The American Claimant

by Mark Twain

  CHAPTER XI.

  During the first few days he kept the fact diligently before his mindthat he was in a land where there was "work and bread for all." In fact,for convenience' sake he fitted it to a little tune and hummed it tohimself; but as time wore on the fact itself began to take on a doubtfullook, and next the tune got fatigued and presently ran down andstopped. His first effort was to get an upper clerkship in one of thedepartments, where his Oxford education could come into play and dohim service. But he stood no chance whatever. There, competency was norecommendation; political backing, without competency, was worth six ofit. He was glaringly English, and that was necessarily against him inthe political centre of a nation where both parties prayed for the Irishcause on the house-top and blasphemed it in the cellar. By his dress hewas a cowboy; that won him respect--when his back was not turned--butit couldn't get a clerkship for him. But he had said, in a rash moment,that he would wear those clothes till the owner or the owner's friendscaught sight of them and asked for that money, and his conscience wouldnot let him retire from that engagement now.

  At the end of a week things were beginning to wear rather a startlinglook. He had hunted everywhere for work, descending gradually the scaleof quality, until apparently he had sued for all the various kinds ofwork a man without a special calling might hope to be able to do, exceptditching and the other coarse manual sorts--and had got neither work northe promise of it.

  He was mechanically turning over the leaves of his diary, meanwhile, andnow his eye fell upon the first record made after he was burnt out:

  "I myself did not doubt my stamina before, nobody could doubt it now, ifthey could see how I am housed, and realise that I feel absolutely nodisgust with these quarters, but am as serenely content with them as anydog would be in a similar kennel. Terms, twenty-five dollars a week. Isaid I would start at the bottom. I have kept my word." A shudder wentquaking through him, and he exclaimed:

  "What have I been thinking of! THIS the bottom! Mooning along a wholeweek, and these terrific expenses climbing and climbing all the time! Imust end this folly straightway."

  He settled up at once and went forth to find less sumptuous lodgings. Hehad to wander far and seek with diligence, but he succeeded. They madehim pay in advance--four dollars and a half; this secured both bed andfood for a week. The good-natured, hardworked landlady took him up threeflights of narrow, uncarpeted stairs and delivered him into his room.There were two double-bedsteads in it, and one single one. He would beallowed to sleep alone in one of the double beds until some new boardershould come, but he wouldn't be charged extra.

  So he would presently be required to sleep with some stranger! Thethought of it made him sick. Mrs. Marsh, the landlady, was very friendlyand hoped he would like her house--they all liked it, she said.

  "And they're a very nice set of boys. They carry on a good deal, butthat's their fun. You see, this room opens right into this back one, andsometimes they're all in one and sometimes in the other; and hot nightsthey all sleep on the roof when it don't rain. They get out there theminute it's hot enough. The season's so early that they've already had anight or two up there. If you'd like to go up and pick out a place, youcan. You'll find chalk in the side of the chimney where there's a brickwanting. You just take the chalk and--but of course you've done itbefore."

  "Oh, no, I haven't."

  "Why, of course you haven't--what am I thinking of? Plenty of room onthe Plains without chalking, I'll be bound. Well, you just chalk outa place the size of a blanket anywhere on the tin that ain't alreadymarked off, you know, and that's your property. You and your bed-matetake turnabout carrying up the blanket and pillows and fetching themdown again; or one carries them up and the other fetches them down,you fix it the way you like, you know. You'll like the boys, they'reeverlasting sociable--except the printer. He's the one that sleeps inthat single bed--the strangest creature; why, I don't believe you couldget that man to sleep with another man, not if the house was afire. Mindyou, I'm not just talking, I know. The boys tried him, to see. Theytook his bed out one night, and so when he got home about three in themorning--he was on a morning paper then, but he's on an evening onenow--there wasn't any place for him but with the iron-moulder; and ifyou'll believe me, he just set up the rest of the night--he did, honest.They say he's cracked, but it ain't so, he's English--they're awfulparticular. You won't mind my saying that. You--you're English?"

  "Yes."

  "I thought so. I could tell it by the way you mispronounce the wordsthat's got a's in them, you know; such as saying loff when you mean laff--but you'll get over that. He's a right down good fellow, and a littlesociable with the photographer's boy and the caulker and the blacksmiththat work in the navy yard, but not so much with the others. The factis, though it's private, and the others don't know it, he's a kind ofan aristocrat, his father being a doctor, and you know what style thatis--in England, I mean, because in this country a doctor ain't so verymuch, even if he's that. But over there of course it's different. Sothis chap had a falling out with his father, and was pretty high strung,and just cut for this country, and the first he knew he had to get towork or starve. Well, he'd been to college, you see, and so he judged hewas all right--did you say anything?"

  "No--I only sighed."

  "And there's where he was mistaken. Why, he mighty near starved. And Ireckon he would have starved sure enough, if some jour' printer or otherhadn't took pity on him and got him a place as apprentice. So he learntthe trade, and then he was all right--but it was a close call. Oncehe thought he had got to haul in his pride and holler for his fatherand--why, you're sighing again. Is anything the matter with you?--doesmy clatter--"

  "Oh, dear--no. Pray go on--I like it."

  "Yes, you see, he's been over here ten years; he's twenty-eight, now,and he ain't pretty well satisfied in his mind, because he can't getreconciled to being a mechanic and associating with mechanics, he being,as he says to me, a gentleman, which is a pretty plain letting-on thatthe boys ain't, but of course I know enough not to let that cat out ofthe bag."

  "Why--would there be any harm in it?"

  "Harm in it? They'd lick him, wouldn't they? Wouldn't you? Of courseyou would. Don't you ever let a man say you ain't a gentleman in thiscountry. But laws, what am I thinking about? I reckon a body would thinktwice before he said a cowboy wasn't a gentleman."

  A trim, active, slender and very pretty girl of about eighteen walkedinto the room now, in the most satisfied and unembarrassed way. Shewas cheaply but smartly and gracefully dressed, and the mother's quickglance at the stranger's face as he rose, was of the kind which inquireswhat effect has been produced, and expects to find indications ofsurprise and admiration.

  "This is my daughter Hattie--we call her Puss. It's the new boarder,Puss." This without rising.

  The young Englishman made the awkward bow common to his nationality andtime of life in circumstances of delicacy and difficulty, and these wereof that sort; for, being taken by surprise, his natural, lifelong selfsprang to the front, and that self of course would not know just how toact when introduced to a chambermaid, or to the heiress of a mechanics'boarding house. His other self--the self which recognized the equalityof all men--would have managed the thing better, if it hadn't beencaught off guard and robbed of its chance. The young girl paid noattention to the bow, but put out her hand frankly and gave the strangera friendly shake and said:

  "How do you do?"

  Then she marched to the one washstand in the room, tilted her head thisway and that before the wreck of a cheap mirror that hung above it,dampened her fingers with her tongue, perfected the circle of a littlelock of hair that was pasted against her forehead, then began to busyherself with the slops.

  "Well, I must be going--it's getting towards supper time. Make yourselfat home, Mr. Tracy, you'll hear the bell when it's ready."

  The landlady took her tranquil departure, without commanding either ofthe young people to vacate the room. The young man wondered a littlethat a mother who
seemed so honest and respectable should be sothoughtless, and was reaching for his hat, intending to disembarrass thegirl of his presence; but she said:

  "Where are you going?"

  "Well--nowhere in particular, but as I am only in the way here--"

  "Why, who said you were in the way? Sit down--I'll move you when you arein the way."

  She was making the beds, now. He sat down and watched her deft anddiligent performance.

  "What gave you that notion? Do you reckon I need a whole room just tomake up a bed or two in?"

  "Well no, it wasn't that, exactly. We are away up here in an emptyhouse, and your mother being gone--"

  The girl interrupted him with an amused laugh, and said:

  "Nobody to protect me? Bless you, I don't need it. I'm not afraid. Imight be if I was alone, because I do hate ghosts, and I don't deny it.Not that I believe in them, for I don't. I'm only just afraid of them."

  "How can you be afraid of them if you don't believe in them?"

  "Oh, I don't know the how of it--that's too many for me; I only knowit's so. It's the same with Maggie Lee."

  "Who is that?"

  "One of the boarders; young lady that works in the fact'ry."

  "She works in a factory?"

  "Yes. Shoe factory."

  "In a shoe factory; and you call her a young lady?"

  "Why, she's only twenty-two; what should you call her?"

  "I wasn't thinking of her age, I was thinking of the title. The factis, I came away from England to get away from artificial forms--forartificial forms suit artificial people only--and here you've got themtoo. I'm sorry. I hoped you had only men and women; everybody equal; nodifferences in rank."

  The girl stopped with a pillow in her teeth and the case spread openbelow it, contemplating him from under her brows with a slightly puzzledexpression. She released the pillow and said:

  "Why, they are all equal. Where's any difference in rank?"

  "If you call a factory girl a young lady, what do you call thePresident's wife?"

  "Call her an old one."

  "Oh, you make age the only distinction?"

  "There ain't any other to make as far as I can see."

  "Then all women are ladies?"

  "Certainly they are. All the respectable ones."

  "Well, that puts a better face on it. Certainly there is no harm in atitle when it is given to everybody. It is only an offense and a wrongwhen it is restricted to a favored few. But Miss--er--"

  "Hattie."

  "Miss Hattie, be frank; confess that that title isn't accorded byeverybody to everybody. The rich American doesn't call her cook alady--isn't that so?"

  "Yes, it's so. What of it?"

  He was surprised and a little disappointed, to see that his admirableshot had produced no perceptible effect.

  "What of it?" he said. "Why this: equality is not conceded here, afterall, and the Americans are no better off than the English. In factthere's no difference."

  "Now what an idea. There's nothing in a title except what is put intoit--you've said that yourself. Suppose the title is 'clean,' instead of'lady.' You get that?"

  "I believe so. Instead of speaking of a woman as a lady, you substituteclean and say she's a clean person."

  "That's it. In England the swell folks don't speak of the working peopleas gentlemen and ladies?"

  "Oh, no."

  "And the working people don't call themselves gentlemen and ladies?"

  "Certainly not."

  "So if you used the other word there wouldn't be any change. The swellpeople wouldn't call anybody but themselves 'clean,' and those otherswould drop sort of meekly into their way of talking and they wouldn'tcall themselves clean. We don't do that way here. Everybody callshimself a lady or gentleman, and thinks he is, and don't care whatanybody else thinks him, so long as he don't say it out loud. You thinkthere's no difference. You knuckle down and we don't. Ain't that adifference?"

  "It is a difference I hadn't thought of; I admit that. Still--callingone's self a lady doesn't--er--"

  "I wouldn't go on if I were you."

  Howard Tracy turned his head to see who it might be that had introducedthis remark. It was a short man about forty years old, with sandy hair,no beard, and a pleasant face badly freckled but alive and intelligent,and he wore slop-shop clothing which was neat but showed wear. He hadcome from the front room beyond the hall, where he had left his hat, andhe had a chipped and cracked white wash-bowl in his hand. The girl cameand took the bowl.

  "I'll get it for you. You go right ahead and give it to him, Mr. Barrow.He's the new boarder--Mr. Tracy--and I'd just got to where it wasgetting too deep for me."

  "Much obliged if you will, Hattie. I was coming to borrow of the boys."He sat down at his ease on an old trunk, and said, "I've been listeningand got interested; and as I was saying, I wouldn't go on, if I wereyou. You see where you are coming to, don't you? Calling yourself a ladydoesn't elect you; that is what you were going to say; and you saw thatif you said it you were going to run right up against another differencethat you hadn't thought of: to-wit, Whose right is it to do theelecting? Over there, twenty thousand people in a million electthemselves gentlemen and ladies, and the nine hundred and eightythousand accept that decree and swallow the affront which it puts uponthem. Why, if they didn't accept it, it wouldn't be an election, itwould be a dead letter and have no force at all. Over here the twentythousand would-be exclusives come up to the polls and vote themselvesto be ladies and gentlemen. But the thing doesn't stop there. The ninehundred and eighty thousand come and vote themselves to be ladies andgentlemen too, and that elects the whole nation. Since the whole millionvote themselves ladies and gentlemen, there is no question about thatelection. It does make absolute equality, and there is no fiction aboutit; while over yonder the inequality, (by decree of the infinitelyfeeble, and consent of the infinitely strong,) is also absolute--as realand absolute as our equality."

  Tracy had shrunk promptly into his English shell when this speech began,notwithstanding he had now been in severe training several weeks forcontact and intercourse with the common herd on the common herd's terms;but he lost no time in pulling himself out again, and so by the time thespeech was finished his valves were open once more, and he was forcinghimself to accept without resentment the common herd's frank fashion ofdropping sociably into other people's conversations unembarrassed anduninvited. The process was not very difficult this time, for the man'ssmile and voice and manner were persuasive and winning. Tracy wouldeven have liked him on the spot, but for the fact--fact which he was notreally aware of--that the equality of men was not yet a reality to him,it was only a theory; the mind perceived, but the man failed to feel it.It was Hattie's ghost over again, merely turned around. TheoreticallyBarrow was his equal, but it was distinctly distasteful to see himexhibit it. He presently said:

  "I hope in all sincerity that what you have said is true, as regards theAmericans, for doubts have crept into my mind several times. It seemedthat the equality must be ungenuine where the sign-names of castes werestill in vogue; but those sign-names have certainly lost their offenceand are wholly neutralized, nullified and harmless if they are theundisputed property of every individual in the nation. I think I realizethat caste does not exist and cannot exist except by common consent ofthe masses outside of its limits. I thought caste created itself andperpetuated itself; but it seems quite true that it only creates itself,and is perpetuated by the people whom it despises, and who can dissolveit at any time by assuming its mere sign-names themselves."

  "It's what I think. There isn't any power on earth that can preventEngland's thirty millions from electing themselves dukes and duchessesto-morrow and calling themselves so. And within six months all theformer dukes and duchesses would have retired from the business. Iwish they'd try that. Royalty itself couldn't survive such a process.A handful of frowners against thirty million laughers in a state ofirruption. Why, it's Herculaneum against Vesuvius; it would take anothereighteen ce
nturies to find that Herculaneum after the cataclysm. What'sa Colonel in our South? He's a nobody; because they're all colonels downthere. No, Tracy" (shudder from Tracy) "nobody in England would call youa gentleman and you wouldn't call yourself one; and I tell you it'sa state of things that makes a man put himself into most unbecomingattitudes sometimes--the broad and general recognition and acceptance ofcaste as caste does, I mean. Makes him do it unconsciously--being bredin him, you see, and never thought over and reasoned out. You couldn'tconceive of the Matterhorn being flattered by the notice of one of yourcomely little English hills, could you?"

  "Why, no."

  "Well, then, let a man in his right mind try to conceive of Darwinfeeling flattered by the notice of a princess. It's so grotesque thatit--well, it paralyzes the imagination. Yet that Memnon was flatteredby the notice of that statuette; he says so--says so himself. The systemthat can make a god disown his godship and profane it--oh, well, it'sall wrong, it's all wrong and ought to be abolished, I should say."

  The mention of Darwin brought on a literary discussion, and this topicroused such enthusiasm in Barrow that he took off his coat and madehimself the more free and comfortable for it, and detained him so longthat he was still at it when the noisy proprietors of the room cameshouting and skylarking in and began to romp, scuffle, wash, andotherwise entertain themselves. He lingered yet a little longer to offerthe hospitalities of his room and his book shelf to Tracy and ask him apersonal question or two:

  "What is your trade?"

  "They--well, they call me a cowboy, but that is a fancy. I'm not that. Ihaven't any trade."

  "What do you work at for your living?"

  "Oh, anything--I mean I would work at, anything I could get to do, butthus far I haven't been able to find an occupation."

  "Maybe I can help you; I'd like to try."

  "I shall be very glad. I've tried, myself, to weariness."

  "Well, of course where a man hasn't a regular trade he's pretty bad offin this world. What you needed, I reckon, was less book learning andmore bread-and-butter learning. I don't know what your father could havebeen thinking of. You ought to have had a trade, you ought to have had atrade, by all means. But never mind about that; we'll stir up somethingto do, I guess. And don't you get homesick; that's a bad business. We'lltalk the thing over and look around a little. You'll come out all right.Wait for me--I'll go down to supper with you."

  By this time Tracy had achieved a very friendly feeling for Barrow andwould have called him a friend, maybe, if not taken too suddenly on astraight-out requirement to realize on his theories. He was glad of hissociety, anyway, and was feeling lighter hearted than before. Also hewas pretty curious to know what vocation it might be which had furnishedBarrow such a large acquaintanceship with books and allowed him so muchtime to read.