The Best Short Works of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  “Henry, you can save me! You can save me, and you’re the only man in the universe that can. Will you do it? Won’t you do it?”

  “Tell me how. Speak out, my boy.”

  “Give me a million and my passage home for my ‘option’! Don’t, don’t refuse!”

  I was in a kind of agony. I was right on the point of coming out with the words, “Lloyd, I’m a pauper myself—absolutely penniless, and in debt.” But a white-hot idea came flaming through my head, and I gripped my jaws together, and calmed myself down till I was as cold as a capitalist. Then I said, in a commercial and self-possessed way:

  “I will save you, Lloyd—”

  “Then I’m already saved! God be merciful to you forever! If ever I—”

  “Let me finish, Lloyd. I will save you, but not in that way; for that would not be fair to you, after your hard work, and the risks you’ve run. I don’t need to buy mines; I can keep my capital moving, in a commercial center like London, without that; it’s what I’m at, all the time; but here is what I’ll do. I know all about that mine, of course; I know its immense value, and can swear to it if anybody wishes it. You shall sell out inside of the fortnight for three millions cash, using my name freely, and we’ll divide, share and share alike.”

  Do you know, he would have danced the furniture to kindling-wood in his insane joy, and broken everything on the place, if I hadn’t tripped him up and tied him.

  Then he lay there, perfectly happy, saying:

  “I may use your name! Your name—think of it! Man, they’ll flock in droves, these rich Londoners; they’ll fight for that stock! I’m a made man, I’m a made man forever, and I’ll never forget you as long as I live!”

  In less than twenty-four hours London was abuzz! I hadn’t anything to do, day after day, but sit at home, and say to all comers:

  “Yes; I told him to refer to me. I know the man, and I know the mine. His character is above reproach, and the mine is worth far more than he asks for it.”

  Meantime I spent all my evenings at the minister’s with Portia. I didn’t say a word to her about the mine; I saved it for a surprise. We talked salary; never anything but salary and love; sometimes love, sometimes salary, sometimes love and salary together. And my! the interest the minister’s wife and daughter took in our little affair, and the endless ingenuities they invented to save us from interruption, and to keep the minister in the dark and unsuspicious—well, it was just lovely of them!

  When the month was up at last, I had a million dollars to my credit in the London and County Bank, and Hastings was fixed in the same way. Dressed at my level best, I drove by the house in Portland Place, judged by the look of things that my birds were home again, went on toward the minister’s and got my precious, and we started back, talking salary with all our might. She was so excited and anxious that it made her just intolerably beautiful. I said:

  “Dearie, the way you’re looking it’s a crime to strike for a salary a single penny under three thousand a year.”

  “Henry, Henry, you’ll ruin us!”

  “Don’t you be afraid. Just keep up those looks and trust to me. It’ll all come out right.”

  So, as it turned out, I had to keep bolstering up her courage all the way. She kept pleading with me, and saying:

  “Oh, please remember that if we ask for too much we may get no salary at all; and then what will become of us, with no way in the world to earn our living?”

  We were ushered in by that same servant, and there they were, the two old gentlemen. Of course, they were surprised to see that wonderful creature with me, but I said:

  “It’s all right, gentlemen; she is my future stay and helpmate.”

  And I introduced them to her, and called them by name. It didn’t surprise them; they knew I would know enough to consult the directory. They seated us, and were very polite to me, and very solicitous to relieve her from embarrassment, and put her as much at her ease as they could. Then I said:

  “Gentlemen, I am ready to report.”

  “We are glad to hear it,” said my man, “For now we can decide the bet which my brother Abel and I made. If you have won for me, you shall have any situation in my gift. Have you the million-pound note?”

  “Here it is, sir,” and I handed it to him.

  “I’ve won!” he shouted, and slapped Abel on the back. “Now what do you say, brother?”

  “I say he did survive, and I’ve lost twenty thousand pounds. I never would have believed it.”

  “I’ve a further report to make,” I said, “and a pretty long one. I want you to let me come soon, and detail my whole month’s history; and I promise you it’s worth hearing. Meantime, take a look at that.”

  “What, man! Certificate of deposit for £200,000. Is it yours?”

  “Mine. I earned it by thirty days’ judicious use of that little loan you let me have. And the only use I made of it was to buy trifles and offer the bill in change.”

  “Come, this is astonishing! It’s incredible, man!”

  “Never mind, I’ll prove it. Don’t take my word unsupported.”

  But now Portia’s turn was come to be surprised. Her eyes were spread wide, and she said:

  “Henry, is that really your money? Have you been fibbing to me?”

  “I have, indeed, dearie. But you’ll forgive me, I know.”

  She put up an arch pout, and said:

  “Don’t you be so sure. You are a naughty thing to deceive me so!”

  “Oh, you’ll get over it, sweetheart, you’ll get over it; it was only fun, you know. Come, let’s be going.”

  “But wait, wait! The situation, you know. I want to give you the situation,” said my man.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m just as grateful as I can be, but really I don’t want one.”

  “But you can have the very choicest one in my gift.”

  “Thanks again, with all my heart; but I don’t even want that one.”

  “Henry, I’m ashamed of you. You don’t half thank the good gentleman. May I do it for you?”

  “Indeed, you shall, dear, if you can improve it. Let us see you try.”

  She walked to my man, got up in his lap, put her arm round his neck, and kissed him right on the mouth. Then the two old gentlemen shouted with laughter, but I was dumbfounded, just petrified, as you may say. Portia said:

  “Papa, he has said you haven’t a situation in your gift that he’d take; and I feel just as hurt as—”

  “My darling, is that your papa?”

  “Yes; he’s my step-papa, and the dearest one that ever was. You understand now, don’t you, why I was able to laugh when you told me at the minister’s, not knowing my relationships, what trouble and worry papa’s and Uncle Abel’s scheme was giving you?”

  Of course, I spoke right up now, without any fooling, and went straight to the point.

  “Oh, my dearest dear sir, I want to take back what I said. You have got a situation open that I want.”

  “Name it.”

  “Son-in-law.”

  “Well, well, well! But you know, if you haven’t ever served in that capacity, you, of course, can’t furnish recommendations of a sort to satisfy the conditions of the contract, and so—”

  “Try me—oh, do, I beg of you! Only just try me thirty or forty years, and if—”

  “Oh, well, all right; it’s but a little thing to ask, take her along.”

  Happy, we two? There are not words enough in the unabridged to describe it. And when London got the whole history, a day or two later, of my month’s adventures with that bank-note, and how they ended, did London talk, and have a good time? Yes.

  My Portia’s papa took that friendly and hospitable bill back to the Bank of England and cashed it; then the Bank canceled it and made him a present of it, and he gave it to us at our wedding, and it has always hung in its frame in the sacredest place in our home ever since. For it gave me my Portia. But for it I could not have remained in London, would not have appeared at the ministe
r’s, never should have met her. And so I always say, “Yes, it’s a million-pounder, as you see; but it never made but one purchase in its life, and then got the article for only about a tenth part of its value.”

  1893

  HOW TO TELL A STORY

  THE HUMOROUS STORY AN AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT.—ITS DIFFERENCE FROM COMIC AND WITTY STORIES.

  I DO NOT claim that I can tell a story as it ought to be told. I only claim to know how a story ought to be told, for I have been almost daily in the company of the most expert story-tellers for many years.

  There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind—the humorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter.

  The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the comic and witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous story bubbles gently along, the others burst.

  The humorous story is strictly a work of art—high and delicate art—and only an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic and the witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling a humorous story—understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print—was created in America, and has remained at home.

  The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it; but the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand that it is one of the funniest things he has ever heard, then tells it with eager delight, and is the first person to laugh when he gets through. And sometimes, if he has had good success, he is so glad and happy that he will repeat the “nub” of it and glance around from face to face, collecting applause, and then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to see.

  Very often, of course, the rambling and disjointed humorous story finishes with a nub, point, snapper, or whatever you like to call it. Then the listener must be alert, for in many cases the teller will divert attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully casual and indifferent way, with the pretense that he does not know it is a nub.

  Artemus Ward used that trick a good deal; then when the belated audience presently caught the joke he would look up with innocent surprise, as if wondering what they had found to laugh at. Dan Setchell used it before him, Nye and Riley and others use it to-day.

  But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at you—every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whooping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life.

  Let me set down an instance of the comic method, using an anecdote which has been popular all over the world for twelve or fifteen hundred years. The teller tells it in this way:

  THE WOUNDED SOLDIER

  In the course of a certain battle a soldier whose leg had been shot off appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to carry him to the rear, informing him at the same time of the loss which he had sustained; whereupon the generous son of Mars, shouldering the unfortunate, proceeded to carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls were flying in all directions, and presently one of the latter took the wounded man’s head off—without, however, his deliverer being aware of it. In no long time he was hailed by an officer, who said:

  “Where are you going with that carcass?”

  “To the rear, sir—he’s lost his leg!”

  “His leg, forsooth?” responded the astonished officer; “you mean his head, you booby.”

  Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:

  “It is true, sir, just as you have said.” Then after a pause he added, “But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG!!!!!”

  Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gaspings and shriekings and suffocatings.

  It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form; and isn’t worth the telling, after all. Put into the humorous-story form it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever listened to—as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.

  He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who has just heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is trying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can’t remember it; so he gets all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious details that don’t belong in the tale and only retard it; taking them out conscientiously and putting in others that are just as useless; making minor mistakes now and then and stopping to correct them and explain how he came to make them; remembering things which he forgot to put in in their proper place and going back to put them in there; stopping his narrative a good while in order to try to recall the name of the soldier that was hurt, and finally remembering that the soldier’s name was not mentioned, and remarking placidly that the name is of no real importance, anyway—better, of course, if one knew it, but not essential, after all—and so on, and so on, and so on.

  The teller is innocent and happy and pleased with himself, and has to stop every little while to hold himself in and keep from laughing outright; and does hold in, but his body quakes in a jelly-like way with interior chuckles; and at the end of the ten minutes the audience have laughed until they are exhausted, and the tears are running down their faces.

  The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and unconsciousness of the old farmer are perfectly simulated, and the result is a performance which is thoroughly charming and delicious. This is art—and fine and beautiful, and only a master can compass it; but a machine could tell the other story.

  To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct. Another feature is the slurring of the point. A third is the dropping of a studied remark apparently without knowing it, as if one were thinking aloud. The fourth and last is the pause.

  Artemus Ward dealt in numbers three and four a good deal. He would begin to tell with great animation something which he seemed to think was wonderful; then lose confidence, and after an apparently absent-minded pause add an incongruous remark in a soliloquizing way; and that was the remark intended to explode the mine—and it did.

  For instance, he would say eagerly, excitedly, “I once knew a man in New Zealand who hadn’t a tooth in his head”—here his animation would die out; a silent, reflective pause would follow, then he would say dreamily, and as if to himself, “and yet that man could beat a drum better than any man I ever saw.”

  The pause is an exceedingly important feature in any kind of story, and a frequently recurring feature, too. It is a dainty thing, and delicate, and also uncertain and treacherous; for it must be exactly the right length—no more and no less—or it fails of its purpose and makes trouble. If the pause is too short the impressive point is passed, and the audience have had time to divine that a surprise is intended—and then you can’t surprise them, of course.

  On the platform I used to tell a negro ghost story that had a pause in front of the snapper on the end, and that pause was the most important thing in the whole story. If I got it the right length precisely, I could spring the finishing ejaculation with effect enough to make some impressible girl deliver a startled little yelp and jump out of her seat—and that was what I was after. This story was called “The Golden Arm,” and was told in this fashion. You can practise with it yourself—and mind you look out for the pause and get it right.

  THE GOLDEN ARM

  Once ’pon a time dey wuz a monsus mean man, en he live ’way out in de prairie all ’lone by
hisself, ’cep’n he had a wife. En bimeby she died, en he tuck en toted her way out dah in de prairie en buried her. Well, she had a golden arm—all solid gold, fum de shoulder down. He wiz pow’ful mean—pow’ful; en dat night he couldn’t sleep, caze he want dat golden arm so bad.

  When it come midnight he couldn’t stan’ it no mo’; so he git up, he did, en tuck his lantern en shoved out thoo de storm en dug her up en got de golden arm; en he bent his head down ’gin de win’, en plowed en plowed en plowed thoo de snow. Den all on a sudden he stop (make a considerable pause here, and look startled, and take a listening attitude) en say: “My lan’, what’s dat?”

  En he listen—en listen—en de win’ say (set your teeth together and imitate the wailing and wheezing singsong of the wind), “Buzzz-z-zzz”—en den, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear a voice!—he hear a voice all mix’ up in de win’—can’t hardly tell ’em ’part—”Buzz—zzz—W-h-o—g-o-t—m-y—g- o-l-d-e-n arm?” (You must begin to shiver violently now.)

  En he begin to shiver en shake, en say, “Oh, my! Oh, my lan’!” en de win’ blow de lantern out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en most’ choke him, en he start a-plowin’ knee-deep towards home mos’ dead, he so sk’yerd—en pooty soon he hear de voice agin, en (pause) it ’us comin after him! “Bzzz—zzz—zzz—W-h-o—g-o-t—m-y—g-o-l-d-e-n —arm?”

  When he git to de pasture he hear it again—closer now, en a-comin’!—a-comin’ back dah in de dark en de storm—(repeat the wind and the voice). When he git to de house he rush up-stairs en jump in de bed en kiver up, head and years, en lay dah shiverin’ en shakin’—en den way out dah he hear it agin!—en a-comin’! En bimeby he hear (pause—awed, listening attitude)—pat—pat—pat—hit’s a-comin’ up-stairs! Den he hear de latch, en he know it’s in de room!