 Section 8 of the $30,000 bequest and other stories. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain. Section 8. The Californian's Tale 35 years ago I was out prospecting on the Stannislaus, tramping all day long with pick and pan and horn, and washing a hatful of dirt here and there, always expecting to make a rich strike and never doing it. It was a lovely region, woodsy, balmy, delicious, and had once been populous long years before. But now the people had vanished and the charming paradise was a solitude. They went away when the surface diggings gave out. In one place were a busy little city with banks and newspapers and fire companies, and a mayor and alderman had been. It was nothing but a wide expanse of emerald turf, with not even the faintest sign that human life had ever been present there. This was down toward Tuttle Town. In the country neighborhood thereabouts along the dusty roads, one found at intervals the prettiest little cottage homes snug and cozy, and so cobwebbed with vines snowed thick with roses that the doors and windows were wholly hidden from sight. Signed that these were deserted homes, forsaken years ago by defeated and disappointed families who could neither sell them nor give them away. Now and then, half an hour apart, one came across solitary log cabins of the earliest mining days built by the first gold miners, the predecessors of the cottage builders. In some few cases these cabins were still occupied, and when this was so, you could depend upon it that the occupant was the very pioneer who had built the cabin. And you could depend on another thing, too, that he was there because he had once had his opportunity to go home to the state's ridge, and had not done it, had rather lost his wealth, and had then in his humiliation resolved to sever all communication with his home relatives and friends, and beat to them thenceforth as one dead. Round about California in that day were scattered a host of these living dead men, pride smitten poor fellows, grizzled and old at forty, whose secret thoughts were made all of regrets and longings, regrets for their wasted lives, and longings to be out of the struggle and done with it all. It was a lonesome land, not a sound in all those peaceful expanses of grass and woods, but the drowsy hum of insects, no glimpse of man or beast, nothing to keep up your spirits and make you glad to be alive. And so, at last, in the early part of the afternoon, when I caught sight of a human creature, I felt a most grateful uplift. This person was a man about forty-five years old, and he was standing at the gate of one of those cozy little rose-clad cottages of the sort already referred to. However, this one hadn't a deserted look. It had the look of being lived in and petted and cared for and looked after, and so had its front yard, which was a garden of flowers abundant, gay and flourishing. I was invited in, of course, and required to make myself at home. It was the custom of the country. It was delightful to be in such a place, after long weeks of daily and nightly familiarity with miners' cabins, with all which this implies of dirt floor, never-made beds, tin plates and cups, bacon and beans and black coffee, and nothing of ornament but war pictures from the eastern illustrated papers tacked to the log walls. That was all hard, cheerless, materialistic desolation. But here was a nest which had aspects to rest the tired eye and refresh that something in one's nature which, after long fasting, recognizes when confronted by the belongings of art, however cheap and modest they may be, that it has unconsciously been famishing and now has found nourishment. I could not have believed that a rag carpet could feast me so and so content me, or that there could be such solace to the soul in wallpaper and framed lithographs and bright-colored tidies and lamp mats and Windsor chairs and varnished what-nots with seashells and books and china vases on them, and the score of little unclassifiable tricks and touches that a woman's hand distributes about a home, which one sees without knowing he sees them, yet would miss in a moment if they were taken away. The delight that was in my heart showed in my face, and the man sighed and was pleased, sighed so plainly that he answered it as if it had been spoken. All her work, he said caressingly, she did it all herself every bit, and he took the room in with a glance which was full of affectionate worship. One of those soft Japanese fabrics with which women draped with careful negligence the upper part of a picture frame was out of adjustment. He noticed it and rearranged it with cautious pains, stepping back several times to gauge the effect before he got it to suit him. Then he gave it a light finishing pat or two with his hand and said, She always does that. You can't tell just what it lacks, but it does lack something until you've done that. You can see it yourself after it's done, but that is all you know. You can't find out the law of it. It's like the finishing pat some mother gives a child's hair after she's got it combed and brushed, I reckon. I've seen her fix all these things so much that I can do them all just her way, though I don't know the law of any of them. But she knows the law. She knows the why and the how both, but I don't know the why. I only know the how. He took me into a bedroom so that I might wash my hands, such a bedroom as I had not seen for years. White counterpane, white pillows, carpeted floor, papered walls, pictures, dressing table with mirror and pin cushion and dainty toilet things, and in the corner a wash stand with real chinaware bowl and pitcher and with soap in a china dish, and on a rack more than a dozen towels, towels too clean and white for one out of practice to use without some vague sense of profanation. So my face spoke again, and he answered with gratified words. All her work, she did it all herself every bit. Nothing here that hasn't felt the touch of her hand. Now you would think, but I mustn't talk so much. By this time I was wiping my hands and glancing from detail to detail of the room's belongings, as one is apt to do when he is in a new place, where everything he sees is a comfort to his eye and his spirit. And I became conscious, in one of those unaccountable ways, you know, that there was something there somewhere that the man wanted me to discover for myself. I knew it perfectly, and I knew he was trying to help me by furtive indications with his eye, so I tried hard to get on the right track, being eager to gratify him. I failed several times, as I could see out of the corner of my eye without being told. But at last I knew I must be looking straight at the thing. I knew it from the pleasure issuing an invisible waves from him. He broke into a happy laugh and rubbed his hands together and cried out. That's it. You found it. I knew you would. It's her picture. I went to the little black walnut bracket on the farther wall, and did find there what I had not yet noticed, a derogatype case. It contained the sweetest girlish face, and the most beautiful it seemed to me that I had ever seen. The man drank the admiration from my face and was fully satisfied. Nineteen her last birthday, he said as he put the picture back, and that was the day we were married. When you see her, ah, just wait till you see her. Where is she? When will she be in? Oh, she's away now. She's gone to see her people. They live forty or fifty miles from here. She's been gone two weeks today. When do you expect her back? This is Wednesday. She'll be back Saturday in the evening, about nine o'clock, likely. I felt a sharp sense of disappointment. I'm sorry because I'll be gone then, I said regretfully. Gone? No, why should you go? Don't go. She'll be disappointed. She would be disappointed, that beautiful creature. If she had said the words herself, they could hardly have blessed me more. I was feeling a deep, strong longing to see her. A longing so supplicating, so insistent, that it made me afraid. I said to myself, I will go straight away from this place for my peace of mind's sake. You see, she likes to have people come and stop with us, people who know things and can talk, people like you. She delights in it, for she knows, oh, she knows nearly everything herself and can talk, oh, like a bird. And the books she reads, why you would be astonished. Don't go. It's only a little while, you know, and she'll be so disappointed. I heard the words, but hardly noticed them. I was so deep in my thinking and strugglings. He left me, but I didn't know. Presently he was back, with the picture case in his hand, and he held it open before me and said, There now tell her to her face you could have stayed to see her and you wouldn't. That second glimpse broke down my good resolution. I would stay and take the risk. That night we smoked the tranquil pipe and talked till late about various things, but mainly about her. And certainly I had had no such pleasant and restful time for many a day. The Thursday followed and slipped comfortably away. Toward twilight a big miner from three miles away came, one of the grizzled, stranded pioneers, and gave us warm salutation, clothed in grave and sober speech. Then he said, I only just dropped over to ask about the little madame, and when she is coming home, any news from her? Oh yes, a letter. Would you like to hear it, Tom? Well, I should think I would, if you don't mind, Henry. Henry got the letter out of his wallet, and said he would skip some of the private phrases if we were willing. Then he went on and read the bulk of it, a loving, sedate, and altogether charming and gracious piece of handiwork, with a post script full of affectionate regards and messages to Tom and Joe and Charlie, and other close friends and neighbors. As the reader finished, he glanced at Tom and cried out, Oh ho, you're at it again. Take your hands away and let me see your eyes. You always do that when I read a letter from her. I will write and tell her. Oh no, you mustn't, Henry. I'm getting old, you know, and any little disappointment makes me want to cry. I thought she'd be here herself, and now you've got only a letter. Well now, what put that in your head? I thought everybody knew she wasn't coming till Saturday. Saturday? Why come to think I did know it? I wonder what's the matter with me lately? Certainly I knew it. Ain't we all getting ready for her? Well, I must be going now, but I'll be on hand when she comes, old man. Late Friday afternoon another gray veteran tramped over from his cabin a mile or so away, and said the boys wanted to have a little gaiety and a good time Saturday night if Henry thought she wouldn't be too tired after her journey to be kept up. Tired? She tired. Oh, hear the man. Joe, you know she'd sit up six weeks to please any of you. When Joe heard that there was a letter, he asked to have it read, and the loving messages in it for him broke the old fellow all up. But when he said he was such an old wreck that that would happen to him if she only just mentioned his name. Lord, we miss her so, he said. Saturday afternoon I found I was taking out my watch pretty often. Henry noticed it and said with a startled look, you don't think she ought to be here soon, do you? I felt caught and a little embarrassed, but I laughed and said it was a habit of mine when I was in a state of expectancy. But he didn't seem quite satisfied, and from that time on he began to show uneasiness. Four times he walked me up the road to a point whence we could see a long distance, and there he would stand, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking. Several times he said, I'm getting worried, I'm getting right down worried. I know she's not due till about nine o'clock, and yet something seems to be trying to warn me that something's happened. You don't think anything has happened, do you? I began to get pretty thoroughly ashamed of him for his childishness, and at last, when he repeated that imploring question still another time, I lost my patience for the moment and spoke pretty brutally to him. It seemed to shrivel him up and cow him, and he looked so wounded and so humble after that that I detested myself for having done the cruel and unnecessary thing. And so I was glad when Charlie, another veteran, arrived toward the edge of the evening and nestled up to Henry to hear the letter read and talked over the preparations for the welcome. Charlie fetched out one hearty speech after another and did his best to drive away his friend's boatings and apprehensions. Anything happened to her? Henry, that's pure nonsense. There isn't anything going to happen to her. Just make your mind easy as to that. What did the letter say? Said she was well, didn't it? And said she'd be here by nine o'clock, didn't it? Did you ever know her to fail of her word? Why, you know you never did. Well, then, don't you fret. She'll be here, and that's absolutely certain, and as sure as you are born. Come now, let's get to decorating. Not much time left. Pretty soon Tom and Jo arrived, and then all hands set about adorning the house with flowers. Toward nine the three miners said that as they had brought their instruments they might as well tune up, for the boys and girls would soon be arriving now and hungry for a good old-fashioned breakdown. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet, these were the instruments. The trio took their places side by side and began to play some rattling dance music and beat time with their big boots. It was getting very close to nine. Henry was standing in the door with his eyes directed up the road, his body swaying to the torture of his mental distress. He had been made to drink his wife's health and safety several times, and now Tom shouted, all hands stand by, one more drink and she's here. Jo brought the glasses on a waiter and served the party. I reached for one of the two remaining glasses, but Jo growled under his breath. Drop that, take the other, which I did. Henry was served last. He had hardly swallowed his drink when the clock began to strike. He listened till it finished, his face growing pale and paler. Then he said, boys, I'm sick with fear. Help me, I want to lie down. They helped him to the sofa. He began to nestle and drowse, but presently spoke like one talking in his sleep and said, did I hear horses beat? Have they come? One of the veterans answered close to his ear. It was Jimmy Parrish come to say the party got delayed, but they're right up the road apiece and coming along. Her horses lame, but she'll be here in half an hour. Oh, I'm so thankful nothing has happened. He was asleep almost before the words were out of his mouth. In a moment those handymen had his clothes off and had tucked him into his bed in the chamber where I had washed my hands. They closed the door and came back. Then they seemed preparing to leave. But I said, please don't go, gentlemen. She won't know me. I am a stranger. They glanced at each other. Then Joe said, she, poor thing, she's been dead 19 years. Dead? That or worse, she went to see her folks half a year after she was married and on her way back on a Saturday evening the Indians captured her within five miles of this place and she's never been heard of since. And he lost his mind in consequence? Never has been seen an hour since, but he only gets bad when that time of year comes round. Then we begin to drop in here three days before she's due to encourage him up and ask if he's heard from her. And Saturday we all come and fix up the house with flowers and get everything ready for a dance. We've done it every year for 19 years. The first Saturday there was 27 of us without counting the girls. There's only three of us now and the girls are gone. We drug him to sleep or he would go wild. Then he's all right for another year. Think she's with him till the last three or four days come round. Then he begins to look for her and gets out his poor old letter and we come and ask him to read it to us. Lord, she was a darling. End of Section 8, Recording by Tricia G. Section 9 of the $30,000 bequest and other stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain. Section 9, A Helpless Situation Once or twice a year I get a letter of a certain pattern, a pattern that never materially changes in form and substance, yet I cannot get used to that letter. It always astonishes me. It affects me as the locomotive always affects me. I say to myself, I have seen you a thousand times, you always look the same way, yet you are always a wonder and you are always impossible to contrive you is clearly beyond human genius. You can't exist, you don't exist, yet here you are. I have a letter of that kind by me, a very old one. I yearn to print it, and where is the harm? The writer of it is dead years ago, no doubt. And if I conceal her name and address, heard this world address, I am sure her shade will not mind. And with it I wish to print the answer which I wrote at the time, but probably did not send. If it went, which is not likely, it went in the form of a copy, for I find the original still here pigeonholed with the said letter. To that kind of letters we all write answers which we do not send, fearing to hurt where we have no desire to hurt. I have done it many a time, and this is doubtless a case of the sort. The letter. X, California, June 3, 1879. Mr. S. L. Clemens, Hartford, Connecticut. Dear sir, you will doubtless be surprised to know who has presumed to write and ask a favor of you. Let your memory go back to your days in the humbled minds, 62 to 63. You will remember you and Claggett and Oliver and the old blacksmith Tillu lived in a lean-to which was halfway up the gulch, and there were six log cabins in the camp, strung pretty well separated up the gulch from its mouth at the desert to where the last claim was at the divide. The lean-to you lived in was the one with a canvas roof that the cow fell down through one night as told about by you in roughing it. My uncle Simmons remembers it very well. He lived in the principal cabin, halfway up the divide, along with Dixon and Parker and Smith. It had two rooms, one for kitchen and the other for bunks, and was the only one that had. You and your party were there on the great night, the time they had dried apple pie, Uncle Simmons often speaks of it. It seems curious that dried apple pie should have seemed such a great thing, but it was, and it shows how far humbled was out of the world and difficult to get to, and how slim the regular bill of fare was. Sixteen years ago it is a long time. I was a little girl then, only fourteen. I never saw you, I lived in Washo. But Uncle Simmons ran across you every now and then, all during those weeks that you and party were there working your claim, which was like the rest. The camp played out long and long ago, and there wasn't silver enough in it to make a button. You never saw my husband, but he was there after you left, and lived in that very lean-to, a bachelor then, but married to me now. He often wishes there had been a photographer there in those days. He would have taken the lean-to. He got hurt in the old Hal Clayton claim that was abandoned like the others, putting in a blast and not climbing out quick enough, though he scrambled the best he could. It landed him clear down on the train and hit a piute. For weeks they thought he would not get over it, but he did, and is all right now. Has been ever since. This is a long introduction, but it is the only way I can make myself known. The favor I ask I feel assured your generous heart will grant. Give me some advice about a book I have written. I do not claim anything for it, only it is mostly true and as interesting as most of the books of the times. I am unknown in the literary world, and you know what that means, unless one has someone of influence, like yourself, to help you by speaking a good word for you. I would like to place the book on royalty basis plan with anyone you would suggest. This is a secret from my husband and family. I intend it as a surprise in case I get it published. Feeling you will take an interest in this, and if possible, write me a letter to some publisher, or better still, if you could see them for me and then let me hear. I appeal to you to grant me this favor. With deepest gratitude I thank you for your attention. One knows without inquiring that the twin of that embarrassing letter is forever and ever flying in this and that, and the other direction across the continent in the males, daily, nightly, hourly, unceasingly, unrestingly. It goes to every well-known merchant and railway official and manufacturer and capitalist and mayor and congressman and governor and editor and publisher and author and broker and banker. In a word, to every person who is supposed to have influence, it always follows the one pattern. You do not know me, but you once knew a relative of mine, etc., etc. We should all like to help the applicants. We should all be glad to do it. We should all like to return the sort of answer that is desired, but... Well, there is not a thing we can do that would be a help, for not in any instance does that letter ever come down from anyone who can be helped. The struggler whom you could help does his own helping. It would not occur to him to apply to you, stranger. He has talent and knows it, and he goes into his fight eagerly and with energy and determination, all alone, preferring to be alone. That pathetic letter which comes to you from the incapable, the unhelpable, how do you, who are familiar with it, answer it? What do you find to say? You do not want to inflict a wound. You hunt ways to avoid that. What do you find? How do you get out of your hard place with a contented conscience? Do you try to explain? The old reply of mine to such a letter shows that I tried that once. Was I satisfied with the result? Possibly and possibly not. Probably not. Almost certainly not. I have long ago forgotten all about it. But anyway, I append my effort. The reply. I know Mr. H., and I will go to him, dear madame, if upon reflection you find you still desire it. There will be a conversation. I know the form it will take. It will be like this. Mr. H., how do her books strike you? Mr. Clemens, I am not acquainted with them. H., who has been her publisher? C., I don't know. H., she has one, I suppose? C., I think not. H., you think this is her first book? C., yes, I suppose so. I think so. H., what is it about? What is the character of it? C., I believe I do not know. H., have you seen it? C., well, no, I haven't. H., ah, how long have you known her? C., I don't know her. H., don't know her? C., no. H., ah, how did you come to be interested in her book then? C., well, she wrote and asked me to find a publisher for her and mentioned you. H., why should she apply to you instead of me? C., she wished to use my influence. H., dear me, what has influence to do with such a matter? C., well, I think she thought you would be more likely to examine her book if you were influenced. H., why, what we are here for is to examine books, anybody's book that comes along. It's our business. Why should we turn away a book unexamined because it's a stranger's? It would be foolish, no publisher does it. On what ground did she request your influence since you do not know her? She must have thought you knew her literature and could speak for it, is that it? C., no, she knew I didn't. H., well, what then? She had reason of some sort for believing you competent to recommend her literature and also under obligations to do it. C., yes, I knew her uncle. H., knew her uncle? C., yes. H., upon my word. So you knew her uncle. Her uncle knows her literature. He endorses it to you. The chain is complete, nothing further needed. You are satisfied and therefore C., know that isn't all. There are other ties. I know the cabin her uncle lived in, in the mines. I knew his partners too. Also I came near knowing her husband before she married him, and I did know the abandoned shaft where a premature blast went off and he went flying through the air and cleared down to the trail and hid an Indian in the back with almost fatal consequences. H., to him or to the Indian? C., she didn't say which it was. H., with a sigh. It certainly beats the band. You don't know her, you don't know her literature. You don't know who got hurt when the blast went off. You don't know a single thing for us to build an estimate of her book upon so far as I... C., I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her uncle. H., oh, what uses he? Did you know him long? How long was it? C., well, I don't know that I really knew him, but I must have met him anyway. I think it was that way. You can't tell about these things, you know, except when they are recent. H., recent? When was all this? C., sixteen years ago. H., what a basis to judge a book upon. As first you said you knew him, and now you don't know whether you did or not. C., oh yes, I know him. Anyway, I think I thought I did. I'm perfectly certain of it. H., what makes you think you thought you knew him? C., why she says I did herself. H., she says so. C., yes, she does, and I did know him too, though I don't remember it now. H., come, how can you know it when you don't remember it? C., I don't know, that is, I don't know the process, but I do know lots of things that I don't remember and remember lots of things that I don't know. It's so with every educated person. H., after a pause. Is your time valuable? C., no, well, not very. H., mine is. So I came away then, because he was looking tired. Overwork, I reckon. I never do that. I have seen the evil effects of it. My mother was always afraid I would overwork myself, but I never did. Dear madame, you see how it would happen if I went there. He would ask me those questions, and I would try to remember them to suit him, and he would hunt me here and there in yonder, and get me embarrassed more and more all the time. And at last he would look tired on account of overwork, and there it would end, and nothing done. I wish I could be useful to you, but, you see, they do not care for uncles or any of those things. It doesn't move them. It doesn't have the least effect. They don't care for anything but the literature itself, and they as good as despise influence. But they do care for books, and are eager to get them and examine them, no matter whence they come, nor from whose pen. If you will send yours to a publisher, any publisher, he will certainly examine it. I can assure you of that. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain. Section 10. A Telephonic Conversation Consider that a conversation by telephone, when you are simply sitting by and not taking any part in that conversation, is one of the solemnest curiosities of modern life. Yesterday I was writing a deep article on a sublime philosophical subject, while such a conversation was going on in the room. I noticed that one can always write best when somebody is talking through a telephone close by. Well, the thing began in this way. A member of our household came in and asked me to have our house put into communication with Mr. Bagley's downtown. I have observed in many cities that the sex always shrink from calling up the central office themselves. I don't know why, but they do. So I touched the bell, and this talk ensued. Central office. Gruffie. Hello. I. Is it the central office? Central office. Of course it is. What do you want? I. Will you switch me on to the Bagley's, please? Central office. All right. Just keep your ear to the telephone. Then I heard, K. Look, K. Look, K. Look, K. Look, K. Look, K. Look, K. Then a terrible gritting of teeth, and finally a piping female voice. Yes. Rising inflection. Did you wish to speak to me? Without answering, I handed the telephone to the applicant and sat down, then followed that queerest of all the queer things in this world. A conversation with only one end of it. You hear questions asked. You don't know the answer. You hear invitations given. You hear no thanks in return. You have listening pauses of dead silence, followed by apparently irrelevant and unjustifiable exclamations of glad surprise or sorrow or dismay. You can't make head or tail of the talk because you never hear anything that the person at the other end of the wire says. Well, I heard the following remarkable series of observations all from the one tongue and all shouted, for you can't ever persuade the sex to speak gently into a telephone. Yes? Why? How did that happen? Pause. What did you say? Pause. Oh, no. I don't think it was. Pause. No. Oh, no. I didn't mean that. I meant put it in while it's still boiling or just before it comes to a boil. Pause. What? Pause. I turned it over with a backstitch on the salvage edge. Pause. Yes, I like it that way, too, but I think it's better to baste it on with Valenciennes or bombazine or something of that sort. It gives it such an air and attracts so much noise. Pause. It's 49th Deuteronomy, 64th to 97th inclusive. I think we ought all to read it often. Pause. Perhaps so. I generally use a hairpin. Pause. What did you say? Aside. Children, do be quiet. Pause. Oh, be flat. Dear me, I thought you said it was the cat. Pause. Since when? Pause. Why, I never heard of it. Pause. You astound me. It seems utterly impossible. Pause. Who did? Pause. Goodness gracious. Pause. Well, what is the world coming to? It was right in church. Pause. And was her mother there? Pause. Why, Mrs. Bagley, I should have died of humiliation. What did they do? Long pause. I can't be perfectly sure because I haven't the notes by me. But I think it goes something like this. To rolly low, low, low, low, low, low, o tolly low, low, li, li, li, li, I do. And then repeat, you know. Pause. Yes, I think it is very sweet and very solemn and impressive if you get the Andantino and the Pianissimo right. Pause. Oh, gumdrops, gumdrops. But I never allow them to eat striped candy. And of course they can't till they get their teeth anyway. Pause. What? Pause. Oh, not in the least. Go right on. He's here writing. It doesn't bother him. Pause. Very well. I'll come if I can. Aside. Dear me, how does it tire a person's arm to hold this thing up so long? I wish she'd... Pause. Oh no, not at all. I like to talk. But I'm afraid I'm keeping you from your affairs. Pause. Visitors? Pause. No, we never use butter on them. Pause. Yes, that is a very good way. But all the cookbooks say they are very unhealthy when they are out of season. And he doesn't like them anyway, especially canned. Pause. Oh, I think that is too high for them. We have never paid over fifty cents a bunch. Pause. Must you go? Well, goodbye. Pause. Yes, I think so. Goodbye. Pause. Four o'clock then. I'll be ready. Goodbye. Pause. Thank you ever so much. Goodbye. Pause. Oh, not at all. Just as fresh. Which? Oh, I'm glad to hear you say that. Goodbye. Hangs up the telephone and says, Oh it does tire a person's arm so. A man delivers a single brutal goodbye and that is the end of it. Not so with the gentle sex. I say it in their praise. They cannot abide abruptness. End of section 10, recording by Tricia G. Section 11 of the $30,000 bequest and other stories. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Richard Kilmer. The $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain. Section 11. Edward Mills and George Benton. A tale. These two were distantly related to each other. Seventh cousins or something of that sort. While still babies, they became orphans and were adopted by the Brantz, a childless couple who quickly grew very fond of them. The Brantz were always saying, be pure, honest, sober, industrious, and considerate of others, and success in life is assured. The children heard this repeated some thousands of times before they understood it. They could repeat it themselves long before they could say the Lord's Prayer. It was painted over the nursery door and was about the first thing they learned to read. It was destined to be the unswerving rule of Edward Mills's life. Sometimes the Brantz changed the wording a little and said, be pure, honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and you will never lack friends. Baby Mills was a comfort to everybody about him. When he wanted candy and could not have it, he listened to reason and contented himself without it. When Baby Benton wanted candy, he cried for it until he got it. Baby Mills took care of his toys. Baby Benton always destroyed his in a very brief time and then made himself so insistently disagreeable that, in order to have peace in the house, little Edward was persuaded to yield up his playthings to him. When the children were a little older, Georgie became a heavy expense in one respect. He took no care of his clothes. Consequently, he shone frequently in new ones, which was not the case with Eddie. The boys grew apace. Eddie was an increasing comfort. Georgie, an increasing solicitude. It was always sufficient to say, in answer to Eddie's petitions, I would rather you would not do it, meaning swimming, skating, picnicking, burying, circusing, and all sorts of things which boys delight in. But no answer was sufficient for Georgie. He had to be humored in his desires, or he would carry them with a high hand. Naturally, no boy got more swimming, skating, burying, and so forth than he. Nobody ever had a better time. The good brands did not allow the boys to play out after nine in summer evenings. They were sent to bed at that hour. Eddie honorably remained, but Georgie usually slipped out of the window towards ten and enjoyed himself until midnight. It seemed impossible to break Georgie of this bad habit, but the brands managed it at last by hiring him, with apples and marbles, to stay in. The good brands gave all their time and attention to vain endeavors to regulate Georgie. They said, with grateful tears in their eyes, that Eddie needed no efforts of theirs. He was so good, so considerate, and in all ways so perfect. By and by the boys were big enough to work, so they were apprenticed to a trade. Edward went voluntarily. Georgie was coaxed and bribed. Edward worked hard and faithfully, and ceased to be an expense to the good brands. They praised him, so did his master. But Georgie ran away, and it cost Mr. Brandt both money and trouble to hunt him up and get him back. By and by he ran away again, more money and more trouble. He ran away a third time and stole a few things to carry with him. Trouble and expense for Mr. Brandt once more, and besides it was with the greatest difficulty that he succeeded in persuading the master to let the youth go unprosecuted for the theft. Edward worked steadily along, and in time became a full partner in his master's business. George did not improve. He kept the loving hearts of his aged benefactors full of trouble, and their hands full of inventive activities to protect him from ruin. Edward as a boy had interested himself in Sunday schools, debating societies, penny missionary affairs, anti-debacle organizations, anti-profanity associations, and all such things. As a man, he was a quiet but steady and reliable helper in the church, the temperance societies, and in all movements looking to the aiding and uplifting of men. This excited no remark attracted no attention, for it was his natural bend. Finally the old people died. The will testified their loving pride in Edward and left their little property to George because he needed it, whereas owing to a bountiful providence such was not the case with Edward. The property was left to George conditionally. He must buy out Edward's partner with it, else it must go to a benevolent organization called the Prisoner's Friend Society. The old people left a letter in which they begged their dear son Edward to take their place and watch over George and help and shield him as they had done. Edward dutifully acquiesced and George became his partner in the business. He was not a valuable partner. He had been meddling with drink before. He soon developed into a constant tippler now. And his flesh and eyes showed the fact unpleasantly. Edward had been courting a sweet and kindly spirited girl for some time. They loved each other dearly and but about this period George began to haunt her tearfully and imploringly and at last she went crying to Edward and said her high and holy duty was plain before her. She must not let her own selfish desires interfere with it. She must marry poor George and reform him. It would break her heart, she knew it would, and so on, but duty was duty. So she married George and Edward's heart came very near breaking as well as her own. However, Edward recovered and married another girl, a very excellent one she was too. Children came to both families. Mary did her honest best to reform her husband but the contract was too large. George went on drinking and by and by he fell to misusing her and the little one sadly. A great many good people strove with George. They were always at it in fact but he calmly took such efforts as his do and their duty and did not mend his ways. He added a vice presently, that of secret gambling. He got deeply in debt. He borrowed money on the firm's credit as quietly as he could and carried the system so far and so successfully that one morning the sheriff took possession of the establishment and the two cousins found themselves penniless. Times were hard now and they grew worse. Edward moved his family into a garret and walked the streets day and night seeking work. He begged for it but it was really not to be had. He was astonished to see how soon his face became unwelcome. He was astonished and hurt to see how quickly the ancient interest which people had had in him faded out and disappeared. Still he must get work so he swallowed his chagrin and toiled on in search of it. At last he got a job of carrying bricks up a ladder in a hod and was a grateful man in consequence but after that nobody knew him or cared anything about him. He was not able to keep up his dues in the various moral organizations to which he belonged and had to endure the sharp pain of seeing himself brought under the disgrace of suspension. But the faster Edward died out of public knowledge and interest the faster George rose in them. He was found lying, ragged and drunk in the gutter one morning. A member of the lady's temperance refuge fished him out, took him in hand, got up a subscription for him, kept in sober a whole week, then got a situation for him. An account of it was published. General attention was thus drawn to the poor fellow and a great many people came forward and helped him towards reform with their countenance and encouragement. He did not drink a drop for two months and meantime was the pet of the good. Then he fell in the gutter and there was general sorrow and lamentation. But the noble sisterhood rescued him again. They cleaned him up, they fed him. They listened to the mournful music of his repentances. They got him his situation again. An account of this also was published. And the town was drowned in happy tears over the re-restoration of the poor beast and struggling victim of the fatal bowl. A grand temperance revival was got up and after some rousing speeches had been made the chairman said impressively we are not about the call for signers and I think there is a spectacle in store for which not many in this house will be able to view with dry eyes. There was an eloquent pause and then George Benton escorted by a red sash detachment of the ladies of the refuge stepped forward upon the platform and signed the pledge. The air was rent with applause and everybody cried for joy. Everybody rung the hand of the new convert when the meeting was over. His salary was enlarged next day. He was the talk of the town and its hero. An account of it was published. George Benton fell regularly every three months but was facefully rescued and wrought with every time and good situations were found for him. Finally, he was taken round the country lecturing as reform drunkard and he had great houses and did an immense amount of good. He was so popular at home and so trusted during his sober intervals that he was enabled to use the name of a principal citizen and get a large sum of money at the bank. A mighty pressure was brought to bear to save him from the consequences of his forgery and it was partially successful. He was sent up for only two years when, at the end of a year the tireless efforts of the benevolent were crowned with success and he emerged from the penitentiary with a pardon in his pocket. The prisoner's friend society met him at the door with a situation and a comfortable salary and all the other benevolent people came forward and gave him advice, encouragement and help. Edward Mills had once applied to the prisoner's friend society for a situation when in dire need but the question have you been a prisoner made brief work of his case. While all these things were going on Edward Mills had been quietly making head against adversity. He was still poor but was in receipt of a steady and sufficient salary as a respected and trusted cashier of a bank. George Benton never came near him and was never heard to inquire about him. George got to indulging in long absences from the town. There were ill reports about him but nothing definite. One winter's night some masked burglars forced their way into the bank and found Edward Mills there alone. They commanded him to reveal the combination so that they could get into the safe. He refused. They threatened his life. He said his employers trusted him and he could not be a traitor to that trust. He could die if he must but while he lived he would be faithful. He would not yield up the combination. The burglars killed him. The detectives hunted down the criminals. The chief one proved to be George Benton. A wide sympathy was felt for the widow and orphans of the dead man when the newspapers in the land begged that all the banks in the land would testify their appreciation of the fidelity and heroism of the murdered cashier by coming forward with a generous contribution of money in aid of his family. Now bereft of support. The result was a mass of solid cash amounting to upwards of $500 an average of nearly three-eighths of a cent for each bank in the Union. The cashier's own bank testified its gratitude by endeavouring to show but humiliating failing in it that the peerless servants accounts were not square and that he himself had knocked his brains out with a bludgeon to escape detection and punishment. George Benton was arraigned for trial. Then everybody seemed to forget the widow and orphans in their solicitude for poor George. Everything that money and influence could do was done to save him but it all failed. He was sentenced to death. Straightway the Governor was besieged with petitions for commutation or pardon. They were brought by tearful young girls by sorrowful old maids by deputations of pathetic widows by shoals of impressive orphans but no, the Governor for once would not yield. Now George Benton experienced religion. The glad news flew all around. From that time forth his cell was always full of girls and women and fresh flowers. All the day long there was prayer and hymn singing and thanksgiving and homilies and tears with never an interruption except an occasional five-minute intermission for refreshments. This sort of thing continued up to the very gallows and George Benton went proudly home in the black cap before a wailing audience of the sweetest and best that the region could produce. His grave had fresh flowers on it every day for a while and the headstone bore these words under a hand pointing aloft. He has fought the good fight. The brave cashier's headstone had this inscription be pure, honest, sober, industrious, considerate and you will never give the order to leave it that way but it was so given. The cashier's family are in stringent circumstances now it is said, but no matter a lot of appreciative people who are not willing that an act so brave and true as his should go unrewarded have collected forty-two thousand dollars and built a memorial church with it. End of Edward Mills and George Benton A Tale Recording by Richard Kilmer Rio Medina, Texas Section 12 of the $30,000 Bequest in Other Stories This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The $30,000 Bequest in Other Stories by Mark Twain Section 12 Chapter 1 In the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket and said Here are gifts take one leave the others and be wary choose wisely oh choose wisely for only one of them is valuable The gifts were five fame, love, riches, pleasure, death the youth said eagerly there is no need to consider and he chose pleasure he went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth delights in but each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing vain and empty and each departing mocked him in the end he said these years I have wasted if I could but choose again I would choose wisely Chapter 2 The fairy appeared and said Four of the gifts remain choose once more and oh remember time is flying and only one of them is precious the man considered long then chose love and did not mark the tears that rose in the fairy's eyes after many many years the man sat by a coffin in an empty home and he communed with himself saying one by one they have gone away and left me and now she lies here the dearest in the last desolation after desolation has swept over me for each hour of happiness the treacherous traitor love has sold me I have paid a thousand hours of grief out of my heart of hearts I curse him Chapter 3 Choose again it was the fairy speaking the years have taught you wisdom surely it must be so three gifts remain only one of them has any worth remember it and choose warily the man reflected long then chose fame and the fairy sighing went her way years went by and she came again and stood behind the man where he sat solitary in the fading day thinking and she knew his thought my name has filled the world and its praises were on every tongue and it seemed well with me for a little while how little a while it was then came envy, then detraction then calamity, then hate then persecution then derision which is the beginning of the end and last of all came pity which is the funeral of fame oh the bitterness and misery of renown target for mud in its prime for contempt and compassion chapter four choose yet again it was the fairy's voice two gifts remain and do not despair in the beginning there was but one that was precious and it is still here wealth which is power how blind I was said the man now at last life will be worth the living I will spend squander, dazzle these mockers and despisers I will crawl in the dirt before me and I will feed my hungry heart with their envy I will have all luxuries, all joys all enchantments of the spirit all contentments of the body that man holds dear I will buy, buy, buy deference, respect esteem, worship every pinch-back grace of life the market of a trivial world can furnish forth I have lost much time and chosen badly here too far but let that pass I was ignorant then and could but take for best what seemed so three short years went by and a day came when the man sat shivering in a mean garret and he was gaunt and wan and hollow-eyed and clothed in rags and he was gnawing a dry crust and mumbling curse all the world's gifts for mockeries and gilded lies and miscalled every one they are not gifts but merely lendings pleasure, love, fame, riches they are but temporary disguises for lasting realities pain, grief, shame, poverty the fairy said true in all her store there was but one gift which was precious only one that was not valueless how poor and cheap and mean I know those others now to be compared with that inestimable one that dear and sweet and kindly one that steeps in dreamless and enduring sleep the pains that persecute the body and the shames and griefs that eat the mind and heart bring it, I am weary I would rest Chapter 5 the fairy came bringing again four of the gifts but death was wanting she said I gave it to a mother's pet a little child it was ignorant but trusted me asking me to choose for it you did not ask me to choose oh miserable me what is left for me what not even you have deserved the wanton insult of old age End of Section 12 Recording by Tricia G Section 13 of the $30,000 bequest and other stories this is the LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain Section 13 the first writing machines from my unpublished autobiography some days ago a correspondent sent in an old type written sheet faded by age containing the following letter over the signature of Mark Twain Hartford, March 10, 1875 please do not use my name in any way please do not even divulge the fact that I own a machine I have entirely stopped using the typewriter for the reason that I never could write a letter with it to anybody without receiving a request by return mail that I would not only describe the machine but state what progress I had made in the use of it etc etc I don't like to write letters and so I don't want people to know I own this curiosity breeding little joker a note was sent to Mr. Clemens asking him if the letter was genuine and whether he really had a typewriter as long ago as that Mr. Clemens replied that his best answer is the following chapter from his unpublished autobiography 1904 Villa Cordo, Florence, January dictating autobiography to a typewriter is a new experience for me but it goes very well and is going to save time and language the kind of language that sues vexation I have dictated to a typewriter before but not autobiography between that experience and the present one there lies a mighty gap more than 30 years it is sort of lifetime in that wide interval much has happened to the type machine as well as to the rest of us at the beginning of that interval a type machine was a curiosity the person who owned one was a curiosity too but now it is the other way about a person who doesn't own one is a curiosity I saw a type machine for the first time in what year I suppose it was 1873 because Nasbi was with me at the time and it was in Boston we must have been lecturing or we could not have been in Boston I take it I quoted the platform that season but never mind about that it is no matter Nasbi and I saw the machine through a window and went in to look at it the salesman explained it to us showed us samples of its work and said it could do 57 words a minute a statement which we frankly confessed that we did not believe so he put his type girl to work and we timed her by the watch she actually did the 57 in 60 seconds we were partly convinced but said it probably couldn't happen again but it did we timed the girl over and over again with the same result always she won out she did her work on narrow slips of paper and we pocketed them as fast as she turned them out to show us curiosities the price of the machine was $125 I bought one and we went away very much excited at the hotel we got our slips and were a little disappointed to find that they contained the same words the girl had economized time and labor by using a formula which she knew by heart however we argued safely enough that the first type girl must naturally take rank with the first billiard player neither of them could be expected to get out of the game any more than a third or a half of what was in it if the machine survived if it survived experts would come to the front by and by who would double the girls output without a doubt they would do 100 words a minute my talking speed on the platform that score has long ago been beaten at home I played with the toy repeated and repeating and repeated the boy stood on the burning deck until I could turn that boy's adventure out at the rate of 12 words a minute then I resumed the pen for business and only worked the machine to astonish inquiring visitors they carried off many reams of the boy and his burning deck by and by I hired a young woman and did my first dictating letters merely and my last until now the machine did not do both capitals and lower case as now but only one and lower case as now but only capitals gothic capitals they were and sufficiently ugly I remember the first letter I dictated it was to Edward Bach who was a boy then I was not acquainted with him at that time his present enterprising spirit is not new he had it in that early day he was accumulating autographs and was not content with mere signatures he wanted a whole autograph letter I furnished it in typewritten capitals signature and all it was long it was a sermon it contained advice also reproaches I said writing was my trade my bread and butter I said it was not fair to ask a man to give away samples of his trade would he ask the blacksmith for a horseshoe would he ask the doctor for a corpse now I come to an important matter as I regard it in the year 74 the young woman copied a considerable part of a book of mine on the machine in a previous chapter of this autobiography I have claimed that I was the first person in the world that ever had a telephone in the house for practical purposes I now claim until dispossess that I was the first person in the world to apply the type machine to literature that book must have been the authors of Tom Sawyer I wrote the first half of it in 72 the rest of it in 74 my machinist type copied a book for me in 74 so I concluded it was that one that early machine was full of caprices full of defects, devilish ones it had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues after a year or two I found that it was degrading my character so I thought I would give it to Howells he was reluctant for he was suspicious of novelties and unfriendly toward them and he remained so to this day but I persuaded him he had great confidence in me and I got him to believe things about the machine that I did not believe myself he took it home to Boston and my morals began to improve but his have never recovered he kept it six months and then returned it to me I gave it away twice after that but it wouldn't stay it came back then I gave it to our coachman Patrick Michelere who was very grateful because he did not know the animal and thought I was trying to make him wiser and better as soon as he got wiser and better he traded it to a heretic for a side-settle which he could not use and there my knowledge of its history ends End of section 13 recording by Tricia G section 14 of the $30,000 bequest and other stories this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain section 14 Italian without a master it is almost a fortnight now that I am domiciled in a medieval villa in the country a mile or two from Florence I cannot speak the language I am too old now to learn how also too busy when I am busy and too indolent when I am not wherefore some will imagine that I am having a dull time of it but it is not so the help are all natives they talk Italian to me I answer in English I do not understand them they do not understand me consequently no harm is done and everybody is satisfied in order to be just and fair I throw in an Italian word when I have one and this has a good influence I get the word out of the morning paper I have to use it while it is fresh for I find that Italian words do not keep in this climate they fade toward night and next morning they are gone but it is no matter I get a new one out of the paper before breakfast and thrill the domestics with it while it lasts I have no dictionary and I do not want one I can select words by the sound or by orthographic aspect many of them have French or German or English look and these are the ones I enslave for the day's service that is as a rule not always if I find a learnable phrase and look and warbles musically along I do not care to know the meaning of it I pay it out to the first applicant knowing that if I pronounce it carefully he will understand it and that's enough yesterday's word was avanti it sounds Shakespearean and probably means avant and quit my sight today I have a whole phrase sonodispiacentissimo I do not know what it means to fit in everywhere and give satisfaction although as a rule my words and phrases are good for one day and train only I have several that stay by me all the time for some unknown reason and these come very handy when I get into a long conversation and need things to fire up with in monotonous stretches one of the best ones is dovi el gato it nearly always produces a pleasant surprise before I save it up for places where I want to express applause or admiration the fourth word has a French sound and I think the phrase means that takes the cake during my first week in the deep and dreamy stillness of this woodsy and flowery place I was without news of the outside world and was well content without it it has been four weeks since I had seen a newspaper and this lack seemed to give life a new charm and grace to saturate it with a feeling verging upon actual delight then change came that was to be expected the appetite for news began to rise again after this invigorating rest I had to feed it but I was not willing to let it make me its helpless slave again I determined to put it on a diet and a strict and limited one so I examined an Italian paper with the idea of feeding it on that and on that exclusively and without help of a dictionary in this way I should surely be well protected against overloading and indigestion a glance at the telegraphic page filled me with encouragement there were no scare heads that was good supremely good but there were headings one liners and two liners and that was good too for without these one must do as one does with a German paper pay our precious time in finding out what an article is about only to discover in many cases that there is nothing in it of interest to you the headline is a valuable thing necessarily we are all fond of murders scandals swindles robberies explosions collisions and all such things when we knew the people and when they are neighbors and friends but when they are strangers we do not get any great pleasure as a rule now the trouble with an American paper is that it has no discrimination it rakes the whole earth for blood and garbage and the result is that you are daily overfed and suffer a surfeit by habit you stow this muck every day but you come by and by to take no vital interest in it indeed you almost get tired of it as a rule 49 50th of it concerns strangers only a thousand miles two thousand miles ten thousand miles from where you are why when you come to think of it who cares what becomes of those people I would not give the assassination of one personal friend for a whole massacre of those others and to my mind one relative or neighbor mixed up in a scandal is more interesting than a whole Sodom and Gomorrah of outlanders gone rotten give me the home product every time very well I saw at a glance that the Florentine paper would suit me five out of six of its scandals and tragedies were local they were adventures of one's very neighbors one might almost say one's friends in the matter of world news there was not too much but just about enough I subscribed I have had no occasion to regret it every morning I get all the news I need for the day sometimes from the headlines sometimes from the text I have never had to call for a dictionary yet I read the paper with ease often I do not quite understand often some of the details escape me but no matter I get the idea I will cut out a passage or two then you will see how limpid the language is Il ritorno de biati di Italia Il argizion del re all ospedale italiano the first line no the first line means that the Italian sovereigns are coming back they have been to England the second line seems to mean that they enlarged the king at the Italian hospital with a banquet I suppose an English banquet has that effect further Il ritorno de sovrani a Roma Roma 24 or a 2250 i sovrani reali si attendono a Roma domani or a 1551 return of the sovereigns to Rome you see date of the telegram Rome November 24 10 minutes before 23 o'clock the telegram seems to say the sovereigns and the royal children expect themselves at Rome tomorrow at 51 minutes after 15 o'clock I do not know about Italian time but I judge it begins at midnight and runs through the 24 hours without breaking bulk in the following ad the theaters open at half past 20 if these are not matinees 20 30 must mean 8 30 p.m. by my reckoning spectacoli del di 25 teatro della pergola or a 20 30 opera bohem teatro alli fairy compagnia dramatica drago or a 20 30 la leje alambra or a 20 30 spettacolo variato sala Edison grandiose spettacolo cinematographico covades inaugurazione della ciesa rusa in coda al deritissimo vedute di Firenze con gran movimento america transporto tronci giga tenci iladri and casa del diavolo cine comice cinematografo via Brunaleschi number 4 programa stra ordinario don cisote prezi populari the whole of that is intelligible to me and seen and rational to accept the remark about the inauguration of a Russian Chinese that one over sizes my hand give me five cards this is a four page paper and as it is said in long primer lettered and has a page of advertisements there is no room for the crimes disasters and general sweepings of the outside world thanks be today I find only a single importation of the off color sort una principesa cefuge in un cochiere parigi 24 mattine ade berlino ce la principesa chauvin bare woldenbure scompare il 9 noviembre sarebe partita col suo cochiere la principesa a 27 anni 27 years old and scompare scampard on the 9th november you see by the added detail that she departed with her coachman I hope sarebe has not made a mistake but I am afraid the chances are that she has sono dispi an sentissimo there are several fires also a couple of accidents this is one of them grave discrazia sul ponte vecchio stamatina circa le 730 mentre Giuseppe schiati di anni 55 di casalina e tori passava dal ponte vecchio stando seduto sopra un baroccio carico di verdura perse al equilibrio e cade al suolo rimanendo con la gamba destra sotto una rota del vehicolo lo schiati fu sabito ricolto da alcuni cittadini che per meso della pubblica vettura number 365 lo transporto a San Giovanni di Dio e via il medico di Guardia che risconto la fratura della gamba destra e alcune lieve scoriaziondi giudicandolo guaribale in 50 giorini salvo complicazioni what it seems to say is this serious discrase on the old old bridge this morning about 730 mister Giuseppe schiati aged 55 of casalina and tori in a sitting posture on top of a carico baro of verdura foliage, hay, vegetables lost his equilibrium and fell on himself arriving with his left leg under one of the wheels of the vehicle said schiati was suddenly harvested gathered in by several citizens who by means of public cab number 365 transported to St. John of God paragraph number three is a little obscure but I think it says that the medico set the broken left leg right enough since there was nothing the matter with the other one and that several are encouraged to hope that 50 days will fetch him around in quite giocandolo guaribale way if no complications intervene I am sure I hope so myself there is a great and peculiar charm about reading new scraps in a language which you are not acquainted with but it always goes with the mysterious and the uncertain you can never be absolutely sure of the meaning of anything you read in such circumstances you are chasing an alert and gamey riddle all the time and the baffling turns and dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt a dictionary would spoil it sometimes a single word of doubtful purport will cast a veil of dreamy and golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph and leave steeped in a hunting and adorable mystery an incident which had been vulgar and commonplace but for that benefaction would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that gracious word would you be properly grateful after a couple of days rest I now come back to my subject and seek a case in point I find it without trouble in the morning paper a cablegram from Chicago and Indiana by way of Paris all the words save one are guessable by a person ignorant of Italian revolverate in Teatro Parigi 27 La Patria Ada Chicago El Guardiano del Teatro de Lopra di Wallace Indiana Avendo voluto esbalare uno spettatore che continuava a fumare malgrado il divietti questo spalla guiato dai suoi amici tiro diversi colpi di rivotella il Guardiano ripose nache una scarica generale grande panico traglis spettatore nessun ferrito translation revolveration in theater Paris 27 La Patria has from Chicago the cop of the theater of the opera of Wallace Indiana had willed to expel a spectator which continued to smoke in spite of the prohibition who spalla guiato by his friends tiré french tiré anglicé polled manifold revolver shots great panic among the spectators nobody hurt it is bettable that that harmless cataclysm in the theater of the opera of Wallace Indiana excited not a person in Europe but me florence by way of France but it does excite me it excites me because I cannot make out for sure what it was that moved the spectator to resist the officer I was gliding along smoothly and without obstruction or accident until I came to that word spalla guiato then the bottom fell out you notice what a rich gloom what a somber and pervading mystery that word sheds over the whole Wallachian tragedy the charm of the thing that is the delight of it this is where you begin this is where you revel you can guess and guess and have all the fun you like you need not be afraid there will be an end to it none is possible for no amount of guessing will ever furnish you a meaning for that word that you can be sure is the right one all the other words give you hints by their form this one keeps it secret if there is even the slightest slight shadow of a hint anywhere it lies in the very meagrely suggestive fact that spalla guiato carries our word egg in its stomach well make the most out of it and then where are you at you conjecture that the spectator which was smoking in spite of the prohibition and became reprohibited by the guardians was egged on by his friends and that was owing to that evil influence that he initiated the revolveration in theater that has galloped under the sea and come crashing through the European press without exciting anybody but me but are you sure are you dead sure that that was the way of it no then the uncertainty remains the mystery abides and with it the charm guess again if I had a phrase book of a really satisfactory sort I would study it and not give all my free time to undictionary all readings but there is no such work on the market the existing phrase books are inadequate they are well enough as far as they go but when you fall down and skin your leg they don't tell you what to say and of Italian without a master recording by trisha g section 15 of the $30,000 bequest and other stories this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain section 15 Italian with grammar I found that a person of large intelligence could read this beautiful language with considerable facility without a dictionary but I presently found that to such a person a grammar would be of use at times it is because if he does not know the words and the wassies and the maybes and the haspins apart confusions and uncertainties can arise he can get the idea that a thing is going to happen next week when the truth is that it has already happened week before last even more previously sometimes examination and inquiry showed me that the adjectives in such things were frank and fair-minded and straightforward and did not shuffle it was the verb that mixed the hands it was the verb that lacked stability it was the verb that had no permanent opinion about anything it was the verb that was always dodging the issue and putting out the light and making all the trouble further examination further inquiry further reflection confirmed this judgment and established beyond peer adventure the fact that the verb was the storm center this discovery made plain the right and wise course to pursue in order to acquire certainty and exactness in understanding the statements which the newspaper was daily endeavoring to convey to me I must catch a verb and tame it I must find out its ways I must spot its eccentricities I must penetrate its disguises I must intelligently foresee the forecast at least the commoner of the dodges it was likely to try upon a stranger in given circumstances I must get in on its main shifts and head them off I must learn its game and play the limit I had noticed in other foreign languages that verbs are bred in families and that the members of each family have certain features or resemblances that are common to that family and distinguish it from the other families the other kin, the cousins and whatnot I had noticed that this family mark is not usually the nose or the hair so to speak but the tail, the termination and that these tails are quite definitely differentiated in so much that an expert can tell a poo perfect from a subjunctive by its tail as easily and as certainly as a cowboy can tell a cow from a horse by the light process the result of observation and culture I should explain that I am speaking of legitimate verbs those verbs which in the slang of the grammar are called regular there are other I am not meaning to conceal this others called irregulars born out of wedlock of unknown and uninteresting parentage and naturally destitute of family resemblances as regards to all features tails included but of these pathetic outcasts I do not approve of them I do not encourage them I am prudishly delicate and sensitive and I do not allow them to be used in my presence but as I have said I decided to catch one of the others and break it into harness one is enough once familiar with its assortment of tails you are immune after that no regular verb can conceal its speciality from you and make you think it is working the past or the future or the conditional or the unconditional when it is engaged in some other line of business its tail will give it away I found out all these things by myself without a teacher I selected the verb amare to love not for any personal reason for I am indifferent about verbs I care no more for one verb than for another and have little or no respect for any of them but in foreign languages you always begin with that one why I don't know it is merely habit I suppose the first teacher chose it Adam was satisfied and there hasn't been a successor since with originality enough to start a fresh one for they are a pretty limited lot you will admit that originality is not in their line they can't think up anything new anything to freshen up the old moss grown dullness the language lesson and put life and go into it and charming grace and picturesqueness I knew I must look after those details myself therefore I thought them out and wrote them down and said for the Faccino and explained them to him and said he must arrange a proper plant and get together a good stock company among the Contadini and design the costumes and distribute the parts and drill the troop ready in three days to begin on this verb in a ship shape and workman like manner I told him to put each grand division of it under a foreman and each subdivision under a subordinate of the rank of sergeant or corporal or something like that and to have a different uniform for each squad so I could tell a plough perfect from a compound future without looking at the book the whole battery to be under his own special and particular command with the rank of Brigadier and I to pay the freight I then inquired into the character and possibilities of the selected verb and was much disturbed to find that it was over my size it being chambered for 57 rounds 57 ways of saying I love without reloading and yet none of them likely to convince a girl that was laying for a title or a title that was laying for rocks it seemed to me that with my inexperience it would be foolish to go into action with this Mitra use so I ordered it to the rear and told the Faccino to provide something a little more primitive to start with something less elaborate some gentle old-fashioned flintlock smooth bore double barreled thing calculated to cripple it 200 yards and kill it 40 an arrangement suitable for a beginner who could be satisfied with moderate results on the did not wish to take the whole territory in the first campaign but in vain he was not able to mend the matter all the verbs being of the same bills all gatlings all of the same caliber and delivery 57 to the volley and fatal at a mile and a half but he said the auxiliary verb affair to have was a tidy thing and easy to handle in a sea way and less likely to miss stays knowing about than some of the others so upon his recommendation I chose that one and told him to take it along and scrape its bottom and break out its spinnaker and get it ready for business I will explain that a Faccino is a general utility domestic mine was a horse doctor in his better days and a very good one at the end of three days the Faccino doctor Brigadier was ready I was also ready with a sonographer we were in a room called the rope walk this is a formidably long room as is indicated by its facetious name and is a good place for reviews at 930 the FDB took his place near me and gave the word of command the drums began to rumble in thunder the head of the forces appeared at an upper door and the march past was on down they filed a blaze of variegated color a squad gaudy in a uniform of its own and bearing a banner inscribed with its verbal rank and quality first the present tense in Mediterranean blue and old gold then the past definite in scarlet and black then the imperfect in green and yellow then the indicative future in the stars and stripes then the old red sandstone subjunctive in purple and silver and so on and so on 57 privates and 20 commissioned officers certainly one of the most fiery and dazzling and eloquent sites I have ever be held I could not keep back the tears presently halt commanded the brigadier front face right dress stand at ease one two three in unison recite it was fine in one noble volume of sound all the 57 halves in the Italian language burst forth in an exalting and splendid confusion then came commands about face eyes front helm Ali hard a port forward march and the drums let go again when the last termination had disappeared the commander said the instruction drill would now begin and asked for suggestions I said they say I have thou hast he has and so on but they don't say what it will be better and more definite if they have something to have just an object you know a something anything will do anything that will give the listener a sort of personal as well as grammatical interest in their joys and complaints you see he said it is a good point would a dog do I said I did not know but we would try a dog and see so he sent out an aid to camp to give the order to add the dog the six privates of the present tense now filed in in charge of sergeant of air to have and displaying their banner they formed in line of battle and recited one at a time thus yo ho uncane I have a dog to high uncane thou hast a dog a glee he has a dog no I abiamo uncane we have a dog boy avete uncane you have a dog a glee no ano uncane they have a dog no comment followed they returned to camp and I reflected a while the commander said I fear you are disappointed yes I said they are too monotonous too sing song too dead and alive they have no expression no elocution it isn't natural it would never happen in real life a person who had just acquired a dog is either blame glad or blame sorry he is not on the fence I never saw a case what the nation do you suppose is the matter with these people he thought maybe the trouble was with the dog he said these are Contadini you know and they have a prejudice against dogs that is against Maramane Maramana dogs stand guard over people's vines and olives you know and are very savage and thereby a grief and an inconvenience to persons who want other people's things at night in my judgment they have taken this dog for a Maramana and have soured on him I saw that the dog was a mistake and not functionable we must try something else something if possible that could evoke sentiment interest feeling what is cat in Italian I asked Gatto is it a gentleman cat or a lady gentlemen cat how are these people as regards that animal well they they you hesitate that is enough how are they about chickens he tilted his eyes toward heaven in mute ecstasy I understood what is chicken in Italian I asked Polo podere podere is Italian for master it is a title of courtesy and conveys reverence and admiration polo is one chicken by itself when there are enough present to constitute a plural it is poli very well poli will do which squad is detailed for duty next the past definite send it out and order it to the front with chickens and let them understand that we don't want any more of this cold indifference he gave the order to an aid adding with a haunting tenderness in his tone and a watering mouth in his aspect convey to them the conception that these are unprotected chickens he turned to me saluting with his hand to his sample and explained it will inflame their interest in the poultry sire a few minutes elapsed then the squad marched in and formed up their faces glowing with enthusiasm and the file leader shouted ebi poli I had chickens good I said go on the next a vest poli thou hadst chickens fine next ebi poli he had chickens multi moltissimo go on the next avemo poli we had chickens basta basta spattato avanti last man charge ebero poli they had chickens then they formed in echelon by columns of fours refused the left and retired in great style on the double quick he was enchanted and said now doctor that is something like chickens are the ticket there is no doubt about it what is the next squad the imperfect how does it go yo avema I had to avevi thou hadst egli avema he had noi of wait we just had the hads what are you giving me but this is another breed what do we want of another breed isn't one breed enough had is had and you're tricking it out in a fresh way of spelling isn't going to make it any hadder than it was before now you know that yourself but there is a distinction they are not the same hads how do you make it out well you use the first had when you are referring to something that happened at a named and sharp and perfectly definite moment you use the other when the thing happened at a vaguely defined time and in a more prolonged and indefinitely continuous way why doctor it is pure nonsense you know it yourself look here if I had a had or have wanted to have had a had or was in a position right then and there to have had a had that hadn't had any chance to go out hadding on account of this foolish discrimination which lets one had go hadding in any kind of ethnic grammatical weather but restricts the other one to definite and datable meteoric convulsions and keeps it pining around and watching the barometer all the time and libel to get sick through confinement and lack of exercise and all that sort of thing why the inhumanity of it is enough let alone the wanton super fluidity and uselessness of any such a loafing consumptive hospital bird of a had taking up room remembering the place for nothing these finical refinements rebuld me it is not right it is not honorable it is constructive nepotism to keep in office a had that is so delicate that it can't come out when the winds in the northwest I won't have this dude on the payroll cancel his ex equator and look here but you miss the point it is like this you see never mind explaining I don't care anything about it six hads is enough for me anybody that needs twelve let him subscribe I don't want any stock in a had trust knock out the prolonged and indefinitely continuous for fifths of its water anyway but I beg you podere it is often quite indispensable in cases where pipe the next squad to the assault but it was not to be for at that moment the dull boom of the noon gun loaded up out of far off Florence followed by the usual softened jangle of church bells florentine and suburban that bursts out in murmurous response by labor union law the coliseone footnote coliseone is Italian for a collection a meeting a seance a sitting empty and footnote must stop stop promptly stop instantly stop definitely like the chosen and best of the breed of hads end of Italian with grammar recording by trisha g section sixteen of the thirty thousand dollar big quest and other stories this is a libervox recording all libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org recording by bologna times the thirty thousand dollar big quest and other stories by mark twain section sixteen a burlesque biography two or three persons having at different times intimated that if I would write an autobiography they would read it when they got pleasure I yield at last to this frenzied public demand and herewith tender my history ours is a noble house and stretches a long way back into antiquity the early wise ancestor the twins have any record of was a friend of the family by the name of higgins this was in the eleventh century when our people were living in Aberdeen county of cork england why it is that our long line has ever since born the maternal name except when one of them now and then took a playful refuge in an alias to avert foolishness instead of higgins is a mystery which none of us has ever felt much desire to stir it is a kind of vague pretty romance and we leave it alone all the old families do that way Arthur twain was a man of considerable note a solicitor on the highway in william rufus's time at about the age of 30 he went to one of those fine old english places of resort called newgate to see about something and never returned again while there he died suddenly augustus twain seems to have made something of a stir about the year 1160 he was as full of fun as he could be and used to take his old saber and sharpen it up and get in a convenient place on a dark night and stick it through people as they went by to see them jump he was a born humorist but he got to going too far with it and the time he was found stripping one of these parties the authorities removed one end of him and put it up on a nice high place on temple bar where it could contemplate the people and have a good time he never liked any situation so much or stuck to it so long then for the next 200 years the family tree shows a succession of soldiers noble high spirited fellows who always went into battle singing right behind the army and always went out a weapon right ahead of it this is a scathing rebuke to old dead frost sods poor witticism that our family tree never had but one limb to it and that that one stuck out at right angles and bore fruit winter and summer early in the 15th century we have bow twain called the scholar he wrote a beautiful beautiful hand and he could imitate anybody's hand so closely that it was enough to make a person laugh his head off to see it he had infinite sport with his talent but by and by he took a contract to break stone for a road and the roughness of the work spoiled his hand still he enjoyed life all the time he was in the stone business which with inconsiderable intervals was some 42 years in fact he died in harness during all those long years he gave such satisfaction that he never was through with one contract a week till the government gave him another he was a perfect pet and he was always a favorite with his fellow artists and was a conspicuous member of their benevolent secret society called the chain gang he always wore his hair short had a preference for striped clothes and died lamented by the government he was a sore loss to his country for he was so regular some years later we have the illustrious John Morgan Twain he came over to this country with Columbus in 1492 as a passenger he appears to have been of a crusty uncomfortable disposition he complained of the food all the way over and was always threatening to go ashore unless there was a change he wanted fresh shad hardly a day passed over his head that he did not go idling about the ship with his nose in the air sneering about the commander and saying he did not believe Columbus knew where he was going to or had ever been there before the memorable cry of land hoe thrilled every heart in the ship he gazed a while through a piece of smoked glass at the penciled line lying on the distant water and then he said land bee hanged it's a raft when this questionable passenger came on board the ship he brought nothing with him but an old newspaper containing a handkerchief marked BG one cotton sock marked LWC one woollen one a nightshirt marked OMR and yet during the voyage he worried more about his trunk and gave himself more airs about it than all the rest of the passengers put together if the ship was down by the head and would not steer he would go and move his trunk further aft and then watch the effect if the ship was by the stern he would suggest to Columbus to detail some men to shift that baggage in storms he had to be gagged because his wailings about his trunk made it impossible for the men to hear the orders the man does not appear to have been openly charged with any gravely unbecoming thing but it is noted in the ship's log as a curious circumstance that albeit he brought his baggage on board the ship and a newspaper he took it ashore and four trunks things were crate and a couple of champagne baskets but when he came back insinuating in an insolent swaggering way that some of this things were missing and was going to search the other passengers baggage it was too much and they threw him overboard they watched long and wonderingly for him to come up but not even a bubble rose on the quietly ebbing tide but while everyone was most absorbed in gazing over the side and the interest was momentarily increasing it was observed with consternation that the vessel was adrift and the anchor cable hanging limp from the bow then in the ship's dimmed and ancient log we find this quaint note in time it was discovered yet ye troublesome passenger had gone down and got ye anchor and took ye thing and sold it to ye damn savages from ye interior saying ye had found it ye son of a gun yet this ancestor had good and noble instincts and it is with pride that we call to mind the fact that he was the first white person who ever interested himself in the work of elevating and civilizing our Indians he built a commodious jail and put up a gallows and to his dying day he claimed that he had had a more restraining and elevating influence on the Indians than any other reformer that ever labored among them at this point the chronicle becomes less frank and chatty and closes abruptly by saying that the old voyager went to see his gallows perform on the first white man ever hanged in America and while there are received injuries which terminated in his death the great grandson of the reformer flourished in 1600 and something and it was known in our annals as the old admiral though in history he had other titles he was long in command of fleets of swift vessels well armed and man and did great service in hurrying up merchant men vessels which he followed and kept his eagle eye on always made good fair time across the ocean but if a ship still loitered in spite of all he could do his indignation would grow till he could contain himself no longer and then he would take that ship home where he lived and keep it there carefully expecting the owners to come for it but they never did and he would try to get the idleness and sloth out of the sailors of that ship by compelling them to take invigorating exercise and a bath he called it walking a plank all the pupils liked it at any rate they never found any fault with it after trying it when the owners were late coming for their ships the admiral always burned them so that the insurance money should not be lost at last this fine old tar was cut down in the fullness of his years and honors and to her dying day his poor heart broken widow believed that if he had been cut down a minute sooner he might have been resuscitated Charles Henry Twain lived during the latter part of the 17th century and was a zealous and distinguished missionary he converted 16,000 South Sea Islanders and taught them that a dog tooth necklace and a pair of spectacles was not enough clothing to come to divine service in his poor flock loved him very very dearly and when his funeral was over he got up in a body and came out of the restaurant with tears in their eyes and saying one to another that he was a good tender missionary and they wish they had some more of him pa go to what what pa ca tiki was mighty hunter with a hog eye Twain adorned the middle of the 18th century and aided General Braddock with all his heart to resist the oppressor Washington it was this ancestor who fired 17 times at our Washington from behind a tree so far the beautiful romantic narrative and the moral story books is correct but when that narrative goes on to say that at the 17th round the ostrich and savage said solemnly that that man was being reserved by the great spirit for some mighty mission and he dared not lift his sacrilegious rifle against him again the narrative mostly impairs the integrity of history what he did say was it ain't no no use it man so drunk he can't stand still long enough for a man to hit him I can't forward to fool away any more ammunition on him that was why he stopped at the 17th round and it was a good plain matter of fact reason too and one that easily commends itself to us by the element persuasive flavor of probability there is about it I also enjoyed the story book narrative but I felt a marring misgiving that every Indian at Braddock's defeat who fired at a soldier a couple of times too easily rose to 17 in the century and missed him jumped to the conclusion that the great spirit was reserving that soldier for some grand mission and so I somehow feared that the only reason why Washington's case is remembered and the others forgotten is that in his the prophecy came true and in that of the others it didn't there are not books enough on earth to contain the record of the prophecies Indians and other unauthorized parties have made but one may carry in his overcoat pockets the record of all the prophecies that have been fulfilled I will remark here in passing that certain ancestors of mine are so thoroughly well known in history by their aliases that I have not felt it to be worthwhile to dwell upon them or even mention them in the order of their birth among these may be mentioned Richard Brinsley Twain alias Guy Fox John Wentworth Twain alias 16 Alias Spring Jack William Hogarth Twain alias Jack Shepherd Ananias Twain alias Baron Monkhausen John George Twain alias Captain Kidd and then there are George Francis Twain Tom Pepper Nebuchadnezzar and Balaam's ass and they all belong to our family but to a branch of it somewhat in fact a collateral branch whose members chiefly differ from the ancient stock in that in order to acquire the notoriety we have always yearned and hungered for they have got into a low way of going to jail instead of getting hanged it is not well when writing an autobiography to follow your ancestry down too close to your own time it is safest to speak only vaguely of your great grandfather and then skip from there to yourself which I now do I was born without teeth and there Richard Third had the advantage of me but I was born without a humpback likewise and there I had the advantage of him my parents were neither very poor nor conspicuously honest but now a thought occurs to me my own history would really seem so tame contrasted with that of my ancestors that it is simply wisdom to leave it unwritten until I am hanged if some other biographies I have read had stopped with the ancestry until a like event occurred it would have been a felicitous thing for the reading public how does it strike you end of section 16