He invented the thirty-two members and their names.
He invented the five favorite speakers and their
five separate styles. He invented their speeches,
and reported them himself. He would have kept
that Club going until now, if I hadn’t deserted,
he said. He said he worked like a slave over
those reports; each of them cost him from a week to
a fortnight’s work, and the work gave him pleasure
and kept him alive and willing to be alive.
It was a bitter blow to him when the Club died.
Finally, there wasn’t any Corrigan Castle.
He had invented that, too.
It was wonderful—the whole thing; and altogether
the most ingenious and laborious and cheerful and
painstaking practical joke I have ever heard of.
And I liked it; liked to bear him tell about it; yet
I have been a hater of practical jokes from as long
back as I can remember. Finally he said—
“Do you remember a note from Melbourne fourteen
or fifteen years ago, telling about your lecture tour
in Australia, and your death and burial in Melbourne?—a
note from Henry Bascomb, of Bascomb Hall, Upper Holywell
Hants.”
“Yes.”
“I wrote it.”
“M-y-word!”
“Yes, I did it. I don’t know why.
I just took the notion, and carried it out without
stopping to think. It was wrong. It could
have done harm. I was always sorry about it
afterward. You must forgive me. I was
Mr. Bascom’s guest on his yacht, on his voyage
around the world. He often spoke of you, and
of the pleasant times you had had together in his
home; and the notion took me, there in Melbourne, and
I imitated his hand, and wrote the letter.”
So the mystery was cleared up, after so many, many
years.
There are people who can do all fine and heroic things
but one! keep
from telling their happinesses to the unhappy.
—Pudd’nhead
Wilson’s New Calendar.
After visits to Maryborough and some other Australian
towns, we presently took passage for New Zealand.
If it would not look too much like showing off, I
would tell the reader where New Zealand is; for he
is as I was; he thinks he knows. And he thinks
he knows where Hertzegovina is; and how to pronounce
pariah; and how to use the word unique without exposing
himself to the derision of the dictionary. But
in truth, he knows none of these things. There
are but four or five people in the world who possess
this knowledge, and these make their living out of
it. They travel from place to place, visiting
literary assemblages, geographical societies, and
seats of learning, and springing sudden bets that these
people do not know these things. Since all people
think they know them, they are an easy prey to these
adventurers. Or rather they were an easy prey
until the law interfered, three months ago, and a New
York court decided that this kind of gambling is illegal,
“because it traverses Article IV, Section 9,
of the Constitution of the United States, which forbids
betting on a sure thing.” This decision
was rendered by the full Bench of the New York Supreme
Court, after a test sprung upon the court by counsel
for the prosecution, which showed that none of the
nine Judges was able to answer any of the four questions.
