The Autobiography of Mark Twain - Mark Twain (best english books to read .TXT) 📗

company on my lecture flights out of Boston, and we had plenty of good talks and smokes in our rooms after the committee had escorted us to the inn and made their good night. There was always a committee, and they wore a silk badge of office; they received us at the station and drove us to the lecture hall; they sat in a row of chairs behind me on the stage, minstrel fashion, and in the earliest days their chief used to introduce me to the audience; but these introductions were so grossly flattering that they made me ashamed, and so I began my talk at a heavy disadvantage. It was a stupid custom. There was no occasion for the introduction; the introducer was almost always an ass, and his prepared speech a jumble of vulgar compliments and dreary effort to be funny; therefore after the first season I always introduced myself⁠—using, of course, a burlesque of the timeworn introduction. This change was not popular with committee chairmen. To stand up grandly before a great audience of his townsmen and make his little devilish speech was the joy of his life, and to have that joy taken from him was almost more than he could bear.

My introduction of myself was a most efficient “starter” for a while, then it failed. It had to be carefully and painstakingly worded, and very earnestly spoken, in order that all strangers present might be deceived into the supposition that I was only the introducer and not the lecturer; also that the flow of overdone compliments might sicken those strangers; then, when the end was reached and the remark casually dropped that I was the lecturer and had been talking about myself, the effect was very satisfactory. But it was a good card for only a little while, as I have said; for the newspapers printed it, and after that I could not make it go, since the house knew what was coming and retained its emotions.

Next I tried an introduction taken from my Californian experiences. It was gravely made by a slouching and awkward big miner in the village of Red Dog. The house, very much against his will, forced him to ascend the platform and introduce me. He stood thinking a moment, then said:

“I don’t know anything about this man. At least I know only two things; one is, he hasn’t been in the penitentiary, and the other is [after a pause, and almost sadly], I don’t know why.”

That worked well for a while, then the newspapers printed it and took the juice out of it, and after that I gave up introductions altogether.

Now and then Keeler and I had a mild little adventure, but none which couldn’t be forgotten without much of a strain. Once we arrived late at a town and found no committee in waiting and no sleighs on the stand. We struck up a street in the gay moonlight, found a tide of people flowing along, judged it was on its way to the lecture hall⁠—a correct guess⁠—and joined it. At the hall I tried to press in, but was stopped by the ticket-taker.

“Ticket, please.”

I bent over and whispered: “It’s all right. I am the lecturer.”

He closed one eye impressively and said, loud enough for all the crowd to hear: “No you don’t. Three of you have got in, up to now, but the next lecturer that goes in here tonight pays.”

Of course we paid; it was the least embarrassing way out of the trouble. The very next morning Keeler had an adventure. About eleven o’clock I was sitting in my room, reading the paper, when he burst into the place all atremble with excitement and said:

“Come with me⁠—quick!”

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“Don’t wait to talk. Come with me.”

We tramped briskly up the main street three or four blocks, neither of us speaking, both of us excited, I in a sort of panic of apprehension and horrid curiosity; then we plunged into a building and down through the middle of it to the farther end. Keeler stopped, put out his hand, and said:

“Look!”

I looked, but saw nothing except a row of books.

“What is it, Keeler?”

He said, in a kind of joyous ecstasy, “Keep on looking⁠—to the right; farther⁠—farther to the right. There⁠—see it? Gloverson and His Silent Partners!”

And there it was, sure enough.

“This is a library! Understand? Public library. And they’ve got it!”

His eyes, his face, his attitude, his gestures, his whole being spoke his delight, his pride, his happiness. It never occurred to me to laugh; a supreme joy like that moves one the other way. I was stirred almost to the crying point to see so perfect a happiness.

He knew all about the book, for he had been cross-examining the librarian. It had been in the library two years and the records showed that it had been taken out three times.

“And read, too!” said Keeler. “See⁠—the leaves are all cut!”

Moreover, the book had been “bought, not given⁠—it’s on the record.” I think Gloverson was published in San Francisco. Other copies had been sold, no doubt, but this present sale was the only one Keeler was certain of. It seems unbelievable that the sale of an edition of one book could give an author this immeasurable peace and contentment, but I was there and I saw it.

Afterward Keeler went out to Ohio and hunted out one of Osawatomie Brown’s brothers on his farm and took down in longhand his narrative of his adventures in escaping from Virginia after the tragedy of 1859⁠—the most admirable piece of reporting, I make no doubt, that was ever done by a man destitute of a knowledge of shorthand writing. It was published in the Atlantic Monthly, and I made three attempts to read it, but was frightened off each time before I could finish. The tale was so vivid and so real that I seemed to be living those adventures myself and sharing their intolerable perils, and the