The Best Short Works of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  “I’m changing my quarters. I will drop in and leave the new address.”

  “Quite right, sir, quite right. One moment—let me show you out, sir. There—good day, sir, good day.”

  Well, don’t you see what was bound to happen? I drifted naturally into buying whatever I wanted, and asking for change. Within a week I was sumptuously equipped with all needful comforts and luxuries, and was housed in an expensive private hotel in Hanover Square. I took my dinners there, but for breakfast I stuck by Harris’s humble feeding-house, where I had got my first meal on my million-pound bill. I was the making of Harris. The fact had gone all abroad that the foreign crank who carried million-pound bills in his vest pocket was the patron saint of the place. That was enough. From being a poor, struggling, little hand-to-mouth enterprise, it had become celebrated, and overcrowded with customers. Harris was so grateful that he forced loans upon me, and would not be denied; and so, pauper as I was, I had money to spend, and was living like the rich and the great. I judged that there was going to be a crash by and by, but I was in now and must swim across or drown. You see there was just that element of impending disaster to give a serious side, a sober side, yes, a tragic side, to a state of things which would otherwise have been purely ridiculous. In the night, in the dark, the tragedy part was always to the front, and always warning, always threatening; and so I moaned and tossed, and sleep was hard to find. But in the cheerful daylight the tragedy element faded out and disappeared, and I walked on air, and was happy to giddiness, to intoxication, you may say.

  And it was natural; for I had become one of the notorieties of the metropolis of the world, and it turned my head, not just a little, but a good deal. You could not take up a newspaper, English, Scotch, or Irish, without finding in it one or more references to the “vest-pocket million-pounder” and his latest doings and sayings. At first, in these mentions, I was at the bottom of the personal-gossip column; next, I was listed above the knights, next above the baronets, next above the barons, and so on, and so on, climbing steadily, as my notoriety augmented, until I reached the highest altitude possible, and there I remained, taking precedence of all dukes not royal, and of all ecclesiastics except the primate of all England. But mind, this was not fame; as yet I had achieved only notoriety. Then came the climaxing stroke—the accolade, so to speak—which in a single instant transmuted the perishable dross of notoriety into the enduring gold of fame: Punch caricatured me! Yes, I was a made man now; my place was established. I might be joked about still, but reverently, not hilariously, not rudely; I could be smiled at, but not laughed at. The time for that had gone by. Punch pictured me all a-flutter with rags, dickering with a beef-eater for the Tower of London. Well, you can imagine how it was with a young fellow who had never been taken notice of before, and now all of a sudden couldn’t say a thing that wasn’t taken up and repeated everywhere; couldn’t stir abroad without constantly overhearing the remark flying from lip to lip, “There he goes; that’s him!” couldn’t take his breakfast without a crowd to look on; couldn’t appear in an opera-box without concentrating there the fire of a thousand lorgnettes. Why, I just swam in glory all day long—that is the amount of it.

  You know, I even kept my old suit of rags, and every now and then appeared in them, so as to have the old pleasure of buying trifles, and being insulted, and then shooting the scoffer dead with the million-pound bill. But I couldn’t keep that up. The illustrated papers made the outfit so familiar that when I went out in it I was at once recognized and followed by a crowd, and if I attempted a purchase the man would offer me his whole shop on credit before I could pull my note on him.

  About the tenth day of my fame I went to fulfill my duty to my flag by paying my respects to the American minister. He received me with the enthusiasm proper in my case, upbraided me for being so tardy in my duty, and said that there was only one way to get his forgiveness, and that was to take the seat at his dinner-party that night made vacant by the illness of one of his guests. I said I would, and we got to talking. It turned out that he and my father had been schoolmates in boyhood, Yale students together later, and always warm friends up to my father’s death. So then he required me to put in at his house all the odd time I might have to spare, and I was very willing, of course.

  In fact, I was more than willing; I was glad. When the crash should come, he might somehow be able to save me from total destruction; I didn’t know how, but he might think of a way, maybe. I couldn’t venture to unbosom myself to him at this late date, a thing which I would have been quick to do in the beginning of this awful career of mine in London. No, I couldn’t venture it now; I was in too deep; that is, too deep for me to be risking revelations to so new a friend, though not clear beyond my depth, as I looked at it. Because, you see, with all my borrowing, I was carefully keeping within my means—I mean within my salary. Of course, I couldn’t know what my salary was going to be, but I had a good enough basis for an estimate in the fact that if I won the bet I was to have choice of any situation in that rich old gentleman’s gift provided I was competent—and I should certainly prove competent; I hadn’t any doubt about that. And as to the bet, I wasn’t worrying about that; I had always been lucky. Now my estimate of the salary was six hundred to a thousand a year; say, six hundred for the first year, and so on up year by year, till I struck the upper figure by proved merit. At present I was only in debt for my first year’s salary. Everybody had been trying to lend me money, but I had fought off the most of them on one pretext or another; so this indebtedness represented only £300 borrowed money, the other £300 represented my keep and my purchases. I believed my second year’s salary would carry me through the rest of the month if I went on being cautious and economical, and I intended to look sharply out for that. My month ended, my employer back from his journey, I should be all right once more, for I should at once divide the two years’ salary among my creditors by assignment, and get right down to my work.

  It was a lovely dinner-party of fourteen. The Duke and Duchess of Shoreditch, and their daughter the Lady Anne-Grace-Eleanor-Celeste-and-so-forth-and-so-forth-de-Bohun, the Earl and Countess of Newgate, Viscount Cheapside, Lord and Lady Blatherskite, some untitled people of both sexes, the minister and his wife and daughter, and his daughter’s visiting friend, an English girl of twenty-two, named Portia Langham, whom I fell in love with in two minutes, and she with me—I could see it without glasses. There was still another guest, an American—but I am a little ahead of my story. While the people were still in the drawing-room, whetting up for dinner, and coldly inspecting the late comers, the servant announced:

  “Mr. Lloyd Hastings.”

  The moment the usual civilities were over, Hastings caught sight of me, and came straight with cordially outstretched hand; then stopped short when about to shake, and said, with an embarrassed look:

  “I beg your pardon, sir, I thought I knew you.”

  “Why, you do know me, old fellow.”

  “No. Are you the—the—”

  “Vest-pocket monster? I am, indeed. Don’t be afraid to call me by my nickname; I’m used to it.”

  “Well, well, well, this is a surprise. Once or twice I’ve seen your own name coupled with the nickname, but it never occurred to me that you could be the Henry Adams referred to. Why, it isn’t six months since you were clerking away for Blake Hopkins in Frisco on a salary, and sitting up nights on an extra allowance, helping me arrange and verify the Gould and Curry Extension papers and statistics. The idea of your being in London, and a vast millionaire, and a colossal celebrity! Why, it’s the Arabian Nights come again. Man, I can’t take it in at all; can’t realize it; give me time to settle the whirl in my head.”

  “The fact is, Lloyd, you are no worse off than I am. I can’t realize it myself.”

  “Dear me, it is stunning, now isn’t it? Why, it’s just three months today since we went to the Miners’ restaurant—”

  “No; the What Cheer.”

  “Right, it was the Wh
at Cheer; went there at two in the morning, and had a chop and coffee after a hard six-hours grind over those Extension papers, and I tried to persuade you to come to London with me, and offered to get leave of absence for you and pay all your expenses, and give you something over if I succeeded in making the sale; and you would not listen to me, said I wouldn’t succeed, and you couldn’t afford to lose the run of business and be no end of time getting the hang of things again when you got back home. And yet here you are. How odd it all is! How did you happen to come, and whatever did give you this incredible start?”

  “Oh, just an accident. It’s a long story—a romance, a body may say. I’ll tell you all about it, but not now.”

  “When?”

  “The end of this month.”

  “That’s more than a fortnight yet. It’s too much of a strain on a person’s curiosity. Make it a week.”

  “I can’t. You’ll know why, by and by. But how’s the trade getting along?”

  His cheerfulness vanished like a breath, and he said with a sigh:

  “You were a true prophet, Hal, a true prophet. I wish I hadn’t come. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But you must. You must come and stop with me to-night, when we leave here, and tell me all about it.”

  “Oh, may I? Are you in earnest?” and the water showed in his eyes.

  “Yes; I want to hear the whole story, every word.”

  “I’m so grateful! Just to find a human interest once more, in some voice and in some eye, in me and affairs of mine, after what I’ve been through here—lord! I could go down on my knees for it!”

  He gripped my hand hard, and braced up, and was all right and lively after that for the dinner—which didn’t come off. No; the usual thing happened, the thing that is always happening under the vicious and aggravating English system—the matter of precedence couldn’t be settled, and so there was no dinner. Englishmen always eat dinner before they go out to dinner, because they know the risks they are running; but nobody ever warns the stranger, and so he walks placidly into the trap. Of course, nobody was hurt this time, because we had all been to dinner, none of us being novices excepting Hastings, and he having been informed by the minister at the time that he invited him that in deference to the English custom he had not provided any dinner. Everybody took a lady and processioned down to the dining-room because it is usual to go through the motions; but there the dispute began. The Duke of Shoreditch wanted to take precedence, and sit at the head of the table, holding that he outranked a minister who represented merely a nation and not a monarch; but I stood for my rights, and refused to yield. In the gossip column I ranked all dukes not royal, and said so, and claimed precedence of this one. It couldn’t be settled, of course, struggle as we might and did, he finally (and injudiciously) trying to play birth and antiquity, and I “seeing” his Conqueror and “raising” him with Adam, whose direct posterity I was, as shown by my name, while he was of a collateral branch, as shown by his, and by his recent Norman origin; so we all processioned back to the drawing-room again and had a perpendicular lunch—plate of sardines and a strawberry, and you group yourself and stand up and eat it. Here the religion of precedence is not so strenuous; the two persons of highest rank chuck up a shilling, the one that wins has first go at his strawberry, and the loser gets the shilling. The next two chuck up, then the next two, and so on. After refreshment, tables were brought, and we all played cribbage, sixpence a game. The English never play any game for amusement. If they can’t make something or lose something—they don’t care which—they won’t play.

  We had a lovely time; certainly two of us had, Miss Langham and I. I was so bewitched with her that I couldn’t count my hands if they went above a double sequence; and when I struck home I never discovered it, and started up the outside row again, and would have lost the game every time, only the girl did the same, she being in just my condition, you see; and consequently neither of us ever got out, or cared to wonder why we didn’t; we only just knew we were happy, and didn’t wish to know anything else, and didn’t want to be interrupted. And I told her—I did, indeed—told her I loved her; and she—well, she blushed till her hair turned red, but she liked it; she said she did. Oh, there was never such an evening! Every time I pegged I put on a postscript; every time she pegged she acknowledged receipt of it, counting the hands the same. Why, I couldn’t even say “Two for his heels” without adding “My, how sweet you do look!” and she would say, “Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, and a pair are eight, and eight are sixteen—do you think so?”—peeping out aslant from under her lashes, you know, so sweet and cunning. Oh, it was just too-too!

  Well, I was perfectly honest and square with her; told her I hadn’t a cent in the world but just the million-pound note she’d heard so much talk about, and it didn’t belong to me, and that started her curiosity; and then I talked low, and told her the whole history right from the start, and it nearly killed her laughing. What in the nation she could find to laugh about I couldn’t see, but there it was; every half-minute some new detail would fetch her, and I would have to stop as much as a minute and a half to give her a chance to settle down again. Why, she laughed herself lame—she did, indeed; I never saw anything like it. I mean I never saw a painful story—a story of a person’s troubles and worries and fears—produce just that kind of effect before. So I loved her all the more, seeing she could be so cheerful when there wasn’t anything to be cheerful about; for I might soon need that kind of wife, you know, the way things looked. Of course, I told her we should have to wait a couple of years, till I could catch up on my salary; but she didn’t mind that, only she hoped I would be as careful as possible in the matter of expenses, and not let them run the least risk of trenching on our third year’s pay. Then she began to get a little worried, and wondered if we were making any mistake, and starting the salary on a higher figure for the first year than I would get. This was good sense, and it made me feel a little less confident than I had been feeling before; but it gave me a good business idea, and I brought it frankly out.

  “Portia, dear, would you mind going with me that day, when I confront those old gentlemen?”

  She shrank a little, but said:

  “N-o; if my being with you would help hearten you. But—would it be quite proper, do you think?”

  “No, I don’t know that it would—in fact, I’m afraid it wouldn’t; but, you see, there’s so much dependent upon it that—”

  “Then I’ll go anyway, proper or improper,” she said, with a beautiful and generous enthusiasm. “Oh, I shall be so happy to think I’m helping!”

  “Helping, dear? Why, you’ll be doing it all. You’re so beautiful and so lovely and so winning, that with you there I can pile our salary up till I break those good old fellows, and they’ll never have the heart to struggle.”

  Sho! you should have seen the rich blood mount, and her happy eyes shine!

  “You wicked flatterer! There isn’t a word of truth in what you say, but still I’ll go with you. Maybe it will teach you not to expect other people to look with your eyes.”

  Were my doubts dissipated? Was my confidence restored? You may judge by this fact: privately I raised my salary to twelve hundred the first year on the spot. But I didn’t tell her: I saved it for a surprise.

  All the way home I was in the clouds, Hastings talking, I not hearing a word. When he and I entered my parlor, he brought me to myself with his fervent appreciations of my manifold comforts and luxuries.

  “Let me just stand here a little and look my fill. Dear me! it’s a palace—it’s just a palace! And in it everything a body could desire, including cozy coal fire and supper standing ready. Henry, it doesn’t merely make me realize how rich you are; it makes me realize, to the bone, to the marrow, how poor I am—how poor I am, and how miserable, how defeated, routed, annihilated!”

  Plague take it! this language gave me the cold shudders. It scared me broad awake, and made me comprehend that I was standing on a
half-inch crust, with a crater underneath. I didn’t know I had been dreaming—that is, I hadn’t been allowing myself to know it for a while back; but now—oh, dear! Deep in debt, not a cent in the world, a lovely girl’s happiness or woe in my hands, and nothing in front of me but a salary which might never—oh, would never—materialize! Oh, oh, oh! I am ruined past hope! nothing can save me!

  “Henry, the mere unconsidered drippings of your daily income would—”

  “Oh, my daily income! Here, down with this hot Scotch, and cheer up your soul. Here’s with you! Or, no—you’re hungry; sit down and—”

  “Not a bite for me; I’m past it. I can’t eat, these days; but I’ll drink with you till I drop. Come!”

  “Barrel for barrel, I’m with you! Ready? Here we go! Now, then, Lloyd, unreel your story while I brew.”

  “Unreel it? What, again?”

  “Again? What do you mean by that?”

  “Why, I mean do you want to hear it over again?”

  “Do I want to hear it over again? This is a puzzler. Wait; don’t take any more of that liquid. You don’t need it.”

  “Look here, Henry, you alarm me. Didn’t I tell you the whole story on the way here?”

  “You?”

  “Yes, I.”

  “I’ll be hanged if I heard a word of it.”

  “Henry, this is a serious thing. It troubles me. What did you take up yonder at the minister’s?”

  Then it all flashed on me, and I owned up like a man.

  “I took the dearest girl in this world—prisoner!”

  So then he came with a rush, and we shook, and shook, and shook till our hands ached; and he didn’t blame me for not having heard a word of a story which had lasted while we walked three miles. He just sat down then, like the patient, good fellow he was, and told it all over again. Synopsized, it amounted to this: He had come to England with what he thought was a grand opportunity; he had an “option” to sell the Gould and Curry Extension for the “locators” of it, and keep all he could get over a million dollars. He had worked hard, had pulled every wire he knew of, had left no honest expedient untried, had spent nearly all the money he had in the world, had not been able to get a solitary capitalist to listen to him, and his option would run out at the end of the month. In a word, he was ruined. Then he jumped up and cried out: