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<p>The mixture will give you an approximate conception of a Nashville drizzle. It is not so fragrant as a mothball nor as thick as pea-soup; but tis enoughtwill serve.</p>
<p>I went to a hotel in a tumbril. It required strong self-suppression for me to keep from climbing to the top of it and giving an imitation of Sidney Carton. The vehicle was drawn by beasts of a bygone era and driven by something dark and emancipated.</p>
<p>I was sleepy and tired, so when I got to the hotel I hurriedly paid it the fifty cents it demanded (with approximate lagniappe, I assure you). I knew its habits; and I did not want to hear it prate about its old “marster” or anything that happened “befo de wah.”</p>
<p>The hotel was one of the kind described as “renovated.” That means $20,000 worth of new marble pillars, tiling, electric lights and brass cuspidors in the lobby, and a new L. &amp; N. time table and a lithograph of Lookout Mountain in each one of the great rooms above. The management was without reproach, the attention full of exquisite Southern courtesy, the service as slow as the progress of a snail and as good-humored as Rip Van Winkle. The food was worth traveling a thousand miles for. There is no other hotel in the world where you can get such chicken livers <span xml:lang="fr">en brochette</span>.</p>
<p>The hotel was one of the kind described as “renovated.” That means $20,000 worth of new marble pillars, tiling, electric lights and brass cuspidors in the lobby, and a new <abbr class="name">L.</abbr> &amp; <abbr class="name">N.</abbr> time table and a lithograph of Lookout Mountain in each one of the great rooms above. The management was without reproach, the attention full of exquisite Southern courtesy, the service as slow as the progress of a snail and as good-humored as Rip Van Winkle. The food was worth traveling a thousand miles for. There is no other hotel in the world where you can get such chicken livers <span xml:lang="fr">en brochette</span>.</p>
<p>At dinner I asked a Negro waiter if there was anything doing in town. He pondered gravely for a minute, and then replied: “Well, boss, I dont really reckon theres anything at all doin after sundown.”</p>
<p>Sundown had been accomplished; it had been drowned in the drizzle long before. So that spectacle was denied me. But I went forth upon the streets in the drizzle to see what might be there.</p>
<blockquote>

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<p>When a mans income becomes so large that the butcher actually sends him the kind of steak he orders, he begins to think about his souls salvation. Now, the various stages or classes of rich men must not be forgotten. The capitalist can tell you to a dollar the amount of his wealth. The trust magnate “estimates” it. The rich malefactor hands you a cigar and denies that he has bought the <abbr>P. D. &amp; Q.</abbr> The caliph merely smiles and talks about Hammerstein and the musical lasses. There is a record of tremendous altercation at breakfast in a “Where-to-Dine-Well” tavern between a magnate and his wife, the rift within the loot being that the wife calculated their fortune at a figure $3,000,000 higher than did her future divorcé. Oh, well, I, myself, heard a similar quarrel between a man and his wife because he found fifty cents less in his pockets than he thought he had. After all, we are all human—Count Tolstoy, <abbr class="name">R.</abbr> Fitzsimmons, Peter Pan, and the rest of us.</p>
<p>Dont lose heart because the story seems to be degenerating into a sort of moral essay for intellectual readers.</p>
<p>There will be dialogue and stage business pretty soon.</p>
<p>When Jacob first began to compare the eyes of needles with the camels in the zoo he decided upon organized charity. He had his secretary send a check for one million to the Universal Benevolent Association of the Globe. You may have looked down through a grating in front of a decayed warehouse for a nickel that you had dropped through. But that is neither here nor there. The Association acknowledged receipt of his favor of the 24th <abbr>ult.</abbr> with enclosure as stated. Separated by a double line, but still mighty close to the matter under the caption of “Oddities of the Days News” in an evening paper, Jacob Spraggins read that one “Jasper Spargyous” had “donated $100,000 to the <abbr class="eoc">U. B. A. of G.</abbr>” A camel may have a stomach for each day in the week; but I dare not venture to accord him whiskers, for fear of the Great Displeasure at Washington; but if he have whiskers, surely not one of them will seem to have been inserted in the eye of a needle by that effort of that rich man to enter the <abbr class="eoc">K. of H.</abbr> The right is reserved to reject any and all bids; signed, <abbr>S.</abbr> Peter, secretary and gatekeeper.</p>
<p>When Jacob first began to compare the eyes of needles with the camels in the zoo he decided upon organized charity. He had his secretary send a check for one million to the Universal Benevolent Association of the Globe. You may have looked down through a grating in front of a decayed warehouse for a nickel that you had dropped through. But that is neither here nor there. The Association acknowledged receipt of his favor of the 24th <abbr>ult.</abbr> with enclosure as stated. Separated by a double line, but still mighty close to the matter under the caption of “Oddities of the Days News” in an evening paper, Jacob Spraggins read that one “Jasper Spargyous” had “donated $100,000 to the <abbr>U.</abbr> <abbr>B.</abbr> <abbr>A.</abbr> of <abbr class="eoc">G.</abbr>” A camel may have a stomach for each day in the week; but I dare not venture to accord him whiskers, for fear of the Great Displeasure at Washington; but if he have whiskers, surely not one of them will seem to have been inserted in the eye of a needle by that effort of that rich man to enter the <abbr class="eoc">K. of H.</abbr> The right is reserved to reject any and all bids; signed, <abbr>S.</abbr> Peter, secretary and gatekeeper.</p>
<p>Next, Jacob selected the best endowed college he could scare up and presented it with a $200,000 laboratory. The college did not maintain a scientific course, but it accepted the money and built an elaborate lavatory instead, which was no diversion of funds so far as Jacob ever discovered.</p>
<p>The faculty met and invited Jacob to come over and take his A B C degree. Before sending the invitation they smiled, cut out the <i epub:type="z3998:grapheme">C</i>, added the proper punctuation marks, and all was well.</p>
<p>While walking on the campus before being capped and gowned, Jacob saw two professors strolling nearby. Their voices, long adapted to indoor acoustics, undesignedly reached his ear.</p>

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<p>“Heres another one of these fake aphasia cases,” he said, presently, handing me his newspaper, and laying his finger upon an article. “I dont believe in em. I put nine out of ten of em down as frauds. A man gets sick of his business and his folks and wants to have a good time. He skips out somewhere, and when they find him he pretends to have lost his memory—dont know his own name, and wont even recognize the strawberry mark on his wifes left shoulder. Aphasia! Tut! Why cant they stay at home and forget?”</p>
<p>I took the paper and read, after the pungent headlines, the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><b>Denver</b>, June 12.—Elwyn <abbr class="name">C.</abbr> Bellford, a prominent lawyer, is mysteriously missing from his home since three days ago, and all efforts to locate him have been in vain. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bellford is a well-known citizen of the highest standing, and has enjoyed a large and lucrative law practice. He is married and owns a fine home and the most extensive private library in the State. On the day of his disappearance, he drew quite a large sum of money from his bank. No one can be found who saw him after he left the bank. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bellford was a man of singularly quiet and domestic tastes, and seemed to find his happiness in his home and profession. If any clue at all exists to his strange disappearance, it may be found in the fact that for some months he has been deeply absorbed in an important law case in connection with the <abbr>Q. Y. and Z.</abbr> Railroad Company. It is feared that overwork may have affected his mind. Every effort is being made to discover the whereabouts of the missing man.”</p>
<p><b>Denver</b>, June 12.—Elwyn <abbr class="name">C.</abbr> Bellford, a prominent lawyer, is mysteriously missing from his home since three days ago, and all efforts to locate him have been in vain. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bellford is a well-known citizen of the highest standing, and has enjoyed a large and lucrative law practice. He is married and owns a fine home and the most extensive private library in the State. On the day of his disappearance, he drew quite a large sum of money from his bank. No one can be found who saw him after he left the bank. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bellford was a man of singularly quiet and domestic tastes, and seemed to find his happiness in his home and profession. If any clue at all exists to his strange disappearance, it may be found in the fact that for some months he has been deeply absorbed in an important law case in connection with the <abbr>Q.</abbr> <abbr>Y.</abbr> and <abbr>Z.</abbr> Railroad Company. It is feared that overwork may have affected his mind. Every effort is being made to discover the whereabouts of the missing man.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“It seems to me you are not altogether uncynical, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bolder,” I said, after I had read the despatch. “This has the sound, to me, of a genuine case. Why should this man, prosperous, happily married, and respected, choose suddenly to abandon everything? I know that these lapses of memory do occur, and that men do find themselves adrift without a name, a history or a home.”</p>
<p>“Oh, gammon and jalap!” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bolder. “Its larks theyre after. Theres too much education nowadays. Men know about aphasia, and they use it for an excuse. The women are wise, too. When its all over they look you in the eye, as scientific as you please, and say: He hypnotized me.’ ”</p>

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<p>For an answer I got up and began to do a polka step around the supper table. I am sure Louisa thought the trouble had driven me mad; and I think the children hoped it had, for they tore after me, yelling with glee and emulating my steps. I was now something like their old playmate as of yore.</p>
<p>“The theatre for us tonight!” I shouted; “nothing less. And a late, wild, disreputable supper for all of us at the Palace Restaurant. Lumpty-diddle-de-dee-de-dum!”</p>
<p>And then I explained my glee by declaring that I was now a partner in a prosperous undertaking establishment, and that written jokes might go hide their heads in sackcloth and ashes for all me.</p>
<p>With the editors letter in her hand to justify the deed I had done, my wife could advance no objections save a few mild ones based on the feminine inability to appreciate a good thing such as the little back room of Peter Hef—no, of Heffelbower &amp; Cos. undertaking establishment.</p>
<p>With the editors letter in her hand to justify the deed I had done, my wife could advance no objections save a few mild ones based on the feminine inability to appreciate a good thing such as the little back room of Peter Hef—no, of Heffelbower &amp; <abbr>Co.</abbr>s undertaking establishment.</p>
<p>In conclusion, I will say that today you will find no man in our town as well liked, as jovial, and full of merry sayings as I. My jokes are again noised about and quoted; once more I take pleasure in my wifes confidential chatter without a mercenary thought, while Guy and Viola play at my feet distributing gems of childish humor without fear of the ghastly tormentor who used to dog their steps, notebook in hand.</p>
<p>Our business has prospered finely. I keep the books and look after the shop, while Peter attends to outside matters. He says that my levity and high spirits would simply turn any funeral into a regular Irish wake.</p>
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<p>Now I propose to tell why it is easy to hold up a train, and, then, why no one should ever do it.</p>
<p>In the first place, the attacking party has all the advantage. That is, of course, supposing that they are old-timers with the necessary experience and courage. They have the outside and are protected by the darkness, while the others are in the light, hemmed into a small space, and exposed, the moment they show a head at a window or door, to the aim of a man who is a dead shot and who wont hesitate to shoot.</p>
<p>But, in my opinion, the main condition that makes train robbing easy is the element of surprise in connection with the imagination of the passengers. If you have ever seen a horse that has eaten loco weed you will understand what I mean when I say that the passengers get locoed. That horse gets the awfullest imagination on him in the world. You cant coax him to cross a little branch stream two feet wide. It looks as big to him as the Mississippi River. Thats just the way with the passenger. He thinks there are a hundred men yelling and shooting outside, when maybe there are only two or three. And the muzzle of a forty-five looks like the entrance to a tunnel. The passenger is all right, although he may do mean little tricks, like hiding a wad of money in his shoe and forgetting to dig-up until you jostle his ribs some with the end of your six-shooter; but theres no harm in him.</p>
<p>As to the train crew, we never had any more trouble with them than if they had been so many sheep. I dont mean that they are cowards; I mean that they have got sense. They know theyre not up against a bluff. Its the same way with the officers. Ive seen secret service men, marshals, and railroad detectives fork over their change as meek as Moses. I saw one of the bravest marshals I ever knew hide his gun under his seat and dig up along with the rest while I was taking toll. He wasnt afraid; he simply knew that we had the drop on the whole outfit. Besides, many of those officers have families and they feel that they oughtnt to take chances; whereas death has no terrors for the man who holds up a train. He expects to get killed some day, and he generally does. My advice to you, if you should ever be in a holdup, is to line up with the cowards and save your bravery for an occasion when it may be of some benefit to you. Another reason why officers are backward about mixing things with a train robber is a financial one. Every time there is a scrimmage and somebody gets killed, the officers lose money. If the train robber gets away they swear out a warrant against John Doe et al. and travel hundreds of miles and sign vouchers for thousands on the trail of the fugitives, and the Government foots the bills. So, with them, it is a question of mileage rather than courage.</p>
<p>As to the train crew, we never had any more trouble with them than if they had been so many sheep. I dont mean that they are cowards; I mean that they have got sense. They know theyre not up against a bluff. Its the same way with the officers. Ive seen secret service men, marshals, and railroad detectives fork over their change as meek as Moses. I saw one of the bravest marshals I ever knew hide his gun under his seat and dig up along with the rest while I was taking toll. He wasnt afraid; he simply knew that we had the drop on the whole outfit. Besides, many of those officers have families and they feel that they oughtnt to take chances; whereas death has no terrors for the man who holds up a train. He expects to get killed some day, and he generally does. My advice to you, if you should ever be in a holdup, is to line up with the cowards and save your bravery for an occasion when it may be of some benefit to you. Another reason why officers are backward about mixing things with a train robber is a financial one. Every time there is a scrimmage and somebody gets killed, the officers lose money. If the train robber gets away they swear out a warrant against John Doe <abbr>et al.</abbr> and travel hundreds of miles and sign vouchers for thousands on the trail of the fugitives, and the Government foots the bills. So, with them, it is a question of mileage rather than courage.</p>
<p>I will give one instance to support my statement that the surprise is the best card in playing for a holdup.</p>
<p>Along in 92 the Daltons were cutting out a hot trail for the officers down in the Cherokee Nation, Those were their lucky days, and they got so reckless and sandy, that they used to announce before hand what job they were going to undertake. Once they gave it out that they were going to hold up the <abbr>M. K. &amp; T.</abbr> flyer on a certain night at the station of Pryor Creek, in Indian Territory.</p>
<p>That night the railroad company got fifteen deputy marshals in Muscogee and put them on the train. Beside them they had fifty armed men hid in the depot at Pryor Creek.</p>

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<h3 epub:type="z3998:roman">I</h3>
<p>I never got inside of the legitimate line of graft but once. But, one time, as I say, I reversed the decision of the revised statutes and undertook a thing that Id have to apologize for even under the New Jersey trust laws.</p>
<p>Me and Caligula Polk, of Muskogee in the Creek Nation, was down in the Mexican State of Tamaulipas running a peripatetic lottery and monte game. Now, selling lottery tickets is a government graft in Mexico, just like selling forty-eight cents worth of postage-stamps for forty-nine cents is over here. So Uncle Porfirio he instructs the <span xml:lang="es">rurales</span> to attend to our case.</p>
<p><span xml:lang="es">Rurales</span>? Theyre a sort of country police; but dont draw any mental crayon portraits of the worthy constables with a tin star and a gray goatee. The <span xml:lang="es">rurales</span>—well, if wed mount our Supreme Court on broncos, arm em with Winchesters, and start em out after John Doe et al. wed have about the same thing.</p>
<p><span xml:lang="es">Rurales</span>? Theyre a sort of country police; but dont draw any mental crayon portraits of the worthy constables with a tin star and a gray goatee. The <span xml:lang="es">rurales</span>—well, if wed mount our Supreme Court on broncos, arm em with Winchesters, and start em out after John Doe <abbr>et al.</abbr> wed have about the same thing.</p>
<p>When the <span xml:lang="es">rurales</span> started for us we started for the States. They chased us as far as Matamoras. We hid in a brickyard; and that night we swum the Rio Grande, Caligula with a brick in each hand, absentminded, which he drops upon the soil of Texas, forgetting he had em.</p>
<p>From there we emigrated to San Antone, and then over to New Orleans, where we took a rest. And in that town of cotton bales and other adjuncts to female beauty we made the acquaintance of drinks invented by the Creoles during the period of Louey Cans, in which they are still served at the side doors. The most I can remember of this town is that me and Caligula and a Frenchman named McCarty—wait a minute; Adolph McCarty—was trying to make the French Quarter pay up the back trading-stamps due on the Louisiana Purchase, when somebody hollers that the johndarms are coming. I have an insufficient recollection of buying two yellow tickets through a window; and I seemed to see a man swing a lantern and say “All aboard!” I remembered no more, except that the train butcher was covering me and Caligula up with Augusta <abbr class="name">J.</abbr> Evanss works and figs.</p>
<p>When we become revised, we find that we have collided up against the State of Georgia at a spot hitherto unaccounted for in time tables except by an asterisk, which means that trains stop every other Thursday on signal by tearing up a rail. We was waked up in a yellow pine hotel by the noise of flowers and the smell of birds. Yes, sir, for the wind was banging sunflowers as big as buggy wheels against the weatherboarding and the chicken coop was right under the window. Me and Caligula dressed and went downstairs. The landlord was shelling peas on the front porch. He was six feet of chills and fever, and Hongkong in complexion though in other respects he seemed amenable in the exercise of his sentiments and features.</p>

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<p>“That sounds promising,” said Mark Twain, running his hands through his busy curls, “read some more about it.”</p>
<p>“The people of Madagascar,” continued the genial manager, reading from his book, “are not a savage race and few of the tribes could be classed as barbarian people. There are many native orators among them, and their language abounds in figures, metaphors, and parables, and ample evidence is given of the mental ability of the inhabitants.”</p>
<p>“Sounds like it might be all right,” said the humorist, “read some more.”</p>
<p>“Madagascar is the home,” read the manager, “of an enormous bird called the epyornis, that lays an egg 15½ by 9½ in. in size, weighing from ten to twelve pounds. These eggs—”</p>
<p>“Madagascar is the home,” read the manager, “of an enormous bird called the epyornis, that lays an egg 15½ by 9½ <abbr>in.</abbr> in size, weighing from ten to twelve pounds. These eggs—”</p>
<p>“Never mind reading any more,” said Mark Twain. “We will not go to Madagascar.”</p>
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<p>First, I want you to meet my friend, Miss Adrian. Miss Tooker and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Pothunter you already know. While she tucks in the fingers of her elbow gloves you shall have her daguerreotype. So faint and uncertain shall the portrait be:</p>
<p>Age, somewhere between twenty-seven and highneck evening dresses. Camaraderie in large bunches—whatever the fearful word may mean. Habitat—anywhere from Seattle to Terra del Fuego. Temperament uncharted—she let Reeves squeeze her hand after he recited one of his poems; but she counted the change after sending him out with a dollar to buy some pickled pigs feet. Deportment 75 out of a possible 100. Morals 100.</p>
<p>Mary was one of the princesses of Bohemia. In the first place, it was a royal and a daring thing to have been named Mary. There are twenty Fifines and Heloises to one Mary in the Country of Elusion.</p>
<p>Now her gloves are tucked in. Miss Tooker has assumed a June poster pose; <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Pothunter has bitten her lips to make the red show; Reeves has several times felt his coat to make sure that his latest poem is in the pocket. (It had been neatly typewritten; but he has copied it on the backs of letters with a pencil.) Kappelman is underhandedly watching the clock. It is ten minutes to nine. When the hour comes it is to remind him of a story. Synopsis: A French girl says to her suitor: “Did you ask my father for my hand at nine oclock this morning, as you said you would?” “I did not,” he. replies. “At nine oclock I was fighting a duel with swords in the Bois de Boulogne.” “Coward!” she hisses.</p>
<p>Now her gloves are tucked in. Miss Tooker has assumed a June poster pose; <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Pothunter has bitten her lips to make the red show; Reeves has several times felt his coat to make sure that his latest poem is in the pocket. (It had been neatly typewritten; but he has copied it on the backs of letters with a pencil.) Kappelman is underhandedly watching the clock. It is ten minutes to nine. When the hour comes it is to remind him of a story. Synopsis: A French girl says to her suitor: “Did you ask my father for my hand at nine oclock this morning, as you said you would?” “I did not,” he replies. “At nine oclock I was fighting a duel with swords in the Bois de Boulogne.” “Coward!” she hisses.</p>
<p>The dinner was ordered. You know how the Bohemian feast of reason keeps up with the courses. Humor with the oysters; wit with the soup; repartee with the entrée; brag with the roast; knocks for Whistler and Kipling with the salad; songs with the coffee; the slapsticks with the cordials.</p>
<p>Between Miss Adrians eyebrows was the pucker that shows the intense strain it requires to be at ease in Bohemia. Pat must come each sally, mot, and epigram. Every second of deliberation upon a reply costs you a bay leaf. Fine as a hair, a line began to curve from her nostrils to her mouth. To hold her own not a chance must be missed. A sentence addressed to her must be as a piccolo, each word of it a stop, which she must be prepared to seize upon and play. And she must always be quicker than a Micmac Indian to paddle the light canoe of conversation away from the rocks in the rapids that flow from the Pierian spring. For, plodding reader, the handwriting on the wall in the banquet hall of Bohemia is “<span xml:lang="fr">Laisser faire</span>.” The gray ghost that sometimes peeps through the rings of smoke is that of slain old King Convention. Freedom is the tyrant that holds them in slavery.</p>
<p>As the dinner waned, hands reached for the pepper cruet rather than for the shaker of Attic salt. Miss Tooker, with an elbow to business, leaned across the table toward Grainger, upsetting her glass of wine.</p>

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<p>Ive been out before, Aunt Maggie, says I. But Ill come out again. But you know, says I, that this is one of the swellest hotels in the city. And you know—pardon me—that its hard to get a bunch of notables together unless youve trained for it.</p>
<p>Dont fret about that, child, says Aunt Maggie. I dont send out invitations—I issue orders. Ill have fifty guests here that couldnt be brought together again at any reception unless it were given by King Edward or William Travers Jerome. They are men, of course, and all of em either owe me money or intend to. Some of their wives wont come, but a good many will.</p>
<p>“Well, I wish you could have been at that banquet. The dinner service was all gold and cut glass. There were about forty men and eight ladies present besides Aunt Maggie and I. Youd never have known the third richest woman in the world. She had on a new black silk dress with so much passementerie on it that it sounded exactly like a hailstorm I heard once when I was staying all night with a girl that lived in a top-floor studio.</p>
<p>“And my dress!—say, Man, I cant waste the words on you. It was all handmade lace—where there was any of it at all—and it cost $300. I saw the bill. The men were all bald-headed or white-whiskered, and they kept up a running fire of light repartee about 3-percents. and Bryan and the cotton crop.</p>
<p>“And my dress!—say, Man, I cant waste the words on you. It was all handmade lace—where there was any of it at all—and it cost $300. I saw the bill. The men were all bald-headed or white-whiskered, and they kept up a running fire of light repartee about 3-percents and Bryan and the cotton crop.</p>
<p>“On the left of me was something that talked like a banker, and on my right was a young fellow who said he was a newspaper artist. He was the only—well, I was going to tell you.</p>
<p>“After the dinner was over <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown and I went up to the apartment. We had to squeeze our way through a mob of reporters all the way through the halls. Thats one of the things money does for you. Say, do you happen to know a newspaper artist named Lathrop—a tall man with nice eyes and an easy way of talking? No, I dont remember what paper he works on. Well, all right.</p>
<p>“When we got upstairs <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown telephones for the bill right away. It came, and it was $600. I saw the bill. Aunt Maggie fainted. I got her on a lounge and opened the bead-work.</p>