it. Ten dollars don’t begin to meet the bill on my money troubles.”
“You are truly a humorist. There are bread lines in this country stretching from one coast to the other, and you have the temerity to talk about your money troubles.” “I’ve seen those bread lines. That’s what’s worr
ying me—that me and mine will be standing in one of them before too long.” “I consider that a remote possibility.” “Well, you are an optimist, Your Excellency.”
“Optimism has nothing to do with it. I just happen to know that men like you are always taken care of. Men like you always land on their feet. I ask you:
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Will Mark Twain be allowed to stand in a bread line, Mark Twain, the symbol of America?” “Mark Twain is the symbol of America?”
“Don’t play coy. You have said yourself that you aren’t just an American, you are the American.” “Mark Twain is the American. Sam Clemens is just another son-of-a-bitch everybody will enjoy kicking when he gets down.” “Well, maybe being down a little won’t hurt you a bit. Maybe you need to get a little down. I remember when I was Sheriff of Buffalo and you were the high and mighty publisher of the Buffalo Express. You wouldn’t give me the time of day.” “Now, Your Excellency, I thought I explained all that to you.” “Yes, you explained. You explained you were a snob.” “I was in society. I couldn’t very well associate with the town sheriff. You can understand that. You’re President now. Do you associate with just any- body? No, sir, you’re particular, as well you should be. You know what Anson Burlingame told me over twenty-three years ago? He said: ‘Climb! Climb! Always associate with your superiors, never your inferiors.’”
“And you’ve taken his advice. Admirably. You married well. You posi- tioned yourself well.” “And so did you, Your Excellency. I’d say you did everything I did.” “I don’t have your money.” “I don’t have your power.”
“I have power?”
“Yes. And the time has come for you to use it. You’ve got to do something, Your Excellency.” “About what?”
“You know what. The bank panic.”
“And what would you suggest I do about that?”
