 XXXI. How the animals of the wood sent out a scientific expedition. Once, the creatures of the forest held a great convention and appointed a commission consisting of the most illustrious scientists among them to go forth, clear beyond the forest, and out into the unknown and unexplored world, to verify the truth of the matters already taught in their schools and colleges, and also to make discoveries. It was the most imposing enterprise of the kind the nation had ever embarked in. True, the government had once sent Dr. Bullfrog with a picked crew to hunt for a northwesterly passage through the swamp to the right-hand corner of the wood, and had since sent out many expeditions to hunt for Dr. Bullfrog, but they never could find him, and so government finally gave him up and ennobled his mother to show its gratitude for the services her son had rendered to science. And once government sent Sir Grasshopper to hunt for the sources of the rill that emptied into the swamp, and afterwards sent out many expeditions to hunt for Sir Grass. And at last they were successful. They found his body. But if he had discovered the sources, meantime, he did not let on. So government acted handsomely by a deceased, and many envied his funeral. But these expeditions were trifles compared with the present one, for this one comprised among its servants the very greatest among the learned, and besides it was to go to the utterly unvisited regions believed to lie beyond the mighty forest, as we have remarked before. How the members were banqueted and glorified and talked about. Everywhere that one of them showed himself, straight away there was a crowd to gape and stare at him. Finally they set off, and it was a sight to see the long procession of dry land tortoises heavily laden with savants, scientific instruments, glow-worms and fireflies for signal service, visions, ants and tumble-bugs to fetch and carry and delve, spiders to carry the surveying chain and do other engineering duty, and so forth and so on. And after the tortoises came another long train of iron-clads, stately and spacious mud-turtles for marine transportation service, and from every tortoise and every turtle flaunted a flaming gladiolus or other splendid banner, at the head of the column a great band of bumble-bees, mosquitoes, katydids and crickets disgorced martial music, and the entire train was under the escort and protection of twelve picked regiments of the army-worm. At the end of three weeks the expedition emerged from the forest and looked upon the great unknown world. Their eyes were greeted with an impressive spectacle, a vast level plain stretched before them, watered by a sinuous stream. And beyond they're towered up against the sky a long and lofty barrier of some kind. They did not know what. The tumble-bug said he believed it was simply land tilted up on its edge, because he knew he could see trees on it. But Professor Snail and the others said, You are hired to dig, sir. That is all. We need your muscle, not your brains. When we want your opinion on scientific matters we will hasten to let you know. Your coolness is intolerable, too. Lofing about here meddling with august matters of learning when the other laborers are pitching camp. Go along and help handle the baggage. The tumble-bug turned on his heel, uncrushed, unabashed, observing to himself, If it isn't land tilted up, let me die the death of the unrighteous. Professor Bullfrog, nephew of the late explorer, said he believed the ridge was the wall that enclosed the earth. He continued, Our fathers have left us much learning, but they had not travelled far, and so we may count this a noble new discovery. We are safe for renown now, even though our labours began and ended with this single achievement. I wonder what this wall is built of. Can it be fungus? Fungus is an honourable good thing to build a wall of. Professor Snail adjusted his field-glass and examined the rampart critically. Finally he said, The fact that it is not diaphanous convinces me that it is a dense vapour formed by the calorification of ascending moisture deflugisticated by refraction. A few endometrical experiments would confirm this, but it is not necessary. The thing is obvious. So he shut up his glass and went into his shell to make a note of the discovery of the world's end and the nature of it. Profound mind! said Professor Angle Worm to Professor Field Mouse. Profound mind! Nothing can long remain a mystery to that august brain. Night drew on apace, the sentinel crickets were posted, the glowworm and firefly lamps were lighted, and the camp sank to silence and sleep. After breakfast in the morning the expedition moved on. About noon a great avenue was reached, which had in it two endless parallel bars of some kind of hard black substance raised the height of the tallest bullfrog above the general level. The scientists climbed up on these and examined and tested them in various ways. They walked along them for a great distance, but found no end and no break in them. They could arrive at no decision. There was nothing in the records of science that mentioned anything of this kind. But at last the bald and venerable geographer, Professor Mud Turtle, a person who, born poor and of drudging low family, had, by his own native force, raised himself to the headship of the geographers of his generation, said, My friends, we have indeed made a discovery here. We have found in a palpable, compact, and imperishable state what the wisest of our fathers always regarded as a mere thing of the imagination. Humble yourselves, my friends, for we stand in a majestic presence. These are parallels of latitude. Every heart and every head was bowed so awful, so sublime was the magnitude of the discovery. Many shed tears. The camp was pitched, and the rest of the day given up to writing voluminous accounts of the marvel, and correcting astronomical tables to fit it. Toward midnight a demoniacal shriek was heard, then a clattering and rumbling noise, and the next instant a vast, terrific eye shot by, with a long tail attached, and disappeared in the gloom, still uttering triumphant shrieks. The poor camp laborers were stricken to the heart with fright, and stampeded for the high grass in a body. But not the scientists. They had no superstitions. They calmly proceeded to exchange theories. The ancient geographer's opinion was asked. He went into his shell, and deliberated long and profoundly. When he came out at last, they all knew by his worshiping countenance that he brought light. Said he, Give thanks for this stupendous thing which we have been permitted to witness. It is the vernal equinox. There were shoutings and great rejoicings. But, said the angle-worm, uncoiling after reflection, this is dead summer time. Very well, said the turtle. We are far from our region. The season differs with the difference of time between the two points. Ah, true! True enough! But it is night. How should the sun pass in the night? In these distant regions he doubtless passes always in the night at this hour. Yes, doubtless that is true. But it being night, how is it that we could see him? It is a great mystery. I grant that. But I am persuaded that the humidity of the atmosphere in these remote regions is such that particles of daylight adhere to the disc, and it was by aid of these that we were unable to see the sun in the dark. This was deemed satisfactory, and due entry was made of the decision. But about this moment those dreadful shriekings were heard again. Again the rumbling and thundering came speeding up out of the night, and once more a flaming great eye flashed by and lost itself in gloom and distance. The camp laborers gave themselves up for lost. The savants were sorely perplexed. Here was a marvel hard to account for. They thought and they talked, they talked and they thought. Finally the learned and aged Lord Granddaddy Longlegs, who had been sitting in deep study with his slender limbs crossed and his stemmy arms folded, said, Deliver your opinions, brethren, and then I will tell my thought, for I think I have solved this problem. So be it good your lordship, piped the weak treble of the wrinkled and withered Professor Woodlouse, for we shall hear from your lordship's lips not but wisdom. Hear the speaker threw in a mess of trite thread-bear, exasperating quotations from the ancient poets and philosophers delivering them with unction in the sounding grandeurs of the original tongues, they being from the mastodon, the dodo, and other dead languages. Perhaps I ought not to presume to meddle with matters pertaining to astronomy at all in such a presence as this. I who have made it the business of my life to delve only among the riches of the extinct languages and unearth the opulence of their ancient lore. But still, as unacquainted as I am with the noble science of astronomy, I beg with deference and humility to suggest that inasmuch as the last of these wonderful apparitions proceeded in exactly the opposite direction from that pursued by the first, which you decide to be the vernal equinox, and greatly resembled it in all particulars, is it not possible, nay certain, that this last is the autumnal equa— Oh! oh! oh! go to bed! go to bed! with annoyed derision from everybody, so the poor old woodlouse retreated out of sight, consumed with shame. Further discussion followed, and then the united voice of the commission begged Lord Longlegs to speak. He said, Hello, scientists! It is my belief that we have witnessed a thing which has occurred in perfection, but once before, in the knowledge of created beings. It is a phenomenon of inconceivable importance and interest, view it as one may, but its interest to us is vastly heightened by an added knowledge of its nature which no scholar has here to fore possessed or even suspected. This great marvel which we have just witnessed, fellow sabance, it almost takes my breath away, is nothing less than the transit of Venus. Every scholar sprang to his feet pale with astonishment, then ensued tears, hands shaking, frenzied embraces, and the most extravagant jubilations of every sort. But by and by, as emotion began to retire within bounds, and reflection to return to the front, the accomplished chief inspector lizard observed, But how is this? Venus should traverse the sun's surface, not the earth's. The arrow went home. It carried sorrow to the breast of every apostle of learning there, for none could deny that this was a formidable criticism. But, tranquilly, the venerable duke crossed his limbs behind his ears and said, My friend has touched the marrow of our mighty discovery. Yes, all that have lived before us thought a transit of Venus consisted of a flight across the sun's face. They thought it, they maintained it, they honestly believed it, simple hearts, and were justified in it by the limitations of their knowledge. But to us has been granted the inestimable boon of proving that the transit occurs across the earth's face, for we have seen it. The assembled wisdom sat in speechless adoration of this imperial intellect. All bouts had instantly departed, like night before the lightning. The tumble-bug had just intruded unnoticed. He now came reeling forward among the scholars, familiarly slapping first one and then another on the shoulder, saying, Nice, nice, old boy, and smiling a smile of elaborate content. Arrived at a good position for speaking, he put his left arm a Kimbo with his knuckles planted in his hip just under the edge of his cutaway coat, bent his right leg, placing his toe on the ground and resting his heel with easy grace against his left shin, puffed out his aldermanic stomach, opened his lips, leaned his right elbow on Inspector Lizard's shoulder, and—but the shoulder was indignantly withdrawn and the hard-handed son of Toil went to earth. He floundered a bit, but came up smiling, arranged his attitude with the same careful detail as before, only choosing Professor Dogtick's shoulder for a support, opened his lips, and went to earth again. He presently scrambled up once more, still smiling, made a loose effort to brush the dust off his coat and legs, but a smart pass of his hand missed entirely, and the force of the unchecked impulse slewed him suddenly around, twisted his legs together, and projected him, limber and sprawling, into the lap of the Lord Long Legs. Two or three scholars sprang forward, flung the low creature head over heels into a corner, and reinstated the patrician, smoothing his ruffled dignity with many soothing and regretful speeches. Professor Bullfrog roared out, No more of this serratumble bug, say your say, and then get you about your business with speed. Quick, what is your errand? Come, move off a trifle. You smell like a stable. What have you been at? Please, please, your worship, I chanced to light upon a find. But no me— matter about that, there's a bit— been another find, which beg pardon, your honours. What was that thing that ripped by here first? It was the vernal equinox. Infernal equinox. That's all right. Gunna him. Oh, what's the other one? The transit of Venus. Got me again, no matter. Last one dropped something. I indeed. Good luck. Good news. Quick, what is it? Mosey out in sea. It'll pay. No more votes were taken for four and twenty hours. Then the following entry was made. The commission went in a body to view the find. It was found to consist of a hard, smooth, huge object with a rounded summit surmounted by a short upright projection, resembling a section of a cabbage stalk divided transversally. This projection was not solid, but was a hollow cylinder plugged with a soft woody substance unknown to our region. That is, it had been so plugged, but unfortunately this obstruction had been heedlessly removed by Norway rat, chief of the sappers and miners, before our arrival. The vast object before us, so mysteriously conveyed from the glittering domains of space, was found to be hollow and nearly filled with a pungent liquid of a brownish hue, like rainwater that has stood for some time. And such a spectacle has met our view. Norway rat was perched upon the summit, engaged in thrusting his tail into the cylindrical projection, drawing it out, dripping, permitting the struggling multitude of laborers to suck the end of it, then straightway reinserting it and delivering the fluid to the mob as before. Evidently this liquor had strangely potent qualities, for all that partook of it were immediately exalted with great and pleasurable emotions, and went staggering about singing rivaled songs, embracing, fighting, dancing, discharging eruptions of profanity and defying all authority. Around us struggled a mast and uncontrolled mob, uncontrolled and likewise uncontrollable, for the whole army, down to the very sentinels, were mad like the rest by reason of the drink. We were seized upon by these reckless creatures, and within the hour, we, even we, were undistinguishable from the rest. The demoralization was complete and universal. In time the camp wore itself out with its orgies and sank into a stolid and pitiable stupor, in whose mysterious bonds rank was forgotten and strange bedfellows made, our eyes at the resurrection being blasted, and our souls petrified with the incredible spectacle of that intolerable stinking scavenger, the tumble-bug, and the illustrious patrician, my Lord Grand Daddy, Duke of Longlegs, lying soundly steeped in sleep and clasped lovingly in each other's arms. The likeware of has not been seen in all the ages that tradition compasseth, and doubtless none shall ever in this world find faith to master the belief of its save only we that have beheld the damnable and unholy vision. Thus inscrutable be the ways of God, whose will be done. This day, by order, did the engineer-in-chief, Herr Spider, rig the necessary tackle for the overturning of the vast reservoir, and so its calamitous contents were discharged in a torrent upon the thirsty earth, which drank it up, and now there is no more danger. We reserving but a few drops for experiment and scrutiny, and to exhibit to the king, and subsequently preserve among the wonders of the museum. What this liquid is has been determined. It is without question that fierce and most destructive fluid called lightning. It was rested, in its container, from its store-house in the clouds, by the resistless might of the flying planet, and hurled at our feet as she sped by. An interesting discovery here results, which is that lightning kept to itself is quiescent. It is the assaulting contact of the thunderbolt that releases it from captivity, ignites its awful fires, and so produces an instantaneous combustion and explosion which spread disaster and desolation far and wide in the earth. After another day, devoted to rest and recovery, the expedition proceeded upon its way. Some days later it went into camp in a pleasant part of the plain, and the savants sallied forth to see what they might find. Their reward was at hand. Professor Bullfrog discovered a strange tree and called his comrades. They inspected it with profound interest. It was very tall and straight, and wholly devoid of bark, limbs, or foliage. By triangulation, Lord Longlegs determined its altitude. Hare Spider measured its circumference at the base and computed the circumference at its top by a mathematical demonstration based upon the warrant furnished by the uniform degree of its taper upward. It was considered a very extraordinary find, and since it was a tree of hitherto unknown species, Professor Woodlaus gave it a name of a learned sound. Being none other than that of Professor Bullfrog translated into the ancient Mastodon language, for it had always been the custom with discoverers to perpetuate their names and honor themselves by this sort of connection with their discoveries. Now Professor Fieldmouse, having placed his sensitive ear to the tree, detected a rich, harmonious sound issuing from it. This surprising thing was tested and enjoyed by each scholar in turn, and great was the gladness and astonishment of all. Professor Woodlaus was requested to add to and extend the tree's name so as to make it suggest the musical quality it possessed, which he did, furnishing the addition anthem-singer done into the Mastodon tongue. By this time Professor Snail was making some telescopic inspections. He discovered a great number of these trees extending in a single rank with wide intervals between, as far as his instrument would carry, both southward and northward. He also presently discovered that all these trees were bound together near their tops by fourteen great ropes, one above another, which ropes were continuous from tree to tree as far as his vision could reach. This was surprising. Chief Engineer Spider ran aloft, and soon reported that these ropes were simply a web hung there by some colossal member of his own species, for he could see its prey dangling here and there from the strands, in the shape of mighty shreds and rags that had a woven look about their texture, and were no doubt the discarded skins of prodigious insects which had been caught and eaten. And then he ran along one of the ropes to make a closer inspection, but felt a smart sudden burn on the soles of his feet, accompanied by a paralyzing shock, wherefore he let go and swung himself to the earth by a thread of his own spinning, and advised all to hurry at once to camp, lest the monster should appear and get as much interested in the savants, as they were in him and his works, so they departed with speed, making notes about the gigantic web as they went, and that evening the naturalist of the expedition built a beautiful model of the colossal spider, having no need to see it in order to do this, because he had picked up a fragment of its vertebrae by the tree, and so knew exactly what the creature looked like, and what its habits and its preferences were by this simple evidence alone. He built it with a tail, teeth, fourteen legs, and a snout, and set it ate grass, cattle, pebbles, and dirt with equal enthusiasm. This animal was regarded as a very precious addition to science. It was hoped a dead one might be found to stuff. Professor Woodlaus thought that he and his brother scholars, by lying hid and being quiet, might maybe catch a live one. He was advised to try it, which was all the attention that was paid to his suggestion. The conference ended with the naming the monster after the naturalist, since he, after God, had created it, and improved it may have, muttered the tumble-bug, who was intruding again, according to his idle custom, and his unappeasable curiosity. End of Part First End of Chapter Twenty-One This is Chapter Twenty-Two of Sketches New and Old. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Sketches New and Old by Mark Twain, Chapter Twenty-Two. Some learned fables for good old boys and girls. Part Second. How the animals of the wood completed their scientific labours. A week later, the expedition camped in the midst of a collection of wonderful curiosities. These were a sort of vast caverns of stone that rose singly and in bunches out of the plain by the side of the river, which they had first seen when they emerged from the forest. These caverns stood in long, straight rows on opposite sides of broad aisles that were bordered with single ranks of trees. The summit of each cavern sloped sharply both ways. Several horizontal rows of great square holes obstructed by a thin, shiny transparent substance pierced the frontage of each cavern. Inside were caverns within caverns, and one might ascend and visit these minor compartments by means of curious winding ways consisting of continuous regular terraces raised one above another. There were many huge shapeless objects in each compartment which were considered to have been living creatures at one time, though now the thin brown skin was shrunken and loose, and rattled when disturbed. Spiders were here in great number, and their cobwebs, stretched in all directions and, breathing the great skinny dead together, were a pleasant spectacle, since they inspired, with life and wholesome cheer, a scene which would otherwise have brought to the mind only a sense of forsakenness and desolation. Information was sought of these spiders, but in vain. They were of a different nationality from those with the expedition, and their language seemed but a musical meaningless jargon. They were a timid, gentle race, but ignorant and heathenish worshippers of unknown gods. The expedition detailed a great detachment of missionaries to teach them the true religion, and in a week's time a precious work had been wrought among those darkened creatures, not three families being by that time at peace with each other or having a subtle belief in any system of religion whatever. This encouraged the expedition to establish a colony of missionaries there permanently, that the work of grace might go on. But let us not outrun our narrative. After close examination of the fronts of the caverns, and much thinking and exchanging of theories, the scientists determined the nature of these singular formations. They said that each belonged mainly to the old red sandstone period. That the cavern fronts rose in innumerable and wonderfully regular strata high in the air, each stratum about five frogs-bands thick, and that in the present discovery lay an overpowering refutation of all received geology. For between every two layers of old red sandstone reposed a thin layer of decomposed limestone. So instead of there having been but one old red sandstone period there had certainly been not less than one hundred and seventy-five. And by the same token it was plain that there had also been one hundred and seventy-five floodings of the earth and depositing of limestone strata. The unavoidable deduction from which pair of facts was the overwhelming truth that the world, instead of being only two hundred thousand years old, was older by millions upon millions of years. And there was another curious thing. Every stratum of old red sandstone was pierced and divided at mathematically regular intervals by vertical strata of limestone. Upshootings of igneous rock through fractures in water formations were common, but here was the first instance where water-formed rock had been so projected. It was a great and noble discovery, and its value to science was considered to be inestimable. A critical examination of some of the lower strata demonstrated the presence of fossil ants and tumble-bugs, the latter accompanied by their peculiar goods, and with high gratification the fact was enrolled upon the scientific record. For this was proof that these vulgar laborers belonged to the first and lowest orders of created beings, though at the same time there was something repulsive in the reflection that the perfect and exquisite creature of the modern uppermost order owed its origin to such ignominious beings through the mysterious law of development of species. The tumble-bug overhearing this discussion said he was willing that the parvenu of these new times should find what comfort they might in their wise drawn theories, since, as far as he was concerned, he was content to be of the old first families, and proud to point back to his place among the old original aristocracy of the land. Enjoy your mushroom dignity, stinking of the varnish of yesterday's veneering, since you like it, said he, suffice it for the tumble-bugs that they come of a race that rolled their fragrant spheres down the solemn aisles of antiquity, and left their imperishable works embalmed in the old red sandstone to proclaim it to the wasting centuries as they file along the highway of time. Oh, take a walk! said the chief of the expedition with derision. The summer passed, and winter approached. In and about many of the caverns were what seemed to be inscriptions. Most of the scientists said they were inscriptions, a few said they were not. The chief philologist, Professor Woodlaus, maintained that they were writings, done in a character utterly unknown to scholars, and in a language equally unknown. He had early ordered his artists and draftsmen to make facsimiles of all that were discovered, and had set himself about finding the key to the hidden tongue. In this work he had followed the method which had always been used by decipherers previously, that is to say he placed a number of copies of inscriptions before him, and studied them both collectively and in detail. To begin with, he placed the following copies together. The American Hotel, Meals at All Hours, The Shades, No Smoking, Boats for Higher Cheap, Union Prayer Meeting, 4 p.m. Billiards, The Waterside Journal, The A1 Barbershop, Telegraph Office, Keep Off the Grass, Try Branthress Pills, Cottages for Rent During the Watering Season, For Sale Cheap, For Sale Cheap, For Sale Cheap, For Sale Cheap. At first it seemed to the professor that this was a sign language, and that each word was represented by a distinct sign. Further examination convinced him that it was a written language, and that every letter of its alphabet was represented by a character of its own. And finally he decided that it was a language which conveyed itself partly by letters and partly by signs or hieroglyphics. This conclusion was forced upon him by the discovery of several specimens of the following nature. He observed that certain inscriptions were met with in greater frequency than others, such as For Sale Cheap, Billiards, St 1860x, Keno, Ale on Draft. Naturally then these must be religious maxims, but this idea was cast aside by and by as the mystery of the strange alphabet began to clear itself. In time the professor was enabled to translate several of the inscriptions with considerable plausibility, though not to the perfect satisfaction of all the scholars. Still he made constant and encouraging progress. Finally a cavern was discovered with these inscriptions upon it. Waterside Museum. Open at all hours. Admission fifty cents. Wonderful collection of waxworks, ancient fossils, etc. Professor Woodlaus affirmed that the word museum was equivalent to the phrase Lungath Molo, or Burial Place. Upon entering the scientists were well astonished. But what they saw may be best conveyed in the language of their own official report. Erect, in a row, were a sort of rigid great figures which struck us instantly as belonging to the long extinct species of reptile called man, described in our ancient records. This was a peculiarly gratifying discovery, because of late times it has become fashionable to regard this creature as a myth and a superstition, a work of the inventive imaginations of our remote ancestors. But here indeed was man perfectly preserved in a fossil state. And this was his Burial Place as already ascertained by the inscription. And now it began to be suspected that the caverns we had been inspecting had been his ancient haunts in that old time that he roamed the earth. For upon the breast of each of these tall fossils was an inscription in the character heretofore noticed. One read, Captain Kid the Pirate, another Queen Victoria, another Abe Lincoln, another George Washington, etc. With feverish interest we called for our ancient scientific records to discover if perchance the description of man there set down would tally with the fossils before us. Professor Woodlouse read it aloud in its quaint and musty phraseology to wit. In a time of our fathers man still walked the earth, as by tradition we know. It was a creature of exceeding great size being compassed about with a loose skin, sometimes of one color, sometimes of many, the which it was able to cast at will, which being done the hind legs were discovered to be armed with short claws, like to a moles, but broader, and ye forelegs with fingers of a curious slimness and a length much more prodigious than a frogs, armed also with broad talons for scratching in ye earth for its food. It had a sort of feathers upon its head such as hath a rat, but longer and a beak suitable for seeking its food by ye smell thereof. When it was stirred with happiness it leaked water from its eyes, and when it suffered or was sad it manifested it with a horrible hellish cackling clamor that was exceedingly dreadful to hear, and made one long that it might rend itself and perish, and so end its troubles. Two mans being together they uttered noises at each other like this. Ho, ho, ho! Damn good! Damn good! Together with other sounds of more or less likeness to these, wherefore ye poets conceived that they talked, but poets be always ready to catch at any frantic folly, God he knows. Sometimes this creature goeth about with a long stick ye which it puteth to its face, and bloweth fire and smoke through ye same with a sudden and most damnable breath and noise, that doth fright its prey to death, and so seizeth it in its talons and walketh away to its habitat, consumed with a most fierce and devilish joy. Now was the description set forth by our ancestors wonderfully endorsed and confirmed by the fossils before us as shall be seen. The specimen marked Captain Kidd was examined in detail. Upon its head and part of its face was a sort of fur like that upon the tail of a horse. With great labour its loose skin was removed, whereupon its body was discovered to be of a polished white texture, thoroughly petrified. The straw it had eaten, so many ages gone by, was still in its body, undigested, and even in its legs. Surrounding these fossils were objects that would mean nothing to the ignorant, but to the eye of science they were a revelation. They laid bare the secrets of dead ages. These musty memorials told us when man lived and what were his habits, for here, side by side with man, were the evidences that he had lived in the earliest ages of creation, the companion of the other low orders of life that belonged to that forgotten time. Here was the fossil Nautilus that sailed the primeval seas. Here was the skeleton of the mastodon, the ichthiosaurus, the cave bear, the prodigious elk. Here also were the charred bones of some of these extinct animals and of the young of man's own species, split lengthwise, showing that to his taste the marrow was a toothsome luxury. It was plain that man had robbed those bones of their contents, since no toothmark of any beast was upon them, albeit the tumble-bug intruded the remark that no beast could mark a bone with its teeth anyway. Here were proofs that man had vague, groveling notions of art, for this fact was conveyed by certain things marked with the untranslatable words, flint hatchets, knives, arrow heads, and bone ornaments of primeval man. Some of these seemed to be rude weapons chipped out of flint, and in a secret place was found some more in a process of construction, with this untranslatable legend, on a thin flimsy material, lying by. Jones, if you don't want to be discharged from the museum, make the next primeval weapons more careful. You couldn't even fool one of these sleepy old scientific grannies from the college, with the last ones, and mind you, the animals you carved on some of the bone ornaments is a blame sight too good for any primeval man that was ever fooled. Varnum, manager. Back of the burial-place was a mass of ashes, showing that man always had a feast at a funeral, else why the ashes in such a place, and showing also that he believed in God and the immortality of the soul, else why these solemn ceremonies. To sum up, we believe that man had a written language, we know that he indeed existed at one time and is not a myth, also that he was the companion of the cave bear, the mastodon, and other extinct species, that he cooked and ate them and likewise the young of his own kind, also that he bore rude weapons and knew something of art, that he imagined he had a soul, and pleased himself with a fancy that it was immortal. But, let us not laugh, there may be creatures in existence to whom we and our vanities and profundities may seem as ludicrous. End of Part Second End of Chapter Twenty-Two This is Chapter Twenty-Three of Sketches New and Old. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Sketches New and Old by Mark Twain, Chapter Twenty-Three, some learned fables for good old boys and girls, Part Third Near the margin of the Great River the scientists presently found a huge shapely stone with this inscription. In 1847 in the spring the river overflowed its banks and covered the whole township. The depth was from two to six feet. More than nine hundred head of cattle were lost and many homes destroyed. The mayor ordered this memorial to be erected to perpetuate the event. God spare us the repetition of it. With infinite trouble Professor Woodlaus succeeded in making a translation of this inscription, which was sent home, and straight away an enormous excitement was created about it. It confirmed in a remarkable way certain treasured traditions of the ancients. The translation was slightly marred by one or two untranslatable words, but these did not impair the general clearness of the meaning. It is here presented. One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven years ago, the— fires? Descended and consumed the whole city. Only some nine hundred souls were saved. All others destroyed. The—King? Commanded this stone to be set up to—untranslatable—prevent the repetition of it. This was the first successful and satisfactory translation that had been made of the mysterious character left behind him by extinct man, and it gave Professor Woodlaus such reputation that at once every seat of learning in his native land conferred a degree of the most illustrious grade upon him, and it was believed that if he had been a soldier and had turned his splendid talents to the extermination of a remote tribe of reptiles, the King would have ennobled him and made him rich. And this, too, was the origin of that school of scientists called monologists, whose specialty is the deciphering of the ancient records of the extinct bird-termed man, for it has now decided that man was a bird and not a reptile. But Professor Woodlaus began and remained chief of these, for it was granted that no translations were ever so free from error as his. Others made mistakes. He seemed incapable of it. Many a memorial of the lost race was afterward found, but none ever attained to the renown and veneration achieved by the Mayer-Ritish stone it being so called from the word Mayer in it, which, being translated King, Mayer-Ritish stone was but another way of saying King-stone. Another time the expedition made a great find. It was a vast round flatish mass, ten frog-spans in diameter and five or six high. Professor Snail put on his spectacles and examined it all around, and then climbed up and inspected the top. He said, The result of my perillustration and perscantation of this isoperimetrical protuberance is a belief that it is one of those rare and wonderful creations left by the mound-builders. The fact that this one is lemmelabranchiate in its formation simply adds to its interest as being possibly of a different kind, from any we read of in the records of science, but yet in no manner marring its authenticity. Let the megalophonous grasshopper sound a blast and summon hither the perfunctory and circumferentous tumble-bug to the end that excavations may be made, and learning gather new treasures. Not a tumble-bug could be found on duty, so the mound was excavated by a working-party of ants. Nothing was discovered. This would have been a great disappointment had not the venerable long legs explained the matter. He said, It is now plain to me that the mysterious and forgotten race of mound-builders did not always erect these edifices as mausoleums, else in this case, as in all previous cases, their skeletons would be found here, along with the rude implements which the creatures used in life. Is not this manifest? True, true, from everybody. Then we have made a discovery of peculiar value here, a discovery which greatly extends our knowledge of this creature in place of diminishing it, a discovery which will add luster to the achievements of this expedition and win for us the commendations of scholars everywhere. For the absence of the customary relics here means nothing less than this, the mound-builder, instead of being the ignorant, savage reptile we have been taught to consider him, was a creature of cultivation and high intelligence, capable of not only appreciating worthy achievements of the great and noble of his species, but of commemorating them. Fellow scholars, this stately mound is not a sepulcher, it is a monument. A profound impression was produced by this, but it was interrupted by rude and derisive laughter, and the tumble-bug appeared. A monument, quote he, a monument set up by a mound-builder. So it is, so it is indeed to the shrewd keen eye of science, but to an ignorant poor devil who has never seen a college, it is not a monument, strictly speaking, but is yet a most rich and noble property, and with your worship's good permission I will proceed to manufacture it into spheres of exceeding grace and— The tumble-bug was driven away with stripes, and the draftsmen of the expedition were set to making views of the monument from different standpoints, while Professor Woodlaus, in a frenzy of scientific zeal, travelled all over it and all around it, hoping to find an inscription. But if there had ever been one, it had decayed, or been removed by some vandal as a relic. The views, having been completed, it was now considered safe to load the precious monument itself upon the backs of four of the largest tortoises, and send it home to the King's Museum, which was done. And when it arrived, it was received with enormous ecla, and escorted to its future abiding place by thousands of enthusiastic citizens, King Bullfrog the sixteenth himself attending, and condescending to sit and throne upon it throughout the progress. The growing rigor of the weather was now admonishing the scientists to close their labours for the present, so they made preparations to journey homeward. But even their last day among the caverns bore fruit, for one of the scholars found in an out of the way corner of the museum, or burial place, a most strange and extraordinary thing. It was nothing less than a double man-bird lashed together breast to breast by a natural ligament, and labelled with the untranslatable words, Siamese twins. The official report concerning this thing closed thus. Wherefore, it appears that there were in old times two distinct species of this majestic fowl, the one being single and the other double. Nature has a reason for all things, it is plain to the eye of science that the double man originally inhabited a region where dangers abounded. Hence he was paired together to the end that while one part slept the other might watch, and likewise that danger being discovered there might always be a double instead of a single power to oppose it. All honour to the mystery dispelling eye of God-like science. And near the double man-bird was found what was plainly an ancient record of his, marked upon numberless sheets of a thin white substance and bound together. Almost the first glance that Professor Woodlows threw into it revealed this following sentence, which he instantly translated and laid before the scientists in a tremble, and it uplifted every soul there with exaltation and astonishment. In truth it is believed by many that the lower animals reason and talk together. When the great official report of the expedition appeared the above sentence bore this comment. Then there are lower animals than man. This remarkable passage can mean nothing else. Man himself is extinct, but they may still exist. What can they be? Where do they inhabit? One's enthusiasm bursts all bounds in the contemplation of the brilliant field of discovery and investigation here thrown open to science. We close our labours with the humble prayer that your majesty will immediately appoint a commission and command it to rest not nor spare expense until the search for this hitherto unsuspected race of the creatures of God shall be crowned with success. The expedition then journeyed homeward, after its long absence and its faithful endeavours, and was received with a mighty ovation by the whole grateful country. There were vulgar ignorant carpers, of course, as there always are and always will be, and naturally one of these was the obscene tumble-bug. He said that all he had learned by his travels was that science only needed a spoonful of supposition to build a mountain of demonstrated fact out of, and that for the future he meant to be content with the knowledge that nature had made free to all creatures and not go prying into the august secrets of the deity. I am not a private secretary to a senator any more now. I held the birth two months in security and in great cheerfulness of spirit, but my bread began to return from over the waters then, that is to say, my works came back and revealed themselves. I judged it best to resign. The way of it was this. My employer sent for me one morning tolerably early, and as soon as I had finished inserting some conundrums clandestinely into his last great speech upon finance, I entered the presence. There was something portentious in his appearance, his cravat was untied, his hair was in a state of disorder, and his countenance bore about it the signs of a suppressed storm. He held a package of letters in his tense grasp, and I knew that the dreaded Pacific mail was in. He said, I thought you were worthy of confidence. I said, yes, sir. He said, I gave you a letter from certain of my constituents in the state of Nevada, asking the establishment of a post office at Baldwin's ranch and told you to answer it, as ingeniously as you could, with arguments which should persuade them that there was no real necessity for an office at that place. I felt easier. Oh, if that is all, sir, I did do that. Yes, you did. I will read your answer for your own humiliation. Washington, November 24. Mrs. Smith, Jones, and others. Gentlemen, what the mischief do you suppose you want with a post office at Baldwin's ranch? It would not do you any good. If any letters came there, you couldn't read them, you know, and besides, such letters as ought to pass through with money in them for other localities would not be likely to get through you must perceive at once, and that would make trouble for us all. No, don't bother about a post office in your camp. I have your best interests at heart, and feel that it would only be an ornamental folly. What you want is a nice jail, you know, a nice substantial jail and a free school. These will be a lasting benefit to you. These will make you really contented and happy. I will move in the matter at once. Very truly, et cetera, Mark Twain, for James W. N., U.S. Senator. That is the way you answered that letter. Those people say they will hang me if I ever enter that district again, and I am perfectly satisfied they will, too. Well, sir, I did not know I was doing any harm. I only wanted to convince them. Ah! well, you did convince them. I make no manner of doubt. Now, here is another specimen. I gave you a petition from certain gentlemen of Nevada, praying that I would get a bill through Congress incorporating the Methodist Episcopal Church of the State of Nevada. I told you to say and reply that the creation of such a law came more properly within the province of the State Legislature, and to endeavor to show them that, in the present feebleness of the religious element in that new commonwealth, the expediency of incorporating the Church was questionable. What did you write? Washington, November 24, Reverend John Halifax and others. Gentlemen, you will have to go to the State Legislature about that speculation of yours. Congress don't know anything about religion. But don't you hurry to go there, either, because this thing you propose to do out in that new country isn't expedient. In fact, it is ridiculous. Your religious people there are too feeble in intellect, in morality, in piety, in everything pretty much. You had better drop this, you can't make it work. You can't issue stock on an incorporation like that, or, if you could, it would only keep you in trouble all the time. The other denominations would abuse it, and bear it, and sell it short, and break it down. They would do with it just as they would with one of your silver minds out there. They would try to make all the world believe it was Wildcat. You ought not to do anything that is calculated to bring a sacred thing into disrepute. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. That is what I think about it. You close your petition with the words, and we will ever pray. I think you had better. You need to do it. Very truly, et cetera, Mark Twain, for James W. N. U.S. Senator. That luminous epistle finishes me with the religious element among my constituents, but that my political murder might be made sure. Some evil instinct prompted me to hand you this memorial from the grave company of elders composing the board of aldermen of the city of San Francisco to try your hand upon a memorial praying that the city's right to the waterlots upon the city front might be established by law of Congress. I told you this was a dangerous matter to move in. I told you to write a non-committal letter to the aldermen, an ambiguous letter, a letter that should avoid, as far as possible, all real consideration and discussion of the waterlot question. If there is any feeling left in you, any shame, surely this letter you wrote, in obedience to that order, ought to evoke it when its words fall upon your ears. Washington, November 27. The Honorable Board of Aldermen, etc. Gentlemen! George Washington, the revered father of his country, is dead. His long and brilliant career is closed, alas, forever. He was greatly respected in this section of the country, and his untimely decease cast a gloom over the whole community. He died on the fourteenth day of December 1799. He passed peacefully away from the scene of his honours and his great achievements, the most lamented hero and the best beloved, that ever earth hath yielded unto death. At such a time as this you speak of waterlots! What a lot was his! What is fame? Fame is an accident. Sir Isaac Newton discovered an apple falling to the ground, a trivial discovery truly, and one which a million men had made before him, but his parents were influential, and so they tortured that small circumstance into something wonderful and low, the simple world took up the shout, and in almost the twinkling of an eye that man was famous. Treasure these thoughts! Poesy! Sweet Poesy! Who shall estimate what the world owes to thee? Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go. Jack and Jill went up the hill to draw a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after. For simplicity, elegance, addiction, and freedom from immoral tendencies, I regard those two poems in the light of gems. They are suited to all grades of intelligence, to every sphere of life, to the field, to the nursery, to the guild, especially should no board of aldermen be without them. Venerable fossils! Right again! Nothing improves one so much as friendly correspondence. Right again! And if there is anything in this memorial of yours that refers to anything in particular, do not be backward about explaining it, we shall always be happy to hear you chirp. Very truly, etc., Mark Twain, for James W.N., U.S. Senator. That is an atrocious, a ruinous epistle. Destruction! Well, sir, I am really sorry if there is anything wrong about it, but it appears to me to dodge the water-lot question. Dodge the mischief? Oh! But never mind. As long as destruction must come now, let it be complete. Let it be complete. Let this last of your performances, which I am about to read, make a finality of it. I am a ruined man. I had my misgivings when I gave you the letter from Humboldt, asking that the post-route from Indian Gulch to Shakespeare Gap and intermediate points be changed partly to the old Mormon trail, but I told you it was a delicate question and warned you to deal with it deftly, to answer it dubiously, and leave them a little in the dark, and your fatal imbecility impelled you to make this disastrous reply. I should think you would stop your ears if you are not dead to all shame. Washington, November 30. Messers Perkins Wagner et al. Gentlemen, it is a delicate question about this Indian trail, but handled with proper deftness and dubiousness, I doubt not we shall succeed in some measure or otherwise, because the place where the route leaves the Lassen Meadows, over beyond where those two Shawnee chiefs, dilapidated vengeance and bitter of the clouds, were scalped last winter, this being the favorite direction to some, but others preferring something else in consequence of things, the Mormon trail leaving Mosby's at three in the morning, and passing through Jawbone Flat to Blucher, and then down by Jughandle, the road passing to the right of it, and naturally leaving it on the right too, and Dawson's on the left of the trail where it passes to the left of said Dawson's, and onward thence to Tomahawk, thus making the route cheaper, easier of access to all who can get at it, and compassing all the desirable objects so considered by others, and therefore conferring the most good upon the greatest number, and, consequently, I am encouraged to hope we shall. However, I shall be ready and happy to afford you still further information upon the subject from time to time, as you may desire it, and the post-office department be enabled to furnish it to me. Very truly, etc., Mark Twain, for James W. N. U. S. Senator. There! Now, what do you think of that? Well, I don't know, sir. It—well, it appears to me to be dubious enough. Do—leave the house. I am a ruined man. Those humble savages never will forgive me for tangling their brains up with this inhuman letter. I have lost the respect of the Methodist Church, the Board of Aldermen. Well, I haven't anything to say about that, because I may have missed it a little in their cases, but I was too many for the Baldwin's ranch, people general. Leave the house! Leave it, for ever and ever, too! I regarded that as a sort of covert intimation that my service could be dispensed with, and so I resigned. I never will be a private secretary to a senator again. You can't please that kind of people. They don't know anything. They can't appreciate a party's efforts. CHAPTER XXV. At General G's reception the other night, the most fashionably dressed lady was Mrs. G. C. She wore a pink satin dress, plain in front, but with a good deal of rake to it, to the train, I mean. It was said to be two or three yards long. One could see it creeping along the floor some little time after the woman was gone. Mrs. C. wore also a white bodice, cut bias, with pompadour sleeves, flounced with ruches, low neck with the inside handkerchief not visible, with white kid gloves. She had on a pearl necklace, which glinted lonely, high up the midst of that barren waist of neck and shoulders. Her hair was frizzled into a tangled chaparral, forward of her ears, aft it was drawn together, and compactly bound and plaited into a stump like a pony's tail, and furthermore was canted upward at a sharp angle, and ingeniously supported by a red velvet cropper, whose forward extremity was made fast with a half hitch around a hairpin on the top of her head. Her whole top hamper was neat and becoming. She had a beautiful complexion when she first came, but it faded out by degrees, in an unaccountable way. However, it is not lost for good. I found the most of it on my shoulder afterward. I stood near the door when she squeezed out with a throng. There were other ladies present, but I only took notes of one as a specimen. I would gladly enlarge upon the subject were I able to do it justice. END OF CHAPTER XXVI Riley Newspaper Correspondent One of the best men in Washington, or elsewhere, is Riley, correspondent of one of the great San Francisco dailies. Riley is full of humor, and has an unfailing vein of irony which makes his conversation to the last degree entertaining, as long as the remarks are about somebody else. But notwithstanding the possession of these qualities, which should enable a man to write a happy and an appetizing letter, Riley's Newspaper letters often display a more than earthly solemnity, and likewise an unimaginative devotion to petrified facts, which surprise and distress all men who know him in his unofficial character. He explains this curious thing by saying that his employers sent him to Washington to write facts, not fancy, and that several times he has come near losing his situation by inserting humorous remarks, which not being looked for at headquarters, and consequently not understood, were thought to be dark and bloody speeches intended to convey signals and warnings to murderous secret societies, or something of that kind, and so were scratched out with a shiver in a prayer and cast into the stove. Riley says that sometimes he is so afflicted with a yearning to write a sparkling and absorbingly readable letter that he simply cannot resist it, and so he goes to his den and revels in the delight of untrammeled scribbling, and then, with suffering such as only a mother can know, he destroys the pretty children of his fancy and reduces his letter to the required dismal accuracy. Having seen Riley do this very thing more than once, I know whereof I speak. Often I have laughed with him over a happy passage and grieve to see him plow his pen through it. He would say, I had to write that or die, and I've got to scratch it out or starve. They wouldn't stand it, you know. I think Riley is about the most entertaining company I ever saw. We lodged together in many places in Washington during the winter of sixty-seven, eight, moving comfortably from place to place, and attracting attention by paying our board—a course which cannot fail to make a person conspicuous in Washington. Riley would tell all about his trip to California in the early days by way of the Isthmus and the San Juan River, and about his baking bread in San Francisco to gain a living and setting up ten pins and practicing law and opening oysters and delivering lectures and teaching French and tending bar and reporting for the newspapers and keeping dancing schools and interpreting Chinese in the courts, which latter was lucrative, and Riley was doing handsomely and laying up a little money when people began to find fault because his translations were too free—a thing for which Riley considered he ought not to be held responsible, since he did not know a word of the Chinese tongue, and only adopted interpreting as a means of gaining an honest livelihood. Through the machinations of enemies he was removed from the position of official interpreter, and a man put in his place who was familiar with the Chinese language but did not know any English, and Riley used to tell about publishing a newspaper up in what is Alaska now, but was only in iceberg then, with a population composed of bears, walruses, Indians, and other animals. And how the iceberg got adrift at last and left all his paying subscribers behind, and as soon as the Commonwealth floated out of the jurisdiction of Russia the people rose and threw off their allegiance and ran up the English flag, calculating to hook on and become an English colony as they drifted along down the British possessions. But a land breeze and a crooked current carried them by, and they ran up the stars and stripes and steered for California. Missed the connection again and swore allegiance to Mexico. But it wasn't any use. The anchors came home every time and away they went with the northeast trades drifting off sideways towards the Sandwich Islands, whereupon they ran up the Cannibal flag and had a grand human barbecue in honor of it, in which it was noticed that the better a man liked a friend, the better he enjoyed him. And as soon as they got fairly within the tropics the weather got so fearfully hot that the iceberg began to melt, and it got so sloppy underfoot that it was almost impossible for ladies to get about at all. And at last, just as they came in sight of the islands, the melancholy remnant of the once majestic iceberg canted first to one side and then to the other, and then plunged under forever, carrying the national archives along with it, and not only the archives and the populace, but some eligible town lots which had increased in value as fast as they diminished in size in the tropics, and which Riley could have sold at thirty cents a pound and made himself rich if he could have kept the province afloat ten hours longer and got her into port. Riley is very methodical, untiringly accommodating, never forgets anything that is to be attended to, is a good son, a staunch friend, and a permanent reliable enemy. He will put himself to any amount of trouble to oblige a body, and therefore always has his hands full of things to be done for the helpless and the shiftless. And he knows how to do nearly everything too. He is a man whose native benevolence is a wellspring that never goes dry. He stands always ready to help whoever needs help as far as he is able, and not simply with his money, for that is a cheap and common charity, but with hand and brain and fatigue of limb and sacrifice of time. This sort of men is rare. Riley has a ready wit, a quickness and aptness at selecting and applying quotations, and a countenance that is as solemn and as blank as the backside of a tombstone when he is delivering a particularly exasperating joke. One night a negro woman was burned to death in a house next door to us, and Riley said that our landlady would be oppressively emotional at breakfast because she generally made use of such opportunities as offered, being of a morbidly sentimental turn, and so we should find it best to let her talk along and say nothing back. It was the only way to keep her tears out of the gravy. Riley said there never was a funeral in the neighborhood but that the gravy was watery for a week. And sure enough, at breakfast, the landlady was down in the very sloughs of woe, entirely broken-hearted. Everything she looked at reminded her of that poor old negro woman, and so the buckwheat cakes made her sob, the coffee forced to groan, and when the beef steak came on she fetched a wail that made our hair rise. Then she got to talking about deceased, and kept up a steady drizzle till both of us were soaked through and through. Presently she took a fresh breath and said, with a world of sobs, Ah, to think of it, only to think of it, the poor old faithful creature, for she was so faithful. Would you believe it she had been a servant in that self-same house, and that self-same family for twenty-seven years come Christmas, and never a crossword and never a lick, and oh, to think she should meet such a death at last, a sitting over the red hot stove at three o'clock in the morning, and went to sleep, and fell on it, and was actually roasted, not just frizzled up a bit, but literally roasted to a crisp. Poor faithful creature, how she was cooked! I am but a poor woman, but even if I have to scrimp to do it I will put up a tombstone over that lone sufferer's grave. And, Mr. Riley, if you would have the goodness to think up a little epitaph to put on it, which would sort of describe the awful way in which she met her— Put it! Well done, good, and faithful servant! said Riley, and never smiled. John Wagner, the oldest man in Buffalo, one hundred and four years old, recently walked a mile and a half in two weeks. He is as cheerful and bright as any of these other old men that charge around so persistently and tiresomely in the newspapers, and in every way as remarkable. Last November he walked five blocks in a rainstorm without any shelter but an umbrella, and cast his vote for Grant, remarking that he had voted for forty-seven presidents, which was a lie. His second crop of rich brown hair arrived from New York yesterday, and he has a new set of teeth coming from Philadelphia. He is to be married next week to a girl one hundred and two years old, who still takes in washing. They have been engaged eighty years, but their parents persistently refused their consent until three days ago. John Wagner is two years older than the Rhode Island veteran, and yet has never tasted a drop of liquor in his life, unless—unless you count whiskey—end of CHAPTER XXVII. At that time, in Kentucky, said the Honorable Mr. K., the law was very strict against what his termed Games of Chance. About a dozen of the boys were detected playing Seven Up, or Old Sledge for Money, and the grand jury found a true bill against them. Jim Sturges was retained to defend them when the case came up, of course. The more he studied over the matter and looked into the evidence, the planer it was that he must lose a case at last. There was no getting around that painful fact. Those boys had certainly been betting money on a Game of Chance. Even public sympathy was roused in behalf of Sturges. People said it was a pity to see him mar his successful career with a big prominent case like this, which must go against him. But after several restless nights an inspired idea flashed upon Sturges, and he sprang out of bed delighted. He thought he saw his way through. The next day he whispered around a little among his clients and a few friends, and then when the case came up in court he acknowledged the Seven Up and the betting, and, as his sole defense, had the astounding effrontery to put in the plea that Old Sledge was not a Game of Chance. There was the broadest sort of a smile all over the faces of that sophisticated audience. The judge smiled with the rest. But Sturges maintained accountants whose earnestness was even severe. The opposite counsel tried to ridicule him out of his position and did not succeed. The judge gested in a ponderous judicial way about the thing, but did not move him. The matter was becoming grave. The judge lost a little of his patience and said the joke had gone far enough. Jim Sturges said he knew of no joke in the matter. His clients could not be punished for indulging in what some people chose to consider a Game of Chance until it was proven that it was a Game of Chance. Judge and counsel said that would be an easy matter, and forthwith called Deacons Job, Peters, Burke, and Johnson, and Dominis Wirt and Miggles to testify, and they unanimously and with strong feeling put down the legal quibble of Sturges by pronouncing that Old Sledge was a Game of Chance. What do you call it now? said the judge. I call it a Game of Science, retorted Sturges, and I'll prove it too. They saw his little game. He brought in a cloud of witnesses and produced an overwhelming mass of testimony to show that Old Sledge was not a Game of Chance, but a Game of Science. Instead of being the simplest case in the world, it had somehow turned out to be an excessively naughty one. The judge scratched his head over it a while and said there was no way of coming to a determination because just as many men could be brought into court who would testify on one side as could be found to testify on the other. But he said he was willing to do the fair thing by all parties and would act upon any suggestion Mr. Sturges would make for the solution of the difficulty. Mr. Sturges was on his feet in a second. In panel a jury of six of each, Luck versus Science, give them candles and a couple of decks of cards, send them into the jury room, and just abide by the result. There was no disputing the fairness of the proposition. The four deacons and the two dominies were sworn in as the Chance jurymen, and six inveterate old, seven-up professors were chosen to represent the science side of the issue. They retired to the jury room. In about two hours Deacon Peters sent into court to borrow three dollars from a friend. Sensation. In about two hours more, Dominique Miggles sent into court to borrow a steak from a friend. Sensation. During the next three or four hours the other Dominique and the other deacons sent into court for small loans, and still the packed audience waited for it was a prodigious occasion in Bull's Corners, and one in which every father of a family was necessarily interested. The rest of the story can be told briefly. About daylight the jury came in and Deacon Job, the foreman, read the following. Verdict. We the jury, in the case of the Commonwealth of Kentucky versus John Wheeler et al., have carefully considered the points of the case, and tested the merits of the several theories advanced, and do hereby unanimously decide that the game commonly known as Old Sledge, or Seven Up, is eminently a game of science and not of chance. In demonstration whereof it is hereby and herein stated, iterated, reiterated, set forth, and made manifest that, during the entire night, the chance men never won a game or turned a jack, although both feats were common and frequent to the opposition. And furthermore, in support of this, our verdict, we call attention to the significant fact that the chance men are all busted, and the science men have got the money. It is the deliberate opinion of this jury that the chance theory concerning Seven Up is a pernicious doctrine and calculated to inflict untold suffering and pecuniary loss upon any community that takes stock in it. That is the way that Seven Up came to be set apart and particularized in the statute books of Kentucky as being a game not of chance, but of science, and therefore not punishable under the law, said Mr. K. That verdict is of record, and holds good to this day. End of Chapter 28 This is Chapter 29 of Sketches New and Old. This LibriVox Recording is in the public domain. Sketches New and Old by Mark Twain, Chapter 29 The Late Benjamin Franklin, written about 1870. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do day after to-morrow just as well. B. F. This party was one of those persons whom they call philosophers. He was twins, being born simultaneously in two different houses in the city of Boston. These houses remain unto this day, and have signs upon them worded in accordance with the facts. The signs are considered well enough to have, though not necessary, because the inhabitants point out the two birthplaces to the stranger anyhow, and sometimes as often as several times in the same day. The subject of this memoir was of a vicious disposition, and early prostituted his talents to the invention of maxims and aphorisms, calculated to inflict suffering upon the rising generation of all subsequent ages. His simplest acts also were contrived with a view to their being held up for the emulation of boys forever—boys who might otherwise have been happy. It was in this spirit that he became the son of a soap-boiler, and probably for no other reason than that the efforts of all future boys who tried to be anything might be looked upon with suspicion, unless they were the sons of soap-boilers. With a malevolence which is without parallel in history he would work all day, and then sit up nights, and let on to be studying algebra by the light of a smoldering fire, so that all other boys might have to do that also, or else have Benjamin Franklin thrown up to them. Not satisfied with these proceedings he had a fashion of living wholly on bread and water, and studying astronomy at mealtime, a thing which has brought affliction to millions of boys since whose fathers had read Franklin's pernicious biography. His maxims were full of animosity toward boys. Nowadays a boy cannot follow out a single natural instinct without tumbling over some of those everlasting aphorisms and hearing from Franklin on the spot. If he buys two cents worth of peanuts his father says, Remember what Franklin has said, my son? A grout a day's a penny a year, and the comfort is all gone out of those peanuts. If he wants to spin his top when he has done work his father quotes, Procrastination is the thief of time. If he does a virtuous action he never gets anything for it because virtue is its own reward. And that boy is hounded to death and robbed of his natural rest because Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity, Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise, as if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms. The sorrow that that maxim has cost me through my parents, experimenting on me with it, tongue cannot tell. The legitimate result is my present state of general debility, indigence, and mental aberration. My parents used to have me up before nine o'clock in the morning sometimes when I was a boy. If they had let me take my natural rest, where would I have been now? Keeping store no doubt and respected by all. And what an adroit old adventurer the subject of this memoir was. In order to get a chance to fly his kite on Sunday he used to hang a key on the string and let on to be fishing for lightning. And a guileless public would go home chirping about the wisdom and the genius of the hoary Sabbath-breaker. If anybody caught him playing mumble-peg by himself after the age of sixty he would immediately appear to be ciphering out how the grass grew as if it was any of his business. My grandfather knew him well and he says Franklin was always fixed, always ready. If a body during his old age happened on him unexpectedly when he was catching flies or making mud pies or sliding on a cellar door he would immediately look wise and rip out a maxim and walk off with his nose in the air and his cap turned wrong side before, trying to appear absent-minded and eccentric. He was a hard lot. He invented a stove that would smoke your head off in four hours by the clock. One can see the almost devilish satisfaction he took in it by his giving it his name. He was always proud of telling how he entered Philadelphia for the first time with nothing in the world but two shillings in his pocket and four rolls of bread under his arm. But really when you come to examine it critically it was nothing. Anybody could have done it. To the subject of this memoir belongs the honor of recommending the army to go back to bows and arrows in place of bayonets and muskets. He observed with his customary force that the bayonet was very well under some circumstances but that he doubted whether it could be used with accuracy at a long range. Benjamin Franklin did a great many notable things for his country and made her young name to be honored in many lands as the mother of such a son. It is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. No. The simple idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with a great show of originality out of truisms that had become weary some platitudes as early as the dispersion from Babel and also to snub his stove and his military inspirations, his unseemly endeavor to make himself conspicuous when he entered Philadelphia, and his flying his kite and fooling away his time in all sorts of such ways when he ought to have been foraging for soap-fat or constructing candles. I merely desired to do away with somewhat of the prevalent calamitous idea, among heads of families, that Franklin acquired his great genius by working for nothing, studying by moonlight and getting up in the night instead of waiting till morning like a Christian, and that this program rigidly inflicted will make a Franklin of every father's fool. At his time these gentlemen were finding out that these acsecrable eccentricities of instinct and conduct are only the evidence of genius, not the creators of it. I wish I had been the father of my parents long enough to make them comprehend this truth and thus prepare them to let their son have an easier time of it. When I was a child I had to boil soap, notwithstanding my father was wealthy, and I had to get up early and study geometry at breakfast, and peddle my own poetry, and do everything just as Franklin did in the solemn hope that I would be a Franklin some day. And here I am. CHAPTER XXXVIII our esteemed friend Mr. John William Bloke of Virginia City walked into the office, where we are sub-editor, at a late hour last night, with an expression of profound and heartfelt suffering upon his countenance, and, sighing heavily, laid the following item reverently upon the desk, and walked slowly out again. He paused a moment at the door, and seemed struggling to command his feelings sufficiently to enable him to speak, and then, nodding his head toward his manuscript, ejaculated in a broken voice, friend of mine! Oh, how sad! and burst into tears. We were so moved at his distress that we did not think to call him back and endeavour to comfort him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper had already gone to press, but knowing that our friend would consider the publication of this item important, and cherishing the hope that to print it would afford a melancholy satisfaction to his sorrowing heart, we stopped the press at once and inserted it in our columns. Distressing Accident Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr. William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park, was leaving his residence to go downtown, as has been his usual custom for many years, with the exception only of a short interval in the spring of 1850, during which he was confined to his bed by injuries, received in attempting to stop a runaway horse by thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing up his arms and shouting, which, if he had done so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitering in another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and on the lookout, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her own mother is said to have stated, who is no more, but died in the full hope of a glorious resurrection, upwards of three years ago, aged eighty-six, being a Christian woman and without guile, as it were, or property, in consequence of the fire of eighteen-forty-nine, which destroyed every single thing she had in the world, but such is life. Let us all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and let us endeavour so to conduct ourselves that, when we come to die, we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our heart, and say with earnestness and sincerity, that from this day forth we will beware of the intoxicating bowl. First Edition of the Californian The head editor has been in here, raising the mischief, and tearing his hair and kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a pickpocket. He says that every time he leaves me in charge of the paper for half an hour, I get imposed upon by the first infant or the first idiot that comes along, and he says that that distressing item of Mr. Blokes is nothing but a lot of distressing bosh, and has no point to it, and no sense in it, and no information in it, and that there was no sort of necessity for stopping the press to publish it. Now all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as unaccommodating and unsympathetic as some people, I would have told Mr. Blokes that I wouldn't receive his communication at such a late hour, but no, his snuffling distress touched my heart, and I jumped at the chance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read his item to see whether there was anything wrong about it, but hastily wrote the few lines which preceded it, and sent it to the printers. And what has my kindness done for me? It has done nothing but bring down upon me a storm of abuse, and ornamental blasphemy. Now I will read that item myself, and see if there is any foundation for all this fuss, and if there is, the author of it shall hear from me. I have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little mixed at a first glance. However, I will peruse it once more. I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more mixed than ever. I have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of it I wish I may get my just desserts. It won't bear analysis. There are things about it which I cannot understand at all. It don't say whatever became of William Shiler. It just says enough about him to get one interested in his career, and then drops him. Who is William Shiler anyhow? And what part of South Park did he live in? And if he started downtown at six o'clock did he ever get there? And if he did, did anything happen to him? Is he the individual that met with the distressing accident? Considering the elaborate circumstantiality of detail observable in the item, it seems to me that it ought to contain more information than it does. On the contrary, it is obscure and not only obscure but utterly incomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr. Shiler's leg fifteen years ago the distressing accident that plunged Mr. Bloke into unspeakable grief and caused him to come up here at dead of night and stop our press to acquaint the world with the circumstance? Or did the distressing accident consist in the destruction of Shiler's mother-in-law's property in early times? Or did it consist in the death of that person herself three years ago, albeit does not appear that she died by accident? In a word, what did that distressing accident consist in? What did that driveling ass of a Shiler stand in the wake of a runaway horse for, with his shouting and gesticulating if he wanted to stop him? And how the mischief could he get run over by a horse that had already passed beyond him? And what are we to take, warning by? And how is this extraordinary chapter of incomprehensibilities going to be a lesson to us? And above all, what has the intoxicating bowl got to do with it anyhow? It is not stated that Shiler drank, or that his wife drank, or that his mother-in-law drank, or that the horse drank, wherefore, then, the reference to the intoxicating bowl. It does seem to me that if Mr. Bloke had let the intoxicating bowl alone himself, he never would have got into so much trouble about this exasperating imaginary accident. I have read this absurd item over and over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head swims, but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly seems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it is impossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was the sufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to request that the next time anything happens to one of Mr. Bloke's friends he will append such explanatory notes to his account of it as will enable me to find out what sort of an accident it was, and whom it happened to. I had rather all his friends should die, than that I should be driven to the verge of lunacy again, in trying to cipher out the meaning of another such production as the above. END OF CHAPTER XXXI written about 1868. CHAPTER 1. THE SECRET REVEALED It was night, stillness reigned in the grand old feudal castle of Klugenstein. The year 1222 was drawing to a close. Far away, up in the tallest of the castle's towers, a single light glimmered. A secret council was being held there. The stern old lord of Klugenstein sat in a chair of state meditating. Presently he said, with a tender accent, "'My daughter!' a young man of noble presence, clad from head to heel in nightly mail, answered, "'Speak, father!' My daughter, the time is come for the revealing of the mystery that hath puzzled all your young life. Know, then, that it had its birth in the matters which I shall now unfold. My brother Ulrich is the great duke of Brandenburg. Our father, on his deathbed, decreed that if no son were born to Ulrich, the succession should pass to my house, provided a son were born to me. And further, in case no son were born to either, but only daughters, then the succession should pass to Ulrich's daughter, if she proved stainless. If she did not, my daughter should succeed if she retained a blameless name. And so I, and my old wife here, prayed fervently for the good boon of a son, but the prayer was vain. You were born to us. I was in despair. I saw the mighty prize slipping from my grasp, the splendid dream vanishing away. And I had been so hopeful. Five years had Ulrich lived in wedlock, and yet his wife had born no heir of either sex. But hold, I said, all is not lost. A saving scheme had shot a thwarf my brain. You were born at midnight. Only the leech, the nurse, and six waiting women knew your sex. I hanged them every one before an hour sped. Next morning all the barony went mad with rejoicing over the proclamation that a son was born to Klugenstein, an heir to mighty Brandenburg, and while the secret has been kept. Your mother's own sister nursed your infancy, and from that time forward we feared nothing. When you were ten years old, a daughter was born to Ulrich. We grieved, but hoped for good results from measles, or physicians, or other natural enemies of infancy, but were always disappointed. She lived. She throve. Heaven's malice upon her. But it is nothing. We are safe. For have we not a son, and is not our son the future duke? Our well-beloved Conrad, is it not so? For woman of eight and twenty years, as you are, my child, none other name than that hath ever fallen to you. Now it hath come to pass that age hath laid its hand upon my brother, and he waxes feeble. The cares of state do tax him sore. Therefore he wills that you shall come to him and be already duke, inact, though not yet in name. Your servitors are ready. You journey forth to-night. Now listen well. Remember every word I say. There is a law as old as Germany that if any woman sit for a single instant in the great ducal chair before she hath been absolutely crowned in presence of the people, she shall die. So heed my words. Pretend humility. Pronounce your judgments from the Premier's chair, which stands at the foot of the throne. Do this until you are crowned and safe. It is not likely that your sex will ever be discovered, but still it is the part of wisdom to make all things as safe as may be in this treacherous earthly life. Oh, my father! Is it for this my life hath been a lie? Was it that I might cheat my unoffending cousin of her rights? Spare me, father. Spare your child. What, Hasse, is this my reward for the august fortune my brain has wrought for thee? By the bones of my father, this pulling sentiment of thine but ill-accords with my humour. Be take thee to the duke instantly, and beware how thou meddlest with my purpose. Let this suffice of the conversation. It is enough for us to know that the prayers, the entreaties, and the tears of the gentle-natured girl availed nothing. Neither they nor anything could move the stout old lord of Klugenstein, and so at last with a heavy heart the daughter saw the castle gates closed behind her, and found herself riding away in the darkness surrounded by a nightly array of armed vassals and a brave following of servants. The old baron sat silent for many minutes after his daughter's departure, and then he turned to his sad wife and said, Dame, our matters seem speeding fairly. It is full three months since I sent the shrewd and handsome Count Detson on his devilish mission to my brother's daughter Constance. If he fail, we are not wholly safe. But if he do succeed, no power can bar our girl from being duchess, even though ill-fortune should decrease he never should be duke. My heart is full of boatings, yet all may still be well. Tush, woman, leave the owls to croak, to bed with thee, and dream of Brandenburg and grandeur! CHAPTER II Festivity and Tears. Six days after the occurrences related in the above chapter, the brilliant capital of the duchy of Brandenburg was resplendent with military pageantry, and noisy with the rejoicings of loyal multitudes. For Conrad, the young heir to the crown, was come. The old duke's heart was full of happiness. For Conrad's handsome person, and graceful bearing, had won his love at once. The great halls of the palace were thronged with nobles who welcomed Conrad bravely, and so bright and happy did all things seem that he felt his fears and sorrows passing away and giving place to a comforting contentment. But in a remote apartment of the palace a scene of a different nature was transpiring. By a window stood the duke's only child, the lady Constance. Her eyes were red and swollen and full of tears. She was alone. Presently she fell to weeping anew, and said aloud, The villain Detson is gone! has fled the duke-tum! I could not believe it at first, but alas it is too true, and I loved him so. I dared to love him, though I knew the duke my father would never let me wed him. I loved him, but now I hate him. With all my soul I hate him. Oh! what is to become of me? I am lost, lost, lost. I shall go mad! Chapter 3 The Plot Thickens Few months drifted by, all men published the praises of the young Conrad's government and extolled the wisdom of his judgments, the mercifulness of his sentences, and the modesty with which he bore himself in his great office. The old duke soon gave everything into his hands, and sat apart, and listened with proud satisfaction while his air delivered the decrees of the crown from the seat of the Premier. It seemed plain that one so loved and praised and honoured of all men as Conrad was could not be otherwise than happy, but strangely enough he was not. For he saw with dismay that the Princess Constance had begun to love him. The love of the rest of the world was happy fortune for him, but this was freighted with danger. And he saw, moreover, that the delighted duke had discovered his daughter's passion likewise, and was already dreaming of a marriage. Every day somewhat of the deep sadness that had been in the Princess's face faded away. Every day hope and animation beamed brighter from her eye, and by and by even vagrant smiles visited the face that had been so troubled. Conrad was appalled. He bitterly cursed himself for having yielded to the instinct that had made him seek the companionship of one of his own sex when he was new and a stranger in the palace, when he was sorrowful and yearned for a sympathy such as only women can give or feel. He now began to avoid his cousin. But this only made matters worse, for, naturally enough, the more he avoided her, the more she cast herself in his way. He marvelled at this at first, and next it startled him. The girl haunted him, she hunted him. She happened upon him at all times and in all places in the night as well as in the day. She seemed singularly anxious. There was surely a mystery somewhere. This could not go on forever. All the world was talking about it. The duke was beginning to look perplexed. Poor Conrad was becoming a very ghost through dread and dire distress. One day, as he was emerging from a private anti-room attached to the picture-gallery, Constance confronted him and seizing both his hands in hers exclaimed, Why do you avoid me? What have I done? What have I said to lose your kind opinion of me, for surely I had it once? Conrad do not despise me, but pity a tortured heart. I cannot hold the words unspoken longer lest they kill me. I love you, Conrad. There, despise me if you must, but they would be uttered." Conrad was speechless. Constance hesitated a moment, and then, misinterpreting his silence, a wild gladness flamed in her eyes, and she flung her arms about his neck and said, You relent! You relent! You can love me! You will love me! Oh, say you will, my own, my worshipped Conrad! Conrad groaned aloud. A sickly pallor overspread his countenance, and he trembled like an aspen. Suddenly, in desperation, he thrust the poor girl from him and cried, You know not what you ask! It is for ever and ever impossible! And then he fled like a criminal and left the Princess stupefied with amazement. A minute afterward she was crying and sobbing there, and Conrad was crying and sobbing in his chamber. Both were in despair. Both saw ruin staring them in the face. By and by Constance rose slowly to her feet and moved away, saying, To think that he was despising my love at the very moment that I thought it was melting his cruel heart. I hate him. He spurned me, did this man. He spurned me from him like a dog. Chapter 4 The Awful Revelation Time passed on. A settled sadness rested once more upon the countenance of the good Duke's daughter. She and Conrad were seen together no more now. The Duke grieved at this. But as the weeks wore away, Conrad's colour came back to his cheeks and his old time of vacity to his eye, and he administered the government with a clear and steadily ripening wisdom. Presently a strange whisper began to be heard about the palace. It grew louder. It spread farther. The gossips of the city got hold of it. It swept the dukedom, and this is what the whisper said. The Lady Constance hath given birth to a child. When the Lord of Klugenstein heard it, he swung his plumed helmet thrice around his head and shouted, Long live Duke Conrad! For lo, his crown is sure from this day forward. Detson has done his errand well, and the good scoundrel shall be rewarded. And he spread the tidings far and wide, and for eight and forty hours no soul in all the barony but did dance and sing, carouse and illuminate, to celebrate the great event, and all at proud and happy old Klugenstein's expense. Chapter 5 The Frightful Catastrophe The trial was at hand. All the great lords and barons of Brandenburg were assembled in the Hall of Justice in the Ducal Palace. No space was left unoccupied where there was room for a spectator to stand or sit. Conrad, clad in purple and ermine, sat in the Premier's chair, and on either side sat the great judges of the realm. The old Duke had sternly commanded that the trial of his daughter should proceed, without favour, and then had taken to his bed broken-hearted. His days were numbered. Poor Conrad had begged, as for his very life, that he might be spared the misery of sitting in judgment upon his cousin's crime, but it did not avail. The saddest heart in all that great assemblage was in Conrad's breast. The gladdest was in his father's. For unknown to his daughter, Conrad, the old baron Klugenstein was come, and was among the crowd of nobles, triumphant in the swelling fortunes of his house. After the heralds had made due proclamation and the other preliminaries had followed, the venerable Lord Chief Justice said, Prisoner! Stand forth!" The unhappy Princess rose and stood unveiled before the vast multitude. The Lord Chief Justice continued, Most noble lady! Before the great judges of this realm it hath been charged and proven that out of holy wedlock your grace hath given birth unto a child, and by our ancient law the penalty is death, accepting in one soul contingency. Whereof his grace, the acting duke, our good Lord Conrad, will advertise you in his solemn sentence now. Wherefore give heed! Conrad stretched forth the reluctant scepter, and in the self-same moment the womanly heart beneath his robe yearned pityingly toward the doomed prisoner, and the tears came into his eyes. He opened his lips to speak, but the Lord Chief Justice said quickly, Not there, your grace, not there! It is not lawful to pronounce judgment upon any of the duke-line, save from the duke-l-throne! A shudder went to the heart of poor Conrad, and a tremor shook the iron frame of his old father likewise. Conrad had not been crowned. Dared he profane the throne? He hesitated and turned pale with fear. But it must be done. Wondering eyes were already upon him. They would be suspicious eyes if he hesitated longer. He ascended the throne. Presently he stretched forth the scepter again, and said, Prisoner! In the name of our sovereign Lord Ulrich, duke of Brandenburg, I proceed to the solemn duty that hath devolved upon me. Give heed to my words. By the ancient law of the land, accept you produce the partner of your guilt, and deliver him up to the executioner. You must surely die. Embrace this opportunity. Save yourself while yet you may. Name the father of your child. A solemn hush fell upon the great court, a silence so profound that men could hear their own hearts beat. Then the princess slowly turned, with eyes gleaming with hate, and pointing her finger straight at Conrad, said, Thou art the man! An appalling conviction of his helpless, hopeless peril struck a chill to Conrad's heart like the chill of death itself. What power on earth could save him? To disprove the charge he must reveal that he was a woman. And for an uncrowned woman to sit in the dookal chair was death. At one and the same moment he and his grim old father swooned and fell to the ground. The remainder of this thrilling and eventful story will not be found in this or any other publication, either now or at any future time. The truth is, I have got my hero, or heroine, into such a particularly close place that I do not see how I am ever going to get him or her out of it again. And therefore I will wash my hands of the whole business and leave that person to get out the best way that offers, or else stay there. I thought it was going to be easy enough to straighten out that little difficulty, but it looks different now. END OF CHAPTER XXXII PETITION CONCERNING COPYRIGHT To the Honourable, the Senate, and House of Representatives in Congress assembled. Whereas the Constitution guarantees equal rights to all, backed by the Declaration of Independence, and whereas under our laws the right of property in real estate is perpetual, and whereas under our laws the right of property in the literary result of a citizen's intellectual labour is restricted to forty-two years, and whereas forty-two years seems an exceedingly just and righteous term, and a sufficiently long one for the retention of property, therefore your petitioner, having the good of his country solely at heart, humbly prays that equal rights and fair and equal treatment may be meted out to all citizens by the restriction of rights in all property, real estate included, to the beneficent term of forty-two years. Then shall all men bless your honourable body and be happy, and for this will your petitioner ever pray. MARK TWAIN A paragraph not added to the petition. The charming absurdity of restricting property rights in books to forty-two years sticks prominently out in the fact that hardly any man's books ever live forty-two years, or even the half of it. And so, for the sake of getting a shabby advantage of the heirs of about one scot or burns or Milton in a hundred years, the lawmakers of the Great Republic are content to leave that poor little pilfering edict upon these statute books. It is like an emperor lying in wait to rob a phoenix's nest and waiting the necessary century to get the chance. END OF CHAPTER XXXII